Tag Archives: Massacre

Kimya Dawson knows from where protest must burst: At the Seams.

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Kimya Dawson not only nailed the essence of protests for #BlackLivesMatter. She knew in which direction the protest marches needed to push. Toward our system’s seams. If you are having trouble finding the lyrics of her song about HANDS UP DON’T SHOOT I CAN’T BREATH, it’s because it’s called At the Seams.

I’ve taken the liberty to reformat Dawson’s brilliant lyrics to unpack her references and simulate her cadence.

AT THE SEAMS by Kimya Dawson

1.
Left hands hold the leashes
and the right hands hold the torches,
And Grandpas holding shotguns
swing on porch swings hung on porches,
And the Grandmas in their gardens
plant more seeds to cut their losses,
And the poachers,
with the pooches
and the nooses,
preheat crosses.

And the pooches see the Grandpas
and they bare their teeth and growl,
While their owners turn their noses up
like they smell something foul,
And they fumble with their crosses
and they start to mumble curses,
And they plot ways
to get Grandpas
off of porches
into hearses.

But the Grandpas on the porches
are just scarecrows holding toys,
And the Grandmas in the gardens
are papier-mâché decoys,
While the real Grandmas and Grandpas
are with all the girls and boys
Marching downtown to the City Hall
to make a lot of noise,
Saying:

  Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
  BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
  I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
  A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

2.
Sometimes it seems like
we’ve reached the end of the road
We’ve seen cops and judges sleep together
wearing long white robes.
And they put their white hoods up,
Try to take the black hoods down,
And they don’t plan on stopping
til we’re all in the ground.

Til we’re dead in the ground
or we’re incarcerated
‘Cause prison’s
a big business form
of enslavement
Plantations that profit
on black folks in cages
They’ll break our backs
and keep the wages.

It’s outrageous that there’s no place
we can feel safe in this nation
Not in our cars, Not at the park,
Not in subway stations,
Not at church, The pool, The store,
Not asking for help,
Not walking down the street,
So we’ve gotta scream and yell:

  Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
  BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
  I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
  A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

3.
You tweet me my own lyrics,
Tell me to stop
Letting a few bad apples
ruin the bunch.
Don’t minimize the fight
comparing apples to cops
This is about the orchard’s poisoned roots,
not loose fruits in a box.

Once the soil’s been spoiled,
the whole crop’s corrupt.
That’s why we need the grassroots
working from the ground up.
And we look to Black Twitter,
to stay woke and get some truth,
‘Stead of smiling cops
and black mugshots
from biased corporate news.

‘Cause if you steal cigarillos,
or you sell loose cigarettes,
Or you forget your turn signal,
will they see your skin as a threat?
Will they KILL you, And then SMEAR you,
And COVER IT UP and LIE?
Will they call it “self defense”?
Will they call it “suicide”?

  Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
  BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
  I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
  A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

4.
Decades of cultivation start
from tiny seeds that were once planted.
And we mustn’t take the gardens that
our elders grew for granted,
Though it is up to our youth
how new rows sown are organized,
Because movements can’t keep moving
if old and unsharpened eyes
Can’t see the need to hear
what those on the ground hafta say,
In Ferguson and Cleveland,
Staten Island, The East Bay,
Charleston, Phoenix,
Detroit, Sanford Waller,
Seattle, Los Angeles,
Chicago, Baltimore.

Climbing flagpoles, Taking bridges,
Locked together to the BART,
Speaking up about injustice
in our music and our art,
Storming stages to ask candidates
when they’re gonna start
Really DIRECTLY addressing issues
BREAKING OUR HEARTS.

  Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
  BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
  I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
  A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

    Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
    BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
    I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
    A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

5.
And if the altars are torn down,
we’ll just keep on placing flowers
For the boy whose body was in the road
FOR MORE THAN FOUR HOURS.
We will honor the dead
of every age and every gender
‘Cause we can’t just have it be
the brothers’ names that we remember.

Oh black boys with skateboards,
and black boys with hoodies,
And little black girls who
are on the couch sleeping,
And all of the black trans
women massacred,
Too many black folks killed and brutalized,
And there’s no justice served.

After the lynchings of our people
by the murderous police,
Who stand like hunters ’round their prey
gasping helpless in the street,
Feet from the TEEN SISTER they tackled
and locked handcuffed in the car,
Feet from her TWELVE YEAR OLD BROTHER DYING —

WHILE NO ONE DID CPR…

6.
And we’ll keep on planting flowers,
and we’ll fight until the day
That we don’t have to pick them all
to put them all on graves.
Yeah we’ll keep planting flowers
and we’ll fight until the day
That we don’t have to pick them all
to put them all on graves.

  Hands up. Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.
  BLACK LIVES MATTER. No justice No Peace.
  I know that we can overcome because I had a dream-
  A dream we tore this racist broken system apart at the seams.

Of course it was the 7th cavalry at Nogun Ri

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Even the rightest wing-est extremist in Texas don’t hold a candle to Some Colorado Wingnuts, the ones who call Natives “prairie niggers” or “wagon burners”, especially when any negative reviews of the Seventh Cavalry massacres. Like Wounded knee, a vengeance quest for Custer and a bunch of his homicidal lunatic troopers got their own asses sent to Hell. And before that, at the Little Ouachita, murdering men, women and children at a mostly Cheyenne winter encampment. Must not criticize heroic asswipes like Custer. Oh, that song they adopted, Garryowen, that’s about a really rowdy  custom (performed by the lads of Garryowen, a town in Ireland) of getting drunk and beating up on cops. Anyhoo, I got this from Wiki because it’s easy. Sue me. It’s about another massacre and why the people of Korea aren’t as enthusiastic about the U.S. Big Brother as the South Korean Government. Hint: it’s because the corrupt U.S. Government pays the S. Korean Puppet Government to pretend to like us.

The No Gun Ri massacre (Hangul: ??? ??? ?? ??; Hanja: ?????????; RR: Nogeun-ri minganin haksal sageon) occurred on July 26–29, 1950, early in the Korean War, when an undetermined number of South Korean refugees were killed in a U.S. air attack and by small- and heavy-weapons fire of the 7th U.S. Cavalry at a railroad bridge near the village of Nogeun-ri (Korean: ???), 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Seoul. In 2005, a South Korean government inquest certified the names of 163 dead or missing and 55 wounded, and added that many other victims’ names were not reported. The South Korean government-funded No Gun Ri Peace Foundation estimated in 2011 that 250–300 were killed, mostly women and children.

The incident was little-known outside Korea until publication of an Associated Press (AP) story in 1999 in which 7th Cavalry veterans corroborated survivors’ accounts. The AP also uncovered declassified U.S. Army orders to fire on approaching civilians because of reports of North Korean infiltration of refugee groups. Some details were disputed, but the massacre account was found to be essentially correct. In 2001, the U.S. Army conducted an investigation and, after previously rejecting survivors’ claims, acknowledged the killings, but described the three-day event as “an unfortunate tragedy inherent to war and not a deliberate killing”. The army rejected survivors’ demands for an apology and compensation. United States President Bill Clinton issued a statement of regret, adding the next day that “things happened which were wrong”.

South Korean investigators disagreed with the U.S. report, saying that they believed that 7th Cavalry troops were ordered to fire on the refugees. The survivors’ group called the U.S. report a “whitewash”. The AP later discovered additional archival documents showing that U.S. commanders ordered troops to “shoot” and “fire on” civilians at the war front during this period; these declassified documents had been found but not disclosed by the Pentagon investigators. American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz reported that among the undisclosed documents was a letter from the U.S. ambassador in South Korea stating that the U.S. military had adopted a theater-wide policy of firing on approaching refugee groups. Despite demands, the U.S. investigation was not reopened.

