Here is the front page, above-the-fold story from the current issue of the Industrial Worker, on troubling news from Zimbabwe, a rich and fertile country immiserated and stripped by a century of kleptocratic armed factions — first the land-grabbing colonialists, and then an independent white apartheid government, and now a violent anti-colonial, revolutionary government, which has intoned populist slogans in order to justify government patronage to its political supporters, while assaulting all popular movements independent of the government — especially workers’ unions — on the grounds that any movement independent of, or opposed to, the anti-imperial government must therefore be a tool of white imperialism. The government that claims the right to rule Zimbabwe has, through this and other means, made itself into one of the most violently anti-worker governments in the world today.

Zimbabwe [sic] arrests unionists, opposition

Zimbabwe’s ruling party and paramilitaries are conducting a terror campaign of arrests and captive meetings of opposition supporters before the presidential run-off election on June 27.

Police arrested the union president Lovemore Motombo and general secretary Wellington Chibebe of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) on May 8. Police charged them with inciting people to rise against the government and reporting falsehoods about people being killed during a May Day rally.

The General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe has said that 40,000 farm workers are affected by the current terror campaign that has led to violence and eviction from their workplaces.

Teachers in rural classrooms are among those being targetted as MDC supporters. Two have been killed to date, with a third abducted by Zanu-PF paramilitaries. The teachers’ union has received reports that the Zanu-PF are chasing teachers out of schools, beating them, and demanding repentance fines in the form of cash, goats, and cattle, according to IRIN, a United Nations news service report. The situation in the schools resembles war zones, and there is no way teachers can report for work to face those death squads, Raymond Majongwe, president of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, told IRIN.

Our fear is that more could be under torture, or have been killed, said Majongwe.

The MDC has placed the death toll since the March 29 election at 43 people, with hundreds beaten and more than 5,000 people fleeing to the mountains and elsewhere to escape Zanu-PF militias.

People who have tried to file complaints to the police are, in turn, detained and interrogated, said the MDC, which means few people are coming forward.

On April 25, armed police raided the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) headquarters in Harare and arrested more than 300 men, women and children who had taken refuge there from political violence.

National and international unions have condemned the Zanu-PF for the violence against union members and party activists.

Dockworkers affiliated with the Congress of South African Trade Unions in South Africa and dockworkers in Mozambique refused to unload a ship loaded with AK-47 machine gun bullets, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades sold by China to Zimbabwe. The ship returned to China without unloading its cargo.

In a speech to the Zanu-PF’s Central Committee on May 16, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said Zimbabwean democracy was stronger than ever and blamed the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for inciting rural violence to benefit Western political and corporate interests.

Such violence is needless and must stop forthwith. Our fist is against white imperialism; it is a fist for the people of Zimbabwe, never a fist against them.

The same day, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai delayed his return to Zimbabwe, saying that his party alleged that the military planned to kill him and at least 36 other opposition leaders.

Tsvangirai had been lobbying neighbouring countries and the United Nations to pressure Mugabe to release and accept the election results.

While the MDC refers to Tsvangirai as the President on its web site, it has agreed to contest the presidential run-off in a bid to avoid violence such as that seen in Kenya after its election.

Despite the violence, MDC activists are gearing up for the presidential election campaign. The MDC said that 20,000 activists attended a rally in Harare.

The people are very clear on what they want. They want change. The dictatorship is dead and on 27 June we must attend its burial, said MDC parliamentarian Nelson Chamisa.

— The Industrial Worker 105.04 (June 2008): Zimbabwe arrests unionists, opposition

It’s hard to know what to do in the face of this kind of violence, especially when it is so far away. There may not be much that American workers really can do other than bear witness and hope. But I do want to call special attention to the vital importance of actions like those of the dockworkers in South Africa and Mozambique — an inspiring example both of direct action on the shop floor, and also international labor solidarity. In the end, the actions of workers both in Zimbabwe and in international solidarity campaigns will matter far more than even the fairest, most transparent, most open elections ever will or ever could. What is needed is more — not just inspiring examples, but a coordinated campaign of industrial action against the entire coercive apparatus of Zanu-PF and the Zimbabwean state, to choke off their capacity to attack and terrorize workers.

What Mugabe and his apparatchiks are doing to workers in Zimbabwe is abominable, but we must never forget that the workers have more power standing with our hands in our pockets than all the combined wealth and weapons of the bosses — whether economic, social, or political.

Further reading:

• GT 2008-05-01: May Day 2008
• GT 2007-04-08: State violence against Zimbabwean trade unionists

If you happen to pass through Justice of the Peace Gustavo Gus Garza’s court room, anyway.