Prompted by the exposure of No Gun Ri, survivors of similar alleged incidents from 1950–51 filed reports with the Seoul government. In 2008, an investigative commission said more than 200 cases of alleged large-scale killings by the U.S. military had been registered, mostly air attacks

If you’re a vet from that arena, and was above the rank of captain at the time, I won’t give two thirds of a sex act about your damn feelings.

Fallujah the Opera

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Vancouver has staged an opera about Fallujah. Not about the massacre of its people as the US invaded Iraq, where civilian refugees were forbidden to flee from the incoming assault, where entire families were shot from helicopters as they tried to escape across the river, but the human tragedy of what the genocidal US soldiers had to endure. PTSD. That’s apparently what’s commemorable about the war crime of Fallujah. That “Fallujah”.

Modern Nat Turner insures Dallas cops cannot assail Black lives with impunity

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Chris DornerWas ANYBODY going to stop the unfettered lynching of people of color in America? Did President Obama ever deliver anything more than a eulogy? Few police officers are being convicted or even indicted. Videotaped killings of black men by lawmen have become so common, those disseminating the videos are being accused of harboring fetishes. People expressing offense online are being shamed for being clicktivists, though clearly the only fuels firing public outrage are the videos. Meanwhile Black Lives Matter spokespeople have become so jaded they ridicule the efficacy of street protests. And now everyone is condemning the lone direct action taker.

The killing of any human being is terrible, but the retaliatory killings of police in Dallas could have been prevented. Not by expecting minority communities to stomach further and unending extrajudicial assassinations, but by having police curb their racism and use of lethal force. Or of course by disbanding militarized police departments. Public officials can’t even broach that conversation. Do we expect the police state to dismantle itself?

Self-styled black revolutionary Micah Xavier Johnson, a typical PTSD-hardened Afghan vet, put “suicide by cop” to the service of his embattled community and avenged the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. He didn’t shoot their actual killers, but he didn’t hit innocents either. Johnson targeted America’s systemic enforcers of inequity, hitting twelve police officers, five of whom have now died.

Let’s note those cops weren’t “protecting the first amendment rights” of a spontaneous protest of the Sterling and Castile murders, but were harassing and detering demonstrations. The officers could have chosen not to, and hopefully, their comrades in other cities, molesting other legal assemblies, may now choose to stand down, because now authoritarian bullying has come in the line of fire.

There is poetic justice for those who would decry “Blue Lives Matter”. If they’re going to pretend it, let them feel the oppressive threat of violence which black lives bear. For one evening, in a small corner of Dallas, Texas, police brutality faced a comeuppance.

For now Johnson’s act is being condemned as an atrocity, as a massacre even, though obviously his victims 1) met every standard of belligerent adversary, 2) were armed, and 3) outnumbered him. Let’s concede that Johnson is a credit to his military training. He confirms how our soldiers could so murderously rapage through our war zones against lesser equipped combatants. Johnson’s motive echoes that which provoked US atrocities overseas, seeking revenge against civilians, exacting collective punishment for deadly IEDs.

If we acknowledge the violence with which African Americans are oppressed, and the mendacity of its apologists and enablers, can we condemn violent resistance? International law accords oppressed peoples the human right to resist.

Slave rebellion leader Nat Turner is recognized today as a hero, but was exhaustively vilified in his day because he killed slave owners, indescriminate of old or young. Whites retaliated and killed many more blacks. More violence follwed from abolitionsists and Jayhawkers, all of it lamentable. But slavery didn’t end because we willed it.

Because this era’s history is written with erasers, our victors’ primary tool, Micah Johnson will probably never be praised for heroism.

Johnson will join fellow effaced cop-killer Christopher Dorner. A previous African American reservist vet who was immolated alive, killed instead of being apprehended, lest an investigation benefit from his testimony about why he could no longer bear LAPD corruption in 2013.

From Dorner’s “manifesto”, before Michael Brown, Ferguson and Baltimore:

“Those Caucasian officers who join South Bureau divisions (77th,SW,SE, an Harbor) with the sole intent to victimize minorities who are uneducated, and unaware of criminal law, civil law, and civil rights. You prefer the South bureau because a use of force/deadly force is likely and the individual you use UOF on will likely not report it. You are a high value target.

“Those Black officers in supervisory ranks and pay grades who stay in south bureau (even though you live in the valley or OC) for the sole intent of getting retribution toward subordinate caucasian officers for the pain and hostile work environment their elders inflicted on you as probationers (P-1?s) and novice P-2’s. You are a high value target.

You perpetuated the cycle of racism in the department as well. You breed a new generation of bigoted caucasian officer when you belittle them and treat them unfairly.

Mikah Johnson’s last words we only know through the spin of Dallas police, the same people who decided not to wait him out, nor to smoke him or gas him out from hiding in a public parking garage, but instead to send a robot with a bomb and M.O.V.E. his ass like every other black nationalist revolutionary.

No, you murdurous assholes, Johnson didn’t “want to kill all white people.” He wanted to kill white cops. Just like Dorner, he wasn’t a threat to the public, he was a threat to the police state. You cops ensured Mikah Johnson didn’t live to dictate “confessions” and you even obliterated his body like Osama bin Laden. Drawn and quartered essentially, to preclude memorializers being able to center on an idol to build a resistance.

You and I may grapple with what to think of Johnson’s personal rampage, but the state knew immediately his was the selfless heroism they fear most. As with bin Laden, they knew his apprehension must be terminal.

Lest I be misunderstood, I do not promote armed insurrection, sedition or murder. I cannot. But I will not condemn Micah Johnson.

I need not agrandize him either. Taken without his revolutionary ideology, Johnson was an ordinary mentally wounded veteran like many others. Homicidal vets with PTSD are at the core of our epidemic of police brutality. Our law enforcement teams are full of OIF and OEF soldiers who got their start shooting up cars at checkpoints and acting out racist genocide to their heart’s content.

It’s not a new problem, the US has always had active warzones feeding veterans into homelessness for those who couldn’t cope and filling government jobs for those who thrived. Beside policemanship, a very common job for discharged soldiers has always been the post office. Rembember the rampaging gunman problem we used to call “going postal?”

America’s racism problem may be transcended by a succession of church services, but class struggle is not a hearts and minds operation. Fascist rule and its army of the rich are not going to be wished away by militant nonviolence. That’s as likely as counting on the tooth fairy.

Worrying that acts like Johnson’s will provoke increased authoritarian repression is an expression of privilege provided by someone aclimated to a tolerable status quo, clearly a white perspective for whom black lives matter not enough.

Until all of us share the plight of the average Syrian refugee, trapped in our capitalist frontier war zones, none of us are shouldering an equitable burden of the police state.

That’s why it is more than black lives that matter. The middle class greivances of Occupy Wall Street are only a class removed from Black America’s suffering. We’re still talking about privileged Americans who support a grander racism that drives our global exploitation of all peoples.

I don’t have any faith that an arc of history bends toward justice in this corporate dark age. For my own sense of what’s right, it’s important to recognize Micah Johnson and Christopher Dorner for who they were, flawed, maybe very minor, aspiring Nat Turners, who wanted to strike against today’s slave masters and their brutal blue foremen.

Mass shootings prompt calls for gun control, government massacres less so.

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Does it downplay the tragedy in Orlando to point out that America’s worst mass shooting, as many have called it, falls well short of the headcounts of shooting massacres which the US perpetrated upon Native Americans? Is it critical to differentiate lone gunmen from state sanctioned crimes against humanity? The first describes renegade racist lunacy, the second systemic. I find the conflation entirely useful. The atrocities of solo shooters spark petition drives to promote gun control. The tyrannical acts of our government against its subjects are reminders why the people fought for and won the right to bear arms.

American drone pilots eat massacres like the Boston Marathon for breakfast. Let all bombers share Tsarnaev’s fate.