(Mike Gogulski @ nostate.com 2008-06-08: Texas: Court-mandated assault for skipping school.)

Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

5 June 2008

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS (AP) — A Los Fresnos family is going to court to prevent a Cameron County justice of the peace from ordering spankings in his courtroom.

A lawsuit filed today alleges Justice of the Peace Gustavo Gus Garza told a 14-year-old girl's stepfather to strike her repeatedly on the buttocks in open court.

If he didn't, the judge said the girl would be found guilty and fined $500 for truancy.

The lawsuit by Mary Vasquez and her husband, Daniel Zurita, described the paddle provided by Garza as large and heavy and fashioned from a thick piece of lumber.

In a story for The Brownsville Herald, Garza declined to comment on whether he has people spanked in his courtroom. He also said he had not seen the lawsuit.

Zurita says he didn't feel as if he had a choice but to follow the order.

In an affidavit, Zurita says that when he was through, the judge told him he had not struck the girl hard enough.

— KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

Because he coerced the stepfather into beating and humiliating his 14-year-old daughter in open court, in front of strangers, by threatening to inflict a several hundred dollar fine and a criminal record on the young woman if he didn’t do it, Justice of the Peace Gustavo Gus Garza believes that he didn’t order the beating; he just offered it as a punishment option. Much like a mugger offers you an option between your money and your life, I guess:

Justice of the Peace Judge, Gustavo Garza was in court this morning after getting sued for his spanking punishment option. The plaintiffs are Mary Vazquez and Daniel Zurita. They want a temporary restraining order against Judge Garza's spanking punishment. Instead, state district judge Abel Limas has reset the hearing for next Wednesday.

The parents of a 14-year-old teenager were in court, hoping to put a stop to Judge Garza's idea of punishment. Their complaint says that Garza told the teen and her step-father that the teen would be found guilty of a criminal offense and fined $500 for not attending school unless Zurita spanked his step-daughter in the JP courtroom on April 9th. The couple’s attorney Mark Sossi, argued that Judge Garza did not have the authority to order someone to spank their child. But after the hearing Judge Garza told us again that he did not order anyone. Parents had a choice to either spank or pay up.

I've never ordered anybody to use discipline on their children in court.

— Michelle Macias, KVEO 23 Rio Grande Valley (2008-06-06): Judge Gustavo Garza’s First Day in Court

Please note that when Garza says using discipline, he doesn’t mean what the words would naturally suggest, that is, for the parent to exercise restraint in spite of strong feelings of anger or frustration. By using discipline, Garza means parents lashing out rather than restraining themselves, beating their child or teenager with a wooden bat, and laying it on well, while they do so.

Of course, there’s more. Because there’s always more. Court-ordered teen-beating isn’t just a good way to deal with the victimless crime of choosing not to go to a government school. What with the criminalization of everything, especially everything that young people might do, it’s a good way to deal with all kinds of things. Like disabled teens who swear at school bus drivers:

A petition against Gustavo Gus Garza grew by two on the eve of a temporary restraining order hearing against the Cameron County Pct. 6 Justice of the Peace.

The parents of two minors came forth Tuesday, asking 404th state District Judge Abel C. Limas to prevent Garza from ordering, encouraging or allowing spankings in his courtroom as punishment.

I wouldn’t hit a child with a paddle, particularly one with physical problems, plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Sossi told The Brownsville Herald late Tuesday. Sossi was referring to one of the two children, who suffers from a muscular-development birth defect and allegedly was spanked in Garza’s court.

The child with the disability is a 14-year-old boy who used profanity toward a school bus driver. The second is a 14-year-old girl who skipped class, Sossi said, shortly after filing his amended petition in district court. The respective parents are Leroy Garcia and Rosa Valdez.

. . .

The parents also seek Garza’s removal from office [in addition to a restraining order].

After parents feel compelled to spank their children, they claim, Garza orders the children to bend over a chair placed directly in front of the bench. They are ordered to put their elbows on the arms of a chair with the buttocks facing Garza.

(Garza) has long engaged in this kind of corporal punishment under the authority of his office. Ten years ago when the defendant was a district attorney in Willacy County, he used the color and authority of his office to threaten criminal prosecution unless the parents struck their children with a wooden paddle he owned, Sossi states in the amended petition.

The initial petition alleges Garza directed Zurita to repeatedly strike his stepdaughter on the buttocks with a large, heavy wooden paddle fashioned from a thick piece of lumber in open court and in the presence of other adults and juveniles.

Zurita stated in an affidavit that, I did not feel that I had a choice but carry out the orders of the judge. When I was finished, Judge Garza told me that I had not struck (my stepdaughter) hard enough…

Zurita and Vasquez also claim that they were in Garza’s courtroom when he ordered the paddling of other minors.