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Wikileaks Collateral MurderShould Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev get the death penalty? Should Aurora’s James Holmes or Charleston’s Dylann Roof? How about American sniper Chris Kyle or the Apache gunship assholes exposed by Wikileaks in “Collateral Murder”? Videos abound of US airstrikes and drone strikes far more deadly and indiscriminate than the Boston Marathon Bombing. I don’t agree with capital punishment, as deterrent or justice, but if cultural arbiters want to cry for the blood of terrorists there are a lot of offenders in line before 21-year-old Tsarnaev. I say let he who has bombed fewer innocent people cast the first stone.

The Waco Police Massacre and Coverup

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The photo of the bikers in Waco is as upsetting to me as it is to many of us. Many years ago I saw a photo of a naked starving child in the Sudan. I was so shocked by this photo that I had to turn away. And there-in lies the power of a photo. The photo that Eric used in his article has the same effect. It’s hard to look at, but we must not forget the message of the article. The photo serves to remind us of the carnage the Waco Police Department is capable of, this is where we need to keep our focus, they need to answer their role and why these men lay dead in that parking lot. We should never let them investigate themselves. We have already heard too many lies from them about this incident ( Premeditated Murder). Our call needs to be for an honest independent  investigation.  At the present there are far too many holes in the stories the police spokesman is putting out. The photo itself is proof of their lies.

The Bikers were getting together to make “Peace”. There was such a large number of them that it scared the shit out of the police. The police used tactics we know all too well, disruption and then blame the victims. I saw an article that police are now calling for all bikers to be removed from the streets. Of course that fits right in with their plans.

Deadliest motorcycle “gang” in Waco shoot-out was not Bandidos, Cossacks, Scimitars, or Vaqueros. It was police.

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Bandidos, Cossacks, Scimitars, Vaqueros Motorcycle Clubs
Was the Waco Shoot-out a gunfight between rival gangs or an ambush laid by law enforcement? Police are monopolizing the testimony but the evidence suggests a barroom brawl became a pretext to kill or arrest club officers, essentially grassroots organizers, now charged with “organized crime”. Investigators can litter the crime scene with brass-knuckles, knives and wallet chains, but the shell casings are going to be police issue. Motorcycle headlights were on, indicating club members were trying to leave. Police claim that the brawlers redirected their fire toward officers, but did that happen while the bikers were trying to ride off? Because riding requires both hands. This gangland “shoot-out” was a St Valentine’s Day Massacre executed by cops.
 
[5/20 Update: HA! The nine casualties died of gunshot wounds, sustained outside the restaurant. No shell casings were found around the bodies. Eight of the nine were Cossacks. The eighteen wounded are not expected to be charged. So much for the narrative that gangs were fighting each other, or that Bandidos were the aggressors.]

It’s described as being a gang shoot-out, but what happened in Waco is still shrouded in the fog of the official POV. Did motorcycle club members shoot at each other? They’re unavailable for interviews, locked up on million dollar bonds. The Twin Peaks restaurant claims the shooting started outside. The only witnesses reaching reporters are the sergeant giving the press briefing and undercover cops purporting to describe the tensions between the “gangs”. By my reading, informant provocateurs incited trouble by “rocking” patches which claimed the territory of “Texas” for the Cossacks Motorcycle Club.

Something like three dozen undercover officers were monitoring the usually uneventful bi-monthly meeting of the Confederation of Clubs and Independents, in anticipation that the “Texas” patch would offend the Bandidos MC. They were able to respond within 45 seconds of the alleged altercation. What might have been an unremarkable barroom brawl, if even that was not contrived, turned into an ambush that killed nine and wounded eighteen. Zero officers were hit and I will bet every bullet was theirs.

Let’s say the melee happened as the police and media describe. Why the blackout on the club affiliations? Why are the 170 arrestees being detained on a million dollar bond each? Why aren’t reporters challenging the police narrative? Witnesses assert that at least four of the dead were killed by police. How long before we learn how many undercover officers had fired their guns?

The media is making much of the anticipation that fellow gang members are converging on Texas to avenge their comrades. I think the police know that it’s themselves who are the targets of the bikers’ vengeance.

No doubt one can say the bikers were not boy scouts, but have you seen the photos? These “gangs” wore their colors, in this case patches, like boy scout badges. And everyone in uniform creased jeans and leather vests as tidy as bowling shirts. Did you see the mugshots? If you look past the long hair and tattoos you’ll note everyone is clean shaven. This was a Sunday outing. These are family men and women, not gang members. The Cossacks are a “Harleys Only” motorcycle club for God’s sake!

Police aren’t naming the “gangs” involved in what’s being called the “Waco Shoot-out”. Because they are motorcycle clubs, for one, and because the only gang deserving of the notoriety is really the police.

NOTES 5/20:
Names of 9 dead. All killed by gunshot wounds, all outside the restaurant: COSSACKS MC ROAD CAPTAIN Daniel Raymond Boyett, 44, of Waco TX; COSSACKS MC ROAD CAPTAIN Wayne Lee Campbell, 43, of Arlington TX; COSSACKS MC SERGEANT AT ARMS Richard Vincent Kirschner Jr., 47, of Kylie TX; COSSACKS MC Matthew Mark Smith, 27, of Keller TX, formerly of Scimitars; COSSACKS MC Charles Wayne Russell, 46, of Tyler TX; COSSACKS MC Jacob Lee Rhyne, 39, of Ranger TX; Jesus Delgado Rodriguez, 65, of New Braunfels TX; Richard Matthew Jordan II, 31, of Pasadena, TX; and BANDIDOS MC Manuel Isaac Rodriguez, 40, of Allen TX.