Garza said Friday that he has not kept count on the number of children paddled in his court.

— Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

Justice of the Peace Gustavo Gus Garza believes that Texas state law is on his side:

Judge Garza says his disciplinary option does not break any Texas law.

I believe and as you will find the law will support me. The penal code addresses it for parents and educators to use it for discipline, the family code obligates it.

— Michelle Macias, KVEO 23 Rio Grande Valley (2008-06-06): Judge Gustavo Garza’s First Day in Court

I don’t know whether or not Garza really meant to claim that the Texas state family code obliges parents to beat up self-willed children and teenagers in the name of discipline. That seems odd. But I don’t know much about Texas state law, and he is Da Judge, so, for all I know, he may very well be right about the contents of the Texas penal code and the contents of the family code. The legal condition of children and teenagers throughout the United States is generally pretty appalling. But if he is right, then that’s a good reason to say to hell with the penal code and the family code.

To prove, that these Sort of policed Societies are a Violation offered to Nature, and a Constraint upon the human Mind, it needs only to look upon the sanguinary Measures, and Instruments of Violence which are every where used to support them. Let us take a Review of the Dungeons, Whips, Chains, Racks, Gibbets, with which every Society is abundantly stored, by which hundreds of Victims are annually offered up to support a dozen or two in Pride and Madness, and Millions in an abject Servitude, and Dependence. There was a Time, when I looked with a reverential Awe on these Mysteries of Policy; but Age, Experience, and Philosophy have rent the Veil; and I view this Sanctum Sanctorum, at least, without any enthusiastick Admiration. I acknowledge indeed, the Necessity of such a Proceeding in such Institutions; but I must have a very mean Opinion of Institutions where such Proceedings are necessary. [...] In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with the Abuse. The Thing! the Thing itself is the Abuse!

— Edmund Burke (1757): A Vindication of Natural Society

Meanwhile, the comments thread, here’s how to maintain high moral standards and exonerate sadist judges in ten easy steps:

1. Conflate force with reason:

   I myself have spanked my kids in the butt area. Only once in a long while to teach my kids right from wrong. . . . Teach your daughter the consequences of not been in school. Don’t wimp out and try to be her friend.

   — Sy A, Edinburg, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

   How are they going to learn if there is no discipline?

   — lachancla, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

2. Blame the victim:

   WHY IS THE BOTTOM LINE NOT SEEN HERE? These kids are not in court because they are honor students! They are discipline problems!!

   — chula71, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

   Children with disabilities? That kid certainly was very able to run his mouth off to the bus driver. All this is drama for your mama.

   — donkique, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

3. Blame the victim’s parents:

   The article never mentioned the mothers role or lack there of??? I wonder if the child has been late for school since the step-father opted to save her future by not paying the fine and allow a criminal history?

   — Patrick R. Murray, comments (2008-06-05) on Nikki W., Digital Journal (2008-06-05): Judge Sentences Children To Spankings By Parents And One Family Is Fed Up

   Man, these parents are something else. . . . Obviously the judge is doing the job the parents have failed to do. I wonder if these parents read these blogs and feel just a little dumb for trying to milk the county for their child’s inability to stay in school or behave?

   — chula71, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

   The kid's step father couldn't control the kid (Is he a wimp?). Far too many judges refuse to enforce the law. Judge garza should be recognized for enforcing the law. The parent had three choices: Make thge kid go to school, pay a fine, or paddle the kid–and he is now crying about his choice. Again, I ask if he is a wimp?

   — retired principal Terry Olbeg, McAllen, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

4. Blame the lawyers:

   What these people don’t understand is that the only one that will come out winning is the lawyer(s). The more petitioners, the more the lawyer gets and the less they get.

   — peepaw, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

   These people are being led by the nose by sharks, aka lawyers.

   — donkique, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

5. Blame the victim’s socioeconomic class:

   I bet you she will be pregnant and on public assistance before she is 18 years old. Thats all we need another dumb teenaged parent with an attitude. Sorry if it seems harsh but thats what it is. Just a thought!

   — L Deleon, Harlingen, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

   I guess everyone forgets about the drop out kids from school who because of lack of education leads to no job and deperation for money which might lead to theft,burglary (your neighboorhood)robbery. More drain on the goverment assistance.

   — D Morales, Harlingen, Texas, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

6. Blame other youths, unrelated to this case, because you presume that the youths in this case are kind of like those other youths:

   I feel compelled to spank my child as well too but I don’t. I would if she acted like some of these punks though.

   — lachancla, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

   Some kids do need a good spanking. Especially if this punishment averts any other form of criminal activity.