Names of the 170 booked and charged with organized criminal activity: Martin Lewis, 62, retired San Antonio PD detective; Marcus Pilkington, 37; Michael Kenes, 57; Michael Woods, 49; Julie Perkins, 52; Nate Farish, 30; Ronald Warren (wounded), 55; Morgan English, 30; Ryan Craft, 22; Rolando Reyes, 40; Jonathan Lopez, 27; Richard Benavides, 60; Michael Baxley, 57; Aaron Carpenter, 33; Jarrod Lehman, 30; Ricky Wycough, 56; Royce Vanvleck, 25; Ester Weaver, 46; Ryan Harper, 28; Timothy Bayless, 53; Michael Chaney, 53; Mitchell Bradford, 29; Nathan Champeau, 34; Noe Adame, 34; Owen Bartlett, 34; Rene Cavazos, 46; Berton Bergman, 47; Greg Corrales, 47; John Wiley, 32; Jeff Battey, 50; Kenneth Carlisle, 36; John Craft, 47; Lindell Copeland, 63; Matthew Clendennen, 30; Michael Thomas, 59; Narciso Luna, 54; Owen Reeves, 43; Richard Donias, 46; Robert Robertson, 36; Reginald Weathers, 43; Richard Dauley, 47; Rudy Mercado, 49; Seth Smith, 25; Steven Walker, 50; Thomas Landers, 58; Valdemar Guajardo, 37; Walter Weaver, 54; William English, 33; Marco Dejong, 37; Melvin Pattenaude, 51; Jarron Hernandez, 21; Jason Moreno, 30; Jeremy King, 32; John Martinez, 30; Jeremy Ojeda, 37; John Guerrero, 44; John Moya, 26; Jose Valle, 43; Joseph Ortiz, 34; John Vensel, 62; John Wilson, 52; Jorge Salinas, 24; Justin Garcia, 23; Justin Waddington, 37; Lance Geneva, 37; Lawrence Kemp, 40; Lawrence Garcia, 51; Josh Martin, 25; Eliodoro Munguia, 49; Lawrence Yager, 65; James Rosas, 47; James Stalling, 56; James Venable, 47; Gage Yarborough, 22; Gilbert Zamora, 60; Gregory Salazar, 42; George Wingo, 51; James Eney, 43; Edward Keller, 47; Christopher Eaton, 46; Christopher Stainton, 42; Daniel Johnson, 44; Daniel Pesina, 21; Don Fowler, 51; Doss Murphy, 44; Drew King, 31; Brian Eickenhorst, 28; Edgar Kelleher, 50; Andrew Sandoval, 30; Andrew Stroer, 49; Arley Harris, 32; Bobby Samford, 35; George Rogers, 52; Jacob Reese, 29; Joseph Matthews, 41; Juventino Montellano, 46; Mark White, 41; Bradley Terwilliger, 27; Ares Phoinix, 36; Benjamin Matcek, 27; Craig Rodahl, 29; Daryle Walker, 39; David Martinez, 45; David Rasor, 37; Christopher Rogers, 33; Andres Ramirez, 41; Robert Nichols, 32; Seth Smith, 28; Theron Rhoten, 35; Timothy Satterwhite, 47; Anthony Palmer, 40; Terry Martin, 48; Wesley McAlister, 32; William Redding, 35; Matthew Yocum, 25; Phillip Sampson, 43; Phillip Smith, 37; Jason Dillard, 39; Jacob Wilson, 28; Dustin McCann, 22; Billy Mcree, 38; Kevin Rash, 42; John Arnold, 43; Kristoffer Rhyne, 26; Raymond Hawes, 29; Richard Kreder, 33; Robert Bucy, 36; Ronald Atterbury, 45; William Aikin, 24; Trey Short, 27; Christian Valencia, 26; Michael Moore, 42; Jason Cavazos, 40; Roy Covey, 27; Brian Logan, 38; Colter Bajovich, 28; Ronnie Bishop, 28; Nathan Grindstaff, 37; James Gray, 61; Jimmy Pond, 43; Clayton Reed, 29; Tommy Jennings, 56; Ray Allen, 45; James Devoll, 33; Blake Taylor, 24; Matthew Folse, 31; Sandra Lynch, 54; Marshall Mitchell, 61; Mario Gonzalez, 36; Larry Pina, 50; Richard Luther, 58; Salvador Campos, 27; Michael Lynch, 31; Michael Herring, 36; Richard Cantu, 30; Tom Mendez, 40; Sergio Reyes, 44; Bohar Crump, 46; Jerry Pollard, 27; Eleazar Martinez, 41; Jim Harris, 27; Christopher Carrizal, 33; Diego Obledo, 40; David Cepeda, 43; Brian Brincks, 23; Dusty O’Ehlert, 33; Juan Garcia, 40, engineer for Austin water dept; Kyle Smith, 48; and Jimmy Spencer, 23.

Is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of a worse crime than US forces commit overseas?

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Dzhokhar TsarnaevDoes the “Boston Marathon Bomber” look like he deserves the death penalty? Funny, you don’t even know what he looks like. US authorities have been meticulous about controlling images of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev since the manhunt for the teen and his older brother ended in extrajudicial firing squads which teen Dzhokhar survived. He’s been in custody since then and the only more recent image his captors released was of Dzhokhar giving the finger to a jail cell surveillance camera. This to influence the jury to give the death penalty. Why the embargo on images? Are authorities afraid the public will feel sympathy for the disfigurement Dzhokhar suffered from his fusillade? Where defense attorneys not permitted to submit images of Dzhokhar smiling? Is the image ban in effect a media blackout? Remember how Saddam Hussein’s trial was broadcast without sound? Now US dumb justice has become literally blind, all Star Chambers and spectral evidence.
 
Is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of a worse crime than US forces commit overseas? If an American sniper turned in the Tsarnaev brothers headcount, he’d be handed a potato peeler and punished with kitchen duty. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a small fry. US drone pilots eat massacres like the Boston Marathon for breakfast.

150 year remembrance of Sand Creek still firmly in grip of master narrative

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DENVER, COLORADO- The Denver Art Museum assembled a panel of Native American artists to build collections of recollections of the Sand Creek Massacre on the occasion of its 150 year anniversary. Question: what do the artists think of resting the onus of remembrance of a crime on its survivors? How convenient for the perpetrators of genocide –by a hair we mightn’t have had to remember it at all, the aim of genocide after all. If Westward Expansion had succeeded in wiping out indigenous peoples entirely, a genocidal program which is ongoing, to repeat the obvious, that the great white tribe wouldn’t have to be bothered to remember Sand Creek at all. Wrestling the narrative from the hands of the white fathers isn’t solved by seeking indigenous voices only, many of those by now have assimilated the colonialist temperment, the burden of remembrance must be taken up by the white supremacist if we are ever expected to atone.

Goddamnit! 100 years on, KRCC plays soldier to butcher Ludlow miners again

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Ludlow
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO- This is what happen when apolitical wits want to dribble their sardonic apathy on a subject of historic import. Or as they see it, unimport. The 100-year anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre passed in April, with considerable media attention and unfortunately the requisit controversy that comes of celebrants numbering equal parts decendents of the perps and not the miners. You’d think KRCC might have heard the dissonance in April, the attempt of National Guard to rewrite the history in accordance to today’s culture of military-worship and the ensuing protestations, but no. Tonight a locally produced radio show called “Wish We Were Here” aired a one-hour episode about “Ludlow” on public radio franchise KRCC. Noel Black, Jake Burnell and Andrea Chalfin put the program together and relied on the same revisionists which dogged the official commemorations.

Obama: Yeah, we tortured some folks, and now we’re gonna bomb some folks

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NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Not another war on Iraq! Not an intervention, not precision bombing, not saving a minority from massacre. If this rescue of Iraqis was about preventing a massacre, the US would be intervening with airstrikes against Israel. Last week President Obama admited that Bush-era CIA interrogation methods were torture. “We tortured some folks,” spoken with the same expectation of impunity as he now launches another illegal war.

Ludlow 100 year anniversary feted by social class that committed massacre

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Cover of WestwordDENVER, COLO.- I might be sensationalizing a technicality, but in effect it’s what happened: the remembering of Ludlow has been commandeered by the class who perpetrated it. The preliminary series of events commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre (April 20, 1914) concluded tonight at Denver’s History Colorado Museum with a panel discussion featuring only establishment voices. “Is Ludlow relevant?” was the question posed to five participants among them three professors, a soldier, and a union rep. That’s like asking “is global warming real?” The question is loaded with the suggestion that the opposite is equally plausible. I would have preferred to hear HOW is Ludlow relevant. Though the union rep skillfully skirted the issue, no one pushed back at another flawed presumption, that the coal strike was an armed conflict. Yes the massacre provoked the ten day “Coal Field War” during which striking miners retaliated against the mine company employees, but the death toll was still but a fraction of the number of miners killed in the mine accidents which precipitated the Ludlow strike. It took an audience member to address that omission. Alas nobody mentioned the aftermath that found many miners under arrest, others scattered, and no mine owner, operator, guard, strikebreaker, Baldwin-Felts thug, or National Guard save one, was punished for the atrocity. Yes many immigrant miners were veterans of Bulkan wars, but some Colorado soldiers were veterans of the US campaign in the Philippines, where villages were dispatched with flame and machinegun fire. Not mentioned. Instead a Colorado National Guard representative was let to say that burning the tents at Ludlow was not a tactical error -and since the “non-combatant” deaths were unintended, Ludlow was not technically a massacre.

Pueblo museum excises Mine Workers Union from Ludlow Massacre exhibit!

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PUEBLO, COLORADO- 2014 marks one hundred years since the Ludlow Massacre of 1914. A variety of commemorations are planned before the formal anniversary on April 20. I attended one such event on Wednesday, a lecture by a CSU professor to footnote the “Children of Ludlow” exhibit at El Pueblo History Museum. I’m always excitied when attention is paid to Ludlow, a subject regularly left out of American schoolbooks, but I was disappointed to find key elements of labor history excised from the museum’s narrative. Literally. The United Mine Workers of America, the organization central to the strike, which supplied the tent city, and which even today maintains the memorial site, was mentioned only once, IN FINE PRINT! The Ludlow miners voted to strike because the mining companies refused to recognize the UMWA. Unmentioned. The horrors of the atrocity were not tempered, in their explicitness perhaps we think them enough, but there was also the apologist suggestion that some culpability belonged to the miners. I questioned one curator who admitted they were at pains to keep the story “balanced” and that the squeakiest wheel thus far has been the National Guard. Apparently the Guard is offended that its role will be misconstrued. What balance do they want, I wondered. Had they lost children in the “battlezone” too?