   — harmony, comments (2008-06-05): on Nikki W., Digital Journal (2008-06-05): Judge Sentences Children To Spankings By Parents And One Family Is Fed Up

   I wonder how many people would make the same comment if they worked in a public school you have no idea what type of behavior kids have in school. Texas Law allows the parent to discipline their child but when the parent wants to do so their child threatens to call police and file assault charges against them.

   — D Morales, Harlingen, Texas, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

7. Impugn the parents’ motives without evidence:

   Man, these parents are something else. Jumping on the band (more like BANK) wagon to gain notoriety. WHY IS THE BOTTOM LINE NOT SEEN HERE?

   — chula71, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

   If the parents thought this was embarrassing then they should have paid the fine. A choice was given so why are they crying about it now. The lawyer and the parents are probably doing this for the money.

   — I. Flores, Mid Valley, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

   [The story says only that the parents are seeking a restraining order against Garza and, if possible, his removal from the bench. As far as I can tell there is no mention of their seeking monetary damages. Not that there would be anything wrong with it if they are. –R.G.]

8. Compete to see who can go most over-the-top in their praise of beating and terrorizing children:

   Go Judge Garza! It’s about time someone taught kids now a days about discipline. This lawsuit is a joke. If we as parents don’t want to be at this point where we are at court having to spank our kids in front of a group of people, we need to start doing it at home.

   — N R, Los Fresnos, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

   I think their is always two sides to the story. Many of the kids today need corporal punishment. I am thankful that my principal and school community still allow my principal to spank kids. As a school administrator it is very simple to know what school still uses paddling and which one doesn’t. Most of the ones with the most discipline problems do not spank. I would like to hear more about why this J.P. ordered the spanking. A firm supporter of spanking. Get’m Judge.

   — Anonymous school counselor, Edinburg, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

   As we were growing up we got spanked, not beat, and we grew up just fine. I believe in spanking on the buttom. It is even in the bible. . . . Save you children now while you still can, don’t be too soft on them. I had my children spanked in school if and when they did wrong. There is nothing wrong with a spanking here and then when done right. I am all for you Judge Garza, God Bless You.

   — I. Flores, Mid Valley, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

   When I went to school, we were threatened with the slap. the school had two different types. They had a red leather slap and a black one. I forgot which one was thicker. The strap was used as a form of discipline and it worked. Kids were too afraid of getting the strap therefore they were obedient. Most kids were never given the strap because they knew better. Today kids are threatening and abusing their teachers. I’m beginning to think that the schools should implement the strap again.

   — harmony, comments (2008-06-05): on Nikki W., Digital Journal (2008-06-05): Judge Sentences Children To Spankings By Parents And One Family Is Fed Up

   Spank Her Good

   The judge should have had a police officer spank that brat. Getting a strong, muscle-head cop to do the spanking would have been ideal. Then I would have paddled the hell out of the parents too. They know when their child is not attending school.

   — L Deleon, Harlingen, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

   I feel compelled to spank my child as well too but I don’t. I would if she acted like some of these punks though. How are they going to learn if there is no discipline? time out? I would take a time out from the spanking. There is your time out.

   — lachancla, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

9. Quibble over semantics:

   What do you mean by ordering a forced beating? If it falls under the category of abuse causing bodily harm, then I don’t think it’s legal.

   — harmony, comments (2008-06-05): on Nikki W., Digital Journal (2008-06-05): Judge Sentences Children To Spankings By Parents And One Family Is Fed Up

   As we were growing up we got spanked, not beat, and we grew up just fine.

   — I. Flores, Mid Valley, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

   Spanking is without the use of an aide. A beating uses such, although corporal punishment is different than parental discipline.

   Parents do not spank with a belt, flyswatter, switch – they bust ass or administer a whoopin!

   They spank with a hand. And if the mark remains, it is child abuse.

   — Nikki W., comments (2008-06-05): on Nikki W., Digital Journal (2008-06-05): Judge Sentences Children To Spankings By Parents And One Family Is Fed Up

   @ Connie M (Catana) I don’t consider being hit with a board a spanking. It’s a beating, plan and simple.

   If there are no marks, bruises or broken bones, it’s a spanking, plan and simple. If there are no marks, bruises or broken bones, it’s a spanking, plan and simple.

   — harmony, comments (2008-06-05): on Nikki W., Digital Journal (2008-06-05): Judge Sentences Children To Spankings By Parents And One Family Is Fed Up

   [Alberto Gonzales and Donald Rumsfeld would be proud. –R.G.]