Children are at the heart of commemorating Ludlow and at the heart of this preversion of the massacre’s memory. Were they recklessly endangered by their parents and union organizers? Were they dragged into a battlezone? The museum seems to suggest as much, highlighting the beligerence of the miners, mischaracterizing the soldiers, and leaving the union actions largely unexplained.

First I’d like to declare how I tire of the objective irrelevance which results when academics seek the approval of government technocrats. I am also disturbed by educators who pretend blindness to subtle inferences which shape a political takeaway. To them, “remembering” Ludlow seems sufficient in itself. I can hardly see the point to remembering Ludlow unless we have discerned its lessons. Until we are remembering the LESSONS OF LUDLOW, our educators’ self-proclaimed raison d’etre will be self-fulfilling: “history will repeat itself.” This Pueblo exhibit suggests no lesson other than the exploitation of tragedy, and leaves me fearful about the Ludlow commemorations to follow. The anti-union, pro-military climate which prevails these hundred years since the massacre will make for a travesty of a remembrance unless someone with a worker’s perspective speaks up.

NOT BROUGHT TO YOU BY…
Let’s start with this exhibit, which alas has already escaped critique since September. Its full title, as evidenced in the photo above: “Black Hills Energy presents: Children of Ludlow, Life in a Battlezone, 1913-1914.”

I’ll bet curators thought it a measure of truth and reconciliation that the Ludlow presentation was sponsored by a local extraction industry business. Black Hills Energy trades not in coal but natural gas. In fact they’re among the frackers tearing up Southeastern Colorado. I think the irony more likely suggests how the UMWA’s starring role was left on the cutting room floor. There are generic mentions of “the union”, as at right, keeping a ledger of which families were assigned tents, but only in the fine print is the UMWA named as owning the ledger.

BATTLEZONES
More troubling is the skewed framing of the museum’s narrative. It begins with the subtitle, “life in a battlezone.” That’s taking a rather curious liberty don’t you think? The event we accept now as “Ludlow” became a battlezone on April 20, and the regional Coal Field War which followed was a battlezone to which both revenge-seekers and militia thronged, but the tent colonies in which 12,000 lived, 9,000 of whom were the children of the title role, were camps full of families. That they were straffed regularly by the guards makes them shooting galleries not battlegrounds.

Calling Ludlow a battlezone is like calling Sand Creek a “collision” or calling the Middle East a “conflict”. All of these mask the role of the aggressor.

I will credit the curators for offering a candid detail of horrific import. In a description of the day before the massacre, when the Greeks among the immigrants were celebrating Greek Easter, mention is made of the mounted National Guards offered this taunt: “You enjoy your roast today; we will have ours tomorrow.” No one should deny today that the events of April 20, which culminated in the torching of the tents and asphyxiation of women and children, was a premeditated act.

THE CHILDREN
Should the miners have put their children in harm’s way by defying the mining companies? How could they not? As immigrants they didn’t have nearby relatives to foster their children away from the random bullets. Also left unsaid by the display: many of the children had already been working in the mines and counted among those on strike. This was before child labor reforms.

Curiously, the exhibit did include a famous photograph of the notorious activist Mother Jones leading a childrens’ march through Trinidad. The caption explained that Jones “wasn’t above using real children to advance the cause of Colorado’s coal miners.” Emphasis mine. While technically true in a modern context, it’s probably disingenuous to imply someone is using the children when a key issue of the demonstration is CHILD LABOR.

No really. Mother Jones was leading a march of children, many of them workers of the mines, for the reform of labor practices which abused children. This and subsequent campaigns eventually led to child labor laws. Is saying “Mother Jones wasn’t above using children” in any way an accurate characterization?

Compounding the inference that the Children of Ludlow were jeopardized for the cause, was the implication that the miners were combatants who contributed to the battlezone. As the displays progressed in chronological order, the first weapon on display was a rifle used by the miners. Immediately behind it was an enlarged photograph vividly depicting miners posed with two identical specimens.

Moving along the exhibit chronologically, anticipating the rising violence, the museum goers is apparently supposed to register that the strikers were firing too, if not first. Recent historical accounts have deliberated about who fired first. I think the motive is suspiciously revisionist in view of today’s dogma of nonviolence absolutism: if your protest devolves into violence, you deserve every bit of the beating you get.

Whenever it was that the miners began firing, the single militia and three guard casualties were not recorded until after the massacre took place, belying the narrative that the miners invited the massacre. Witnesses conflict about when the three union leaders were executed. I’ll give the museum credit for defying the National Guard in summarizing that among the casualties, three of the miners were “executed”.

PARITY OF WEAPONS
Students of the Ludlow accounts know that many of the miners were better riflemen than the soldiers. Many were immigrants who’d served in Bulkan wars and outmatched Colorado’s green guardsmen. That is not to suggest that the miners and their harrassers were equally armed, yet…

The only other weapon on display is a rifle of vintage used by the national guard. It shares a case with a uniform and sabre, lending it official authority. Also, the rifle is not presented as having been used at Ludlow, so it doesn’t project an aura of culpability. Missing is the machine gun depicted in the photograph of the machine gun nest which fired down upon the camp. It’s depicted with a caption about the Guard being a welcome presence. Missing too is the armored car dubbed the “Death Special”. Obviously the armor protected its operators from being hit by striking-miner bullets as it drove through the canvas encampment, straffing the tents with its mounted machine gun.

HUMANIZING THE PERP
Right after the photo of armed miners was the display at right, with a very contrived bit of spin catering to today’s military families. Although the photo shows soldiers actively aiming their gun at the camp, the caption assures us that the “Ludlow families feel relief with the arrival of National Guard”. This supposition is based on the fact that when the soldiers first arrived they were serenaded with the “Battle Cry of Freedom” and greeted with American flags. Most of the miners being immigrants, they were eager to show their patriotism, but the conclusion drawn here is a terrible mendacity. The miners and union organizers knew full well the purpose of the National Guard. They knew the strikebreaking role it played in famous strikes of the past. The miners feted the soldiers hoping to sway them from their eventual task. Protesters of all eras hold out this hope every time they face riot police.

A following paragraph suggested that by the time the massacre was committed, most of the soldiers had been mustered out and replaced with militia members and company guards. This is slight of hand. After the official inquiry, which was prompted by the public outcry, twenty National Guard soldiers were court martialed. All were acquitted. Is the Guard wanting us to believe they were acquitted because they weren’t there?

This attempt to put a friendly face on the National Guard, coupled with an abdication of effort to give the union its due, seems engineered to appeal to the average Pueblan of today, many probably related to an active-duty soldier and long since indoctrinated against evil unions. When I asked the lecturer about the omission of the UMWA, she prefaced her answer for the audience, explaining that unions of old were not like those despised today. I told her I thought failing to describe the hows and whys of the strike was a real teaching opportunity missed.

HISTORY COLORADO
It’s probably important to point out that the Ludlow presentation at the History Museum was developed with the assistance of History Colorado, which finally shuttered a contested display: a Sand Creek Massacre exhibit with a similar flavor of whitewash. Like labeling Ludlow a battlezone, History Colorado tried to typify Sand Creek as a “collision.”

Also typical of History Colorado is the propensity to address their exhibits to children. Programming for school bus visits invariably dumbs down what can be presented and I hardly think the compromise is worth it. If children ran the world, maybe Disney versions of history would suffice.

I’d like to have seen it highlighted that the Ludlow miners were mainly immigrants who were looked down upon by the residents of Colorado. If the museum audience were the “Children of Ludlow” in the extended sense, as a few descendants probably were, more of us were the children of the soldiers of Ludlow, or the citizens who cheered them on, or joined the militia or built the armored car at Rockefeller’s Pueblo factory. If we’re going to remember Ludlow, we ought to remember our role in it so we don’t do that again. It’s easy to pretend we were the martyrs. In all probability that’s who we will be if the lessons of Ludlow are discarded.

Bear Creek Massacre, January 29, 1863

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The year 2014 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre, on November 29, two days after Thanksgiving. But on this day, January 29 of the year before, a Shoshone village suffered an identical fate. The Bear Creek Massacre was also once called the Battle of Bear Creek, but the only grounds which western military history buffs have to argue that such engagements were “battles” not massacres, is that was how the US cavalry waged its fights against the hostiles, its only victories were raids upon unsuspecting villages.

Here is the official contemporary report of Colonel Connor’s attack. First the cover letter which sets the scene. From the Official Records of the War of Rebellion (what the Civil War was called then), series 1, volume 50, part 1:

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC,
San Francisco, February 20, 1863.
Adjt. General L. THOMAS, U. S. Army,
Washington, D. C.:
SIR: I have the honor to inclose herewith the report of Colonel P. E. Connor, Third Infantry California Volunteers of the battle fought on the 29th of January, on Bear River, Utah, Ter., between U. S. troops and hostile Indians. Our victory was complete; 224 of the enemy left dead on the field. Colonel Connor’s loss was heavy. Out of 200 men engaged 14 were killed on the field and 4 officers and 49 men wounded; 1 officer and 5 of the men wounded have since died. Colonel Connor’s report of the suffering of his troops on the march and the gallant and heroic conduct of both officers and men in that terrible combat will commend the Column from California and its brave commander to the favorable notice of the General-in-Chief and War Department.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
G. WRIGHT,
Brigadier-General, U. S. Army, Commanding.

I’ll parse those totals for you. Cowboy casualties: 20 dead, 47 wounded. Indians: 224 dead, 0 wounded.

Here are the more relevant passages of Connor’s report. Notice he puts plenty of emphasis on the fight he encountered, even suggesting that the Shoshones initiated the attack. Connor sheds much less light on the aftermath. (I’ve bolded some parts of import:)

Report of Colonel P. Edward Connor, Third California Infantry, commanding District of Utah. (Excerpt)

As daylight was approaching I was apprehensive that the Indians would discover the strength of my force and make their escape. I therefore made a rapid march with the cavalry and reached the bank of the river shortly after daylight in full view of the Indian encampment and about one mile distant. I immediately ordered Major McGarry to advance with the cavalry and surround before attacking them, while I remained a few minutes in the rear to give orders to the infantry and artillery.

On my arrival on the field I found that Major Mcgarry had dismounted the cavalry and was engaged with the Indians who had sallied out of their hiding places on foot and horseback, and with fiendish malignity waved the scalps of white women and challenged the troops to battle, at the same time attacking them. Finding it impossible to surround them in consequence of the nature of the ground, he accepted their challenge.

The “scalps of white women” was a common motif used in justifying ensuing slaughters. Colonel Chivington cited the presence of same at the Sand Creek camp, although none were ever produced.

The position of the Indians was one of strong natural defenses, and almost inaccessible to the troops, being in a deep, dry ravine from six to twelve feet deep and from thirty to forty feet wide, banks and running across level table-land, along which they had constructed steps from which they could deliver their fire without being themselves exposed. Under the embankments they had constructed artificial covers of willows thickly woven together, from being which they could fire without being observed.

After being engaged about twenty minutes I found it was impossible to dislodge them without great sacrifice of life. I accordingly ordered Major McGarry with twenty men to turn their left flank, which was in the ravine where it entered the mountains. Shortly afterward Captain Hoyt reached the ford three-quarters of a mile distant, but found it impossible to cross footmen. Some of them tried it, however, rushing into the river, but, finding it deep and rapid, retired. I immediately ordered a detachment of cavalry with led horses to cross the infantry, which was done accordingly and upon their arrival upon the field I ordered them to the support of Major McGarry’s flanking party, who shortly afterward succeeded in turning the enemy’s flank.

Up to this time, in consequence of being exposed on a level and open plain while the Indians were under cover, they had every advantage of us, fighting with the ferocity of demons. My men fell fast and thick around me, but after flanking them we had the advantage and made good use of it. I ordered the flanking party to advance down the ravine on either side, which gave us the advantage of an enfilading fire and caused some of the Indians to give way and run toward the north of the ravine.

At this point I had a company stationed, who shot them as they ran out. I also ordered a detachment of cavalry across the ravine to cut off the retreat of any fugitives who might escape the company at the mouth of the ravine. But few tried to escape, however, but continued fighting with unyielding obstinacy, frequently engaging hand to hand with the troops until killed in their hiding places.

The most of those who did escape from the ravine were afterward shot in attempting to swim the river, or killed while desperately fighting under cover of the dense willow thicket which lined the river-banks.

Most were shot, but Connor skimps on the detail. The wounded Shoshones and those feigning injury were prodded with bayonettes then shot, violated sometimes before, sometimes after. Few escaped this fate. Like any population of civilians, the village was at least seventyfive percent women and children.

I have also to report to the general commanding that previous to my departure Chief Justice Kinney, of Great Salt Lake City, made a requisition for troops for the purpose of arresting the Indian chiefs Bear Hunter, San Pitch, and Sagwich. I informed the marshal that my arrangements for our expedition against the Indians were made, and that it was not my intention to take any prisoners, but that he could accompany me. Marshal Gibbs accordingly accompanied me and rendered efficient aid in caring for the wounded.

…

Of the good conduct and bravery of both officers and men California has reason to be proud. We found 224 bodies on the field, among which were those of the chiefs Bear Hunter, Sagwich, and Leight. How many more were killed than stated I am unable to say, as the condition of the wounded rendered their immediate removal a necessity. I was unable to examine the field. I captured 175 horses, some arms, destroyed over seventy lodges, a large quantity of wheat and other provisions, which had been furnished them by the Mormons; left a small quantity of wheat for the sustenance of 16 and children, whom I left on the field.

Has the president offered you his bully-pulpit? Gun control is not your issue

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When was the last time YOUR issue was given the president’s bully-pulpit? Yeah, the outcry for Gun Control is not yours, and this campaign is not for you. President Obama trotted up a Sandy Hook Mourning Mom TM to rally the nation for action, of the usual so that they will not have died in vain variety, although she said only that the children “deserved a vote”, code for, it doesn’t have to pass, meaning this national conversation about societal violence is more kabuki. And how. Strange too how campus shootings are proliferating like pipeline spills, except the media are allowed to show the gun carnage. Before we’re done, it would not surprise me if Sandy Hook victims are compensated like 911 survivors. MNBC has labeled this issue “Massacre Control” as if school shootings have anything on air strikes. “For the children” only applies to ours.

NPR: women berserkers, oil whores, Goebbels Surge, presidential DNA

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I accidentally listened to NPR today, what an earful of crap! No wonder Americans are so uninformed, none more than self-identifying progressives, waylaid by Corporate Public shysters. Here’s what I overheard:
 
The Defense Department is running short on recruits so they need to draft women into combat roles. Leon Panetta has righted a constitutional injustice apparently and will deploy women into battle. Because women want equality to torture, join kill squads, shoot children, get PTSD, join ranks of homeless or commit suicide. Greatest gender advance since Virginia Slims.
 