10. Ramble aimlessly about the good old days and the decline of patriarchal traditions:

    Hoping Good Old Times Come Back

    As we were growing up we got spanked, not beat, and we grew up just fine. I believe in spanking on the buttom. It is even in the bible. Back in the days teenagers were allowed to work too if this was brought back up we would not have as much trouble today. We would go to school, work after school and we would respect our elders. There was not as much trouble as we have now. There was no time for trouble because we were occupied. I did all this and I grew up to be a responsible, repectable adult.

    — I. Flores, Mid Valley, comments on KGBT 4 (2008-06-05): Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

    What is with all these women not taking their husbands name? Do they jump around so much that it is too much to keep up with their last names, so they keep their’s?

    — peepaw, reader comments (2008-06-11) on Emma Perez-Trevi?@c3;b1;o, The Brownsville Herald (2008-06-10): More families file against spanking judge

When people engage in violence against children for victimless crimes like ditching school or mouthing off to adults; when they claim that the violence is to teach its victim a lesson; when you spend the first two decades of your life being indoctrinated and ridiculed and beaten and extorted into believing in, or at least acquiescing to, this kind of violent, legally-backed authoritarianism, and when this is dignified as raising a child the right way, when howling mobs of sado-fascist blowhard bullies can be expected to ridicule and blame any parent who doesn’t toe that line and enthusiastically beat their own children, when that same bellowing blowhard bully brigade looks looks for absolutely any and every excuse they could possibly find to justify beating a child or a teenager and compete to see who can get the most down and dirty in their efforts to smear the victim and cheer on the violence; what sort of lessons do you think that violence and that rhetoric teaches? What sort of a life, and what sort of a society, do you think that this kind of physical and verbal environment prepares these children for?

Further reading:

• GT 2008-05-11: Cops are here to protect you (#4)
• GT 2008-03-01: Perpetual state of supervision

So, there’s this poster that’s been circulating around anarchist, civil libertarian, and lefty blogs for a few months now. It’s become popular because it’s funny (in a nerdy way), and also because it makes an important point:

But, well, the awful truth is that, as with so many other things in American politics, the answer to that rhetorical question can’t really be taken for granted, because it really depends on what kind of neighborhood you live in. The poster makes an important point addressed to, and about the daily lives of, people of a particular socioeconomic class (specifically, the people who most often spend their time reading blogs). For many if not most people in other social classes, the answer really is just, You bet it will. Or, It already is. Has been for decades. Where you been?

For example, consider the cops plans for improving neighborhood safety in the D.C. Ghetto. No, I’m not using that last word as a careless synonym for slum. I am using it in the most literal sense.

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate Neighborhood Safety Zones. At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn't live there, work there or have legitimate reason to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

— Michael Neibauer and Bill Myers, The Examiner (2008-06-04): Lanier plans to seal off rough 'hoods in latest effort to stop wave of violence

Guess who decides what counts as a legitimate reason for being in the neighborhood — the people who live and work in that neighborhood, or the government’s goon squad?

Lanier has been struggling to reverse D.C.'s spiraling crime rate but has been forced by public outcry to scale back several initiatives including her All Hands on Deck weekends and plans for warrantless, door-to-door searches for drugs and guns.

Under today's proposal, the no-go zones will last up to 10 days, according to internal police documents. Front-line officers are already being signed up for training on running the blue curtains.

Peter Nickles, the city's interim attorney general, said the quarantine would have a narrow focus.

This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities, Nickles told The Examiner. I'm not worried about the constitutionality of it.

— Michael Neibauer and Bill Myers, The Examiner (2008-06-04): Lanier plans to seal off rough 'hoods in latest effort to stop wave of violence

Just so we’re clear, neither am I. I couldn’t possibly care less whether surrounding poor neighborhoods with cops, giving everyone the Ihre Papiere, bitte treatment, and chopping a community up into police-occupied strategic hamlets for the purpose of a government quarantine without any probable cause whatsoever for believing that any of the individual people you will be surrounding, stopping, hassling, and threatening with jail have ever committed any crime against any identifiable victim, is or is not countenanced by the United States Constitution. Who cares? The basic problem with terrorizing and brutalizing entire neighborhoods is that it is evil and incredibly dangerous, whether or not the Constitution allows for it.

Others are. Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police union and a former lawyer, called the checkpoint proposal breathtaking.

Shelley Broderick, president of the D.C.-area American Civil Liberties Union and the dean of the University of the District of Columbia's law school, said the plan was cockamamie.

I think they tried this in Russia and it failed, she said. It's just our experience in this city that we always end up targeting poor people and people of color, and we treat the kids coming home from choir practice the same as we treat those kids who are selling drugs.

The proposal has the provisional support of D.C. Councilman Harry Tommy Thomas, D-Ward 5, whose ward has become a war zone.