NPR interviewed oil workers who shrug off risk like Algerian massacre and speak fondly of their rape of Africa. According to them it’s “all about the Benjamins” to pay cash for sports cars and ATVs, and international travel for access to “cheap women”. Funny, the interviewees declined to reveal their full names. The energy industry promises jobs, but decent people need not apply.
 
General “All Up In My Snatch” Petraeus is being credited with inventing a counterinsurgency tactic called “the Surge”. Yeah, we’ve heard of it. Formally just a word, the “tactic” is not military, but public relations, attributable to Joseph Goebbels, to minimize an escalation or troop buildup by pretending it’s temporary.
 
The Benghazi Kerfuffle, now a DC sideshow instead of the foreign relations comeuppance where US intervention operatives in Libya got their just-desserts, is being amplified to be a vehicle to kick off Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. The ex Secretary of State was praised for her gravitas and standing, leading MSNBC to suggest that “diplomacy is in her DNA”. Spouses share DNA? Are talking heads confusing DNA with VD?

berserker

First Nations insurrection flash mob IDLE NO MORE hosting a round dance at a mall near you

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Idle No More Round Dance
DENVER, COLORADO- This was the scene in Denver’s Cherry Creek Mall on Saturday, December 29, where a flash mob of over 300 Native Americans commemorated the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, in solidarity with “IDLE NO MORE” demonstrations stretching from Canada to Mexico, where First Nation members are raising their voices to defend their land and sovereignty.

So here’s a wonderful video of the event:

This one’s a bit shaky, but it’s filmed with the exuberance of someone simultaneously dancing:

Here’s Mall of the Americas in Minnesota on the same day:

Winnipeg, Manitoba, December 22:

Edmonton, Alberta, on December 18:

What it’s all about. December 10:

Obama cried because the Connecticut schoolchildren were not Pakistani. Is that statement untrue?

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Lucky to be an American BabySo, no, the twenty schoolchildren killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut were not Pakistani. That’s apparently what everyone is so upset about. I’m rather embarrassed how distraught Americans are about the Connecticut school shooting, considering equivalent child-massacres happen daily in Pakistan, victims of US drones, to no public outcry. In Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and all the far reaches of our multinational corporate empire, child killing is public policy, far from being a subject of public anguish.

Now I’m besieged with invitations to join local and statewide protests to “end gun violence.” I say YES, so long as I can ALSO commemorate the thousands of children killed by US drones and US troops. “Don’t politicize this tragedy” is the indignant objection. Classic.

Might there be a value to hopping aboard this bandwagon opportunity to call for gun control and mental-healthcare reform? Maybe by showing solidarity with this profound revulsion to our cultural violence, a social justice movement can broaden a reciprocal sense of solidarity for the larger pool of its victims? I doubt it. Showing antiwar support for veterans of war, for example, hasn’t yet tempered anyone’s senseless enthusiasm for militarism or blind patriotism, or I’ve yet to see it.

A disclaimer: my apparent insensitive is helped by the fact that I don’t watch television. I’m guessing the media are really cooking this tragedy to an unrelenting boil. Probably my lack of exposure has rendered me unfathomably incapable of addressing the subject with sufficient tact. I’ve no idea the orchestrated catharsis indulged upon the viewers over dead American children. My profound condolences to the parents, but curses upon the media for exploiting the event to condemn lone crazies and not to curb the culture of violence which breeds them.

Frank Lloyd Wright said television was chewing gum for the eyes. Turn it off. You’ll quickly see what an emotional maelstrom they’ve made of the Sandy Hook shootings. Imagine if they created that kind of drama about war’s atrocity. We’d have viewers clamoring to end war. This might give you some idea about why the ongoing Sandy Hook fallout leaves such a bad taste.

My advice to nearly all Americans parents upset about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: get a hold of yourselves. These weren’t your children. Your schools and schoolchildren are many leagues out of harm’s way. Connecticut may as well be Pakistan for all you care.

Should the London Olympics remember the 1972 Munich Holocaust? Do you?

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America can’t memorialize the 1972 Munich hostage killings, because that act of terrorism was not unlike our own airstrikes or special ops raids, against purported enemy combatants, off the field of combat, except we don’t even try to kidnap them alive.
 
Of course the Israeli Olympic wrestlers and weightlifters killed in Munich in 1972 should be memorialized. But to call the deaths a massacre pretends the German police meant their ambush to kill everyone.* What happened at the 1972 Olympics is being recalled as the “Munich Massacre” but even the propagandists tweaking the Wikipedia entry don’t have the temerity to doff the disclaimer that “massacre” is the informal name. Shall we recall what happened? On September 5, 1972, PLO terrorists infiltrated the Olympic village and tried to kidnap Israeli hostages to exchange for 234 Palestinians held by Israel. Two Israelis fought back and were killed. Next the eight gunman and their nine captives were led into an ambush at a military airfield. After a 1 & 1/2 hour gun battle on the tarmac, trapped under the helicopters by police snipers, the PLO killed four of their captives. A police investigation revealed the remaining five captives may have died in sniper crossfire. This detail is disputed, but a secret financial settlement was sought and reached with German authorities. So, was Munich a massacre or a botched hostage rescue? Do words matter? The Mossad’s retaliatory murder of an innocent Moroccan waiter in Norway, mistaken for the Munich mastermind, is trivialized as the Lillehammer Affair.

Proponents want an Olympic tribute to the Munich Massacre “so that it never happens again.” Boy does that ever have a familiar ring to it. Look out for an Elie Wieselish re-tailoring of the original narrative, Steven Spielberg’s Munich being only a recent example of a myth-makeover remembrance.

To begin with, the PLO kidnappers were a faction of the PLO called the Black September Brigade, named after the Black September purge of the PLO from Jordan. This ouster, aided by the US and fought by Syria, was initiated by Israel’s attack on the village of Karameh, in which the PLO suffered 200 killed, to the IDF’s 28. Not a massacre because 150 PLO fighters were taken captive. Wikistorians taking liberties with translation are calling the PLO group “Black September”, with the effect of obfuscating the event which preceded the Munich operation.

The Munich raid to seize hostages was actually named “Operation Iqrit and Kafr Bir’im” after the Christian villages of Kafr Bir’im and Iqrit, ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948. Villagers were granted right of return by Israel’s supreme court, but overruled by the military. An attempt to return had been repulsed by police as recently as August 1972, as the Olympics began.

Next, the identity of the Israeli athletes is always left incomplete. With the exception of the 18 year old Russian immigrant, all the Israeli hostages were IDF soldiers who’d participated in military acts against Palestine, Egypt, lebanon, Jordan, or Syria, and so are not exactly the innocent civilians of current retellings.

Who killed the Israeli captives during the gun battle with German police? An immediate investigation found that sniper fire may have hit the captives, as it had also severely wounded a fellow policeman. A cover-up long obscured the official reports. While this could be pretended to protect the German participants, it also kept the blame on the PLO gunmen, which would have been critical to justify Israel’s “eye for an eye” revenge killings.

Did the gunman strafe their hostages with bullets upon seeing the arrival of the police armored reinforcements? The only witness accounts come from the German authorities. We might accept that the lead PLO gunman lobbed a grenade into the first helicopter with the intention of killing the four hostages it contained, if they were still alive. An autopsy revealing that one of the Israelis died from the flames is used the emphasize that the grenade, and thus a PLO terrorist, certainly killed him.

Though the German police admitted potential culpability for the deaths of the five hostages in the second helicopter, a later analysis put convenient blame on a particular gunman, one of them ones captured and who eventually escaped justice by being released. Certainly this narrative would be critical if Israel hoped for popular support for their effort to hunt the gunman down.

Many of Israel’s revenge killings involved car bombs which risked collateral deaths and injuries. Assassinating the “mastermind” killed eight others, including a nun, and injured 18 more.

Whether the PLO gunmen killed the Israelis or not, even the operation’s planners can’t be said to have intended it. No one masterminded a massacre.