They're really going to crack down on what we believe to be a systemic problem with open-air drug markets, Thomas told The Examiner.

Thomas said, though, that he worried about D.C. moving towards a police state.

— Michael Neibauer and Bill Myers, The Examiner (2008-06-04): Lanier plans to seal off rough 'hoods in latest effort to stop wave of violence

But what the hell did D.C. Councilman Harry Tommy Thomas expect, anyway? You can’t go around pushing your paramilitary crack downs with rhetoric about war zones and then act all surprised when you get a police state. If you plan for an occupation, you can expect that you are going to get lock-downs and de facto martial law.

Radley Balko writes:

Last week, I received the following email:

I live in Eckington, a transitional neighborhood in northeast DC. I got a knock on the door this morning from a guy with ACORN (looks like a lefty community group that I'd never heard of) saying that DC police would be coming around shortly asking to search homes in the neighborhood for guns, and explaining we had the constitutional right to refuse, etc. He added that anything the police find they can use against you because you never know what a friend of a friend might have left in your house Not sure if he told me this because I had just gotten out of bed and had answered the door in my bathrobe looking disoriented, but I digress. He was handing out a packet of info from the ACLU including a nifty doorhanger you can put out that says NO CONSENT TO SEARCH OUR HOME. One of my neighbors told me the guy told them they were only doing this in poor black neighborhoods, and this notice from the ACLU that I found online seems to bear this out.

I know it's not exactly a wrong-door no-knock raid, but I am concerned because while I certainly don't want the police (or any other strangers) rummaging through my junk, I'm kind of afraid of what would happen if I refuse the search. I already live on one of those streets with the surveillance cams installed. Does my address get marked for being uncooperative or suspicious? I should mention of course that I don't own any guns and have never touched anything more powerful than a bb gun.

You are free to refuse the searches. But if a regular reader of this site feels uncomfortable asserting that right, you can imagine how other people subject to these searches might feel.

— Radley Balko, The Agitator (2008-06-04): Police State D.C.

Please also keep in mind that this is the same metro police force which will toting around AR-15 assault rifles as they surround and cordon off and do door-to-door searches and raids in these inner-city neighborhoods.

Do you feel safer now?

See also:

• GT 2008-05-15: No, seriously, I could swear the water in this pot is getting a little hotter... (#3)
• GT 2008-05-12: No, seriously, I could swear the water in this pot is getting a little hotter... (#2)
• GT 2008-05-06: No, seriously, I could swear the water in this pot is getting a little hotter...
• GT 2008-04-28: Is it just me or is the water in this pot getting a little hotter?

(Via Lew Rockwell 2008-05-19: Cold War Murder and Roderick Long 2008-05-25: Anarchocide in South Korea.)

Charles J. Hanley, The Huffington Post (2008-05-18): Mass Killings In South Korea In 1950 Kept Hidden From History:

SEOUL, South Korea — One journalist’s bid to report mass murder in South Korea in 1950 was blocked by his British publisher. Another correspondent was denounced as a possibly treasonous fabricator when he did report it. In South Korea, down the generations, fear silenced those who knew.

Fifty-eight years ago, at the outbreak of the Korean War, South Korean authorities secretively executed, usually without legal process, tens of thousands of southern leftists and others rightly or wrongly identified as sympathizers. Today a government Truth and Reconciliation Commission is working to dig up the facts, and the remains of victims.

How could such a bloodbath have been hidden from history?

Among the Koreans who witnessed, took part in or lost family members to the mass killings, the events were hardly hidden, but they became a public secret, barely whispered about through four decades of right-wing dictatorship here.

The family couldn’t talk about it, or we’d be stigmatized as leftists, said Kim Chong-hyun, 70, leader of an organization of families seeking redress for their loved ones’ deaths in 1950.

Kim, whose father was shot and buried in a mass grave outside the central city of Daejeon, noted that in 1960-61, a one-year democratic interlude in South Korea, family groups began investigating wartime atrocities. But a military coup closed that window, and the leaders of those organizations were arrested and punished.

Then, from 1961 to 1988, nobody could challenge the regime, to try again to reveal these hidden truths, said Park Myung-lim of Seoul’s Yonsei University, a leading Korean War historian. As a doctoral student in the late 1980s, when South Korea was moving toward democracy, Park was among the few scholars to begin researching the mass killings. He was regularly harassed by the police.

Scattered reports of the killings did emerge in 1950 — and some did not.

British journalist James Cameron wrote about mass prisoner shootings in the South Korean port city of Busan — then spelled Pusan — for London’s Picture Post magazine in the fall of 1950, but publisher Edward Hulton ordered the story removed at the last minute.

Earlier, correspondent Alan Winnington reported on the shooting of thousands of prisoners at Daejeon in the British communist newspaper The Daily Worker, only to have his reporting denounced by the U.S. Embassy in London as an atrocity fabrication. The British Cabinet then briefly considered laying treason charges against Winnington, historian Jon Halliday has written.

Associated Press correspondent O.H.P. King reported on the shooting of 60 political prisoners in Suwon, south of Seoul, and wrote in a later memoir he was shocked that American officers were unconcerned by questions he raised about due process for the detainees.

Some U.S. officers — and U.S. diplomats — were among others who reported on the killings. But their classified reports were kept secret for decades.

— Charles J. Hanley, The Huffington Post (2008-05-18): Mass Killings In South Korea In 1950 Kept Hidden From History

William Gillis, Human Iterations (2008-05-22): Mass Graves:

The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million. That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is very conservative, said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he told The Associated Press.

In 1945, as the Japanese Empire finally went into retreat, the Korean people were left without an occupational authority for the first time in decades. In that brief moment something amazing happened. The Korean Anarchists, long the champions of the resistance struggle, came out of the woodwork and formed a nationwide federation of village and workers councils to oversee a massive project of land reform. Korea graduated from feudalism overnight. Aside from some struggles with the Socialists and Nationalists, the peninsula was at peace.

When WWII concluded, however, the responsibility of securing peace and order in Korea was assigned to the Americans and Soviets. By all accounts in this instance the US actually had no imperialist intentions. While the Soviets moved quickly to deploy their forces and occupy the North, the Americans took their time showing up, and were largely content to let the South Koreans manage themselves.

The Koreans, culturally steeped with anti-authoritarian values, were fond of America and openly despised the Soviets. While a few socialists fled North hoping that the Soviets would give them a hand against the Anarchists, they were overwhelmed in numbers by a mass migration south. Everyone assumed the Americans would assist or at least respect their autonomy.

This did not last.

The Americans Military commanders who eventually arrived had trouble understanding or dealing with the anarchy they found. They had no protocol for dealing with regional federations and autonomous communes. So they helped the dispossessed aristocracy form a military government. In order to make the map simple. In order to get things under hand.

Most importantly they did not understand that the Korean Anarchists and Anti-Authoritarian activists that saturated the countryside were different than–and in fact vehemently opposed to–the Communists, going so far as to organized and launch insurrectionary attacks on the Soviet Occupation before the Americans arrived.

The Americans couldn’t understand anarchists. But leftists, they knew, meant Soviets. And they had the gall to ignore or resist their puppet military government. So they started killing them.

By the start of the Korean War, the slaughter was in full swing. Having arrested every anarchist organizer or sympathetic peasant they could get their hands on, they started executing them en masse.

The Korean Anarchist movement was, historically, one of the strongest in the world. It survived half a century of brutal occupation and economic exploitation. It survived a three way assault by the Chinese, Japanese and Soviets. It has survived many, many massacres and exterminations. It is even still around today. So strong that in the last few years they’ve been known to evict the police from the streets. But the worst injury it ever suffered was initiated and orchestrated by the United States military. In a single campaign so horrific it borders on genocide.

This was truly, objectively, one of the worst things the US has ever done. And there are some big fucking contenders.

Most north american papers ran front-page stories this Monday about the latest mass graves being uncovered while I was riding the Empire Builder from St. Paul to Portland. I found a copy wedged between Amtrak seat cushions. And there was an ancient photo of piled corpses as far as the eye could see. The papers euphemistically used the term leftists. But I know the history, I did the research.

They were almost all anarchists.

However lovely America may be. Remember, the US government is not our friend. It will never be. It can never be.

— William Gillis, Human Iterations (2008-05-22): Mass Graves

Here’s a story that both inspires and infuriates me. It inspires me because of Melissa Bruen’s courage. It infuriates me because of what happened to her. And what happened to her again after she fought back. And what happened to her again after she wrote about what had happened to her and how she fought back. This is what happened to Melissa Bruen as she tried to get home on the Hunting Lodge Road Trail.

Students are always told not to walk alone, especially at night, and that it is safer to travel in groups. This is a lesson I will not forget. I have always felt safe walking alone around UConn at night. Having worked for The Daily Campus for four years made this a necessity. So Friday with so many people, and police, around, I didn’t think twice about heading back to campus alone from Celeron.

I called a friend at around 1 a.m. and asked her to pick me up at the end of the path by Northwest. I had three beers and two screwdrivers. It was while I was on the phone, sitting on the ground with my back against a telephone pole in order to hear her, that I was picked up by my shoulders, pinned up against the pole and dry humped by a stranger. At first I thought it was one of my friends’ attempt at humor, until I heard the man moaning.