Of the PLO participants in Munich, five gunman were killed, and three were captured. Those three were released weeks later to meet the demands of a subsequent hijacking. Israel’s Mossad boasted of having tracked them down and assassinated them shortly thereafter. But accounts vary, and one of them was interviewed decades later for a documentary. What’s known is that Israel implemented an “eye for an eye” operation that over 20 years hunted and killed 20-35 Palestinian targets. They weren’t sought out to take hostage but to murder, and most of them were unconnected to the Black September Brigade. The Mossad long-arm-of-the-law theme was less about revenge than deterrence, because anyone who might have masterminded or abetted the Munich plot was planning a kidnapping not a murder.

If a massacre is measured by an imbalance of casualties, let’s look at the numbers. After 11 Israelis were murdered, Israel retaliatory airstrikes killed 200 in Syria and Lebanon, an IDF raid killed up to 100 in Lebanon, and the Mossad targeted up to 35 in subsequent assassinations. Here’s an accounting:

Sept 5-6, 1972
11 Israeli athletes, coaches former IDF
(2 killed by BSB in initial break-in, 9 killed during the ambush rescue attempt, possibly by crossfire)
1 German police
5 PLO gunmen

Sept 8, 1972
IAF retaliatory airstrikes on PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon.
200 Palestinians killed, including women and children

IDF Operation “SPRING OF YOUTH” raid on Lebanon, April 1973
3 PLO suspected planners
12-100 PLO members
1 PLO wife
1 Italian woman
2 Lebanese policemen
Unknown number of Lebanese civilians

Mossad Operation “WRATH OF GOD”, (20-35 targets over 20 years)
PLO translator of disputed BSB involvement, Oct 1972
PLO senior official, December 1972
Palestinian activist “expertly” pushed under bus, London, 1972
Jordanian Fatah rep, January 1973
Law professor at Am Univ of Beirut, April, 1973
Replacement for Fatah rep, Athens, April 1973
(2 BSB minor members injured, Rome, April 1973)
PLO director of operations for BSB, June 1973
Moroccan waiter, mistaken identity, Norway, July 1973
3 Arab-looking men, Switzerland, January 1974
Arab security guard, Spain, August 1974
PLO rep, blamed on the Abu Nidal Org, London, January 1978
2 PLO reps, Paris, August 1978 (3 injured)
PLO suspected “mastermind”, car-bomb, January 1979, also killed:
4 Bodyguards
1 British student
1 German nun
2 Lebanese passersby (also 18 injured)
PLO military head, Cannes, July 1979
2 Palestinians, December, 1979
PLO rep, Brussels, June 1981
2 PLO senior figures, car bomb, Rome, June 1982
PLO senior official, car bomb, Paris, July 1982
PLO senior official, drive-by, Athens, August 1983
PLO Secretary-General, drive-by, Athens, June 1986
PLO official, car bomb, Athens, October 1986
2 Palestinians, car bomb, Cyprus, February 1988 (1 other wounded)
PLO suspected head of intelligence, June 1992

What’s that? The ratio is 11 to 335 and the Israelis want to call it a massacre? If you count the Palestinians killed in the initial Black September attack on the PLO in Jordan, the comparison becomes irrelevant.

But the Munich ratio is nothing compared to the 1,500 Gazans killed in Operation Cast Lead. Now there’s a massacre.

*ON THE OTHER HAND. The botched hostage rescue in Munich might very well have been a massacre. Do we really want to go there? The German snipers who initiated the gun battle at Furstenfeldbruck Airbase may really have behaved with a total disregard to the fate of the Israeli hostages. With the antisemitism that prevailed in Europe, and still prevails there among the working classes, it’s very likely the policemen looked at the gunmen and their captives with equal scorn. If the bound Israelis weren’t hit in the crossfire, it could certainly be held that the sniper attack provoked their killing. The coverup and subsequent private financial settlement reached between Germany and the Israeli survivors suggests a culpability of the like. In that respect, if European Jews look back at Munich 1972 and say it was a massacre, I believe them.

Do the 2012 London Olympics need extra security forces to protect Israeli athletes or to arrest them?

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Organizers are worried about inadequate security for the Olympic Games set to begin next month in London. What security threat are they anticipating exactly? It’s true the Olympics have become a bullseye for globalization critics. More and more, both athletes and groupies represent the jet set. But other than past indigenous protests in the Commonwealth territories, which amounted to no more than nonviolent blockades, what does the UK need paramilitary forces to defend against this time? Another 1972 Munich massacre? At the summer Olympics in Munich, the Israeli wrestling team was murdered by PLO terrorists called the “Black September Brigade”, but the official narrative leaves off that the Israeli athletes were targeted because they were IDF soldiers who’d participated in the counter-insurgent near-complete rout of the PLO, known as Black September. So that raises an interesting question. Is London expecting to host Israeli athletes who were veterans of Operation Cast Lead or the attack on the Mavi Marmara, whose assassinations someone might want to avenge? British authorities could address that most handily with preemption, because this time the IDF campaign against Gaza was widely regarded to have violated international law. Warn Team Israel that any such veteran setting foot in England would face prosecution for war crimes. While London is at it, issue the same warning to Team USA. Yeah, and Team UK, and Team Germany, et cetera, for Afghanistan, Libya, now Syria. It’s become the 2012 NATO War Criminals Olympics, gone professional, no amateur status terrorists need apply.

If by UN declaring a civil war in Syria classifies atrocities as war crimes, US covert forces there are war criminals

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UN observers have now labeled rebel clashes in Syria as having escalated into “Civil War”, initiating the legal foundation to go after Syrian president Assad on charges of “war” crimes. It’s a welcome bit of sophistry and should cut both ways. If the insurgent groups are armed and lead by covert special op forces of the US and NATO, then who are the bigger war criminals? So far the massacres ascribed to Assad, provoking Hillary Clinton’s condemnation, have proved to be the work of US-allied rebels.

Latest massacre in Syria has almost all the hallmarks of a US military atrocity

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The victims are civilian, most of them women and children, killed with disproportionate force, with the usual un-Islamic effort made to burn the bodies to cover it up. Hell, this could have been an all-American lone-GI “Kandahar Shooting Spree”, if you believe the DoD and don’t want to credit our US Special Forces Death Squads. If only the dead had been peed on or had trophy fingers removed, we’d know for sure. Now President Bashar Assad’s forces are reportedly preventing western “monitors” from either coming upon, or leaving the crime scene, to spin NATO’s nauseatingly regular calling card and frame Assad for the atrocity to justify Western intervention. Said Assad of last week’s massacre of Syrian civilians, it “was the work of monsters” which is codeword for Israelis and their habitual inhumanity toward non-Jewish Semites, but clearly now must include US standard practice as it pursues its global war on Islam.

Oops. Add two rapes to the feat of Staff Sgt. Bales, death squad of one (Aghans say 1/16th) behind Panjwaii Massacre

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An Afghan parliamentary fact-finding mission reports that two women were raped before being killed in the US NATO night raid on Panjwaii. Yeah, Americans still can’t pronounce My Lai. The same US corporate press is raping Afghanistan.

I’ll see your Staff Sgt Robert Bales and raise you 15 death squad members

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Everyone from the US Department of Defense to the School of the Americas knows it takes a village to raze a death squad, or vice versa. According to the manual, if you want to storm houses in the middle of the night, gather the male family members for execution, shoot everyone in the head, gather stray bodies into a pile, pour gasoline over them and burn them, then repeat the operation in a neighboring village, you need a death squad, possibly two, especially if everyone’s drunk. US forces have pulled off so many of these massacres in Iraq and Afghanistan, that it’s a wonder military analysts don’t recognize the Panjwayi raid as a textbook operation. If the official US spin is to be believed, and one drunken staff sergeant can do the work of 15-20, I’m thinking our entire NATO force in Afghanistan could be reduced by the same factor without jeopardizing US kill goals.