I hung up the phone, and shoved the man off me. I am 5’5″. He was around 5’11”.

My, aren’t we feisty tonight, he said.

I was assaulted when I was very young – I wasn’t about to let it happen again. When he came toward me, I grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him down to the ground. I held onto his shoulders and climbed on top to straddle him. He started thrashing side to side, but I was able to hit him with a closed fist, full force, in the face.

A small crowd had gathered, mostly men. Now they seemed shocked. I was supposed to have been a victim, and I was breaking out of the mold. I hit him in the stomach, while clenching my legs around him to prevent another man from pushing me off. In all, it took three men to pull me off my assailant.

He got up and ran off, yelling at me, as if I were the would-be rapist.

You just assaulted me, I yelled in my own defense — first to him and then, to anyone who would listen, He just assaulted me.

Since the police were shutting down the parties at Celeron, there were thousands of people on the path.

Another man, around 6’1″, approached me and said, You think that was assault? and he pulled down my tube top, and grabbed my breasts. More men started to cheer. It didn’t matter to the drunken mob that my breasts were being shown or fondled against my will. They were happy to see a topless girl all the same. I punched him in the face, and someone shoved me into a throng of others. I was surrounded, but I kept swinging and hitting until I was able to break free of the circle they had formed.

I started running barefoot toward Celeron, but ended up throwing myself on the ground, crying and screaming hysterically. I saw a friend in the crowd, and all I could do was scream his name over and over. I could see the ambulance and police checkpoint in the distance.

. . .

When I went to UConn Police Saturday, I learned that at least one other woman was jumped by two men on the Celeron Path that night. I can’t help asking myself what would have happened if I hadn’t fought back.

I was raised to fight back, so I made sure to get a few good swings in. My bruises will fade, and I will move on. But if you ever see someone being assaulted, do the right thing.

— Melissa Bruen, The Daily Campus (2008-05-02): My Spring Weekend Nightmare

Here is what happened when she published this story in her campus newspaper.

At this writing, Melissa Bruen's article on the sexual assault she suffered during the U Conn Spring Weekend has received close to fifty comments on the Daily Campus website. (Free registration required.)

Of those comments, more than a dozen are flames. Some are critical of Bruen's journalistic integrity. Others suggest that she invented the story of the assault. Several commenters insult Bruen's appearance, or the clothes she wore in the photograph that accompanied the article.

It should be stressed that Bruen is characterized in third-party reporting as having been bruised in the attack. She describes the attack as having taken place in front of a large number of witnesses, and herself as having run from her attackers barefoot and screaming. She reported the assault to campus police while she was still on the scene.

And yet she is accused by commenters of having made up the incident as a cry for fame. Her account is described as having troubling loose ends. One commenter who appears to believe her story refers to the assaults as minor shenanigans.

And then there are the insults. One commenter calls her a fat ho, another a stupid BITCH. The shirt she wears in the photograph is described as being in very poor taste, and her facial expression as rediculous (sic).

Most of the comments to the article are supportive, and many challenge the critics with cogent arguments. But the fact that Bruen was attacked so harshly serves as a reminder of the abuse that women who speak publicly about sexual violence face, and underscores Bruen's courage in coming forward.

— studentactivism.net (2008-05-05): U Conn Editor Attacked for Writing Assault Story

Melissa Bruen was assaulted by a man and she fought the hell back. For daring to fighting back she was assaulted again while she was surrounded by a cheering mob of men. She fought back again and escaped and wrote about it. For writing about it she was smeared, slandered and insulted, over her actions, her dress, her honesty, and her physical appearance. I doubt that any one person involved in any of these events had any particular plans for, or cared about, or had ever thought about, supporting or reinforcing or expressing some big social order in the relationships between men and women. But those of you who have any questions about the Myrmidon theory — the view that men who commit random violence against women unintentionally serve as shock troops for the undesigned, but very real and powerful and coercive, social order of patriarchy — ought to think about it in light of an event like this. What this kind of male physical attack, and this kind of victim-blaming response to her report on the attack, does to a woman’s perceived freedom of action when it is done to her, or when she sees it happening to another woman. What kind of function the mold Melissa Bruen broke out of when she fought back serves. And how countless acts like this, repeated over and over on every campus, in every town, shape the social and personal space within which women and men move, at a time when they are first settling on what kind of adults they will be and what kind of lives they will lead.

(Via Oh, You’re a FEMINIST?! 2008-05-07, via feministe 2008-05-11.)

See also:

• Oh, You’re a FEMINIST?! (2008-05-07): UConn’s “Rape Trail” Earns its Name