Rad Geek People's Daily

official state media for a secessionist republic of one

Posts from August 2012

Archives:

  1. 2012
  2. → August [page #3]

11:02am. 67 years. 74,000 souls.

Sixty-seven years ago today:

Here's Harry S. Truman, looking awfully proud of his damn self.

Harry S. Truman, August 9, 1945.

We won the race of discovery against the Germans….

In his radio address on August 9, Truman described Hiroshima, a port city of some 255,000 people, a military base, and then said, That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. The bomb was dropped on the city center, far away from military installations. About 85% of the people killed in Hiroshima were civilians — about 120,000 of the 140,000 men, women and children killed. The atomic bombing incinerated nine-tenths of the city, and it killed more than half of the entire population.

Meanwhile, on the very same day that President Harry Truman recorded this message, without warning, before the Japanese government’s war council had even had a chance to meet to discuss the possibility of surrender, at 11:02am, on August 9, 1945, bombadier Captain Kermit Beahan, as part of the United States Army Air Forces, acting on Truman’s orders, dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, an industrial center and seaside resort town. At the time it was one of the largest ports in Japan, with about 240,000 people. The bomb and its immediate after-effects destroyed the city, and killed about a third of the people living in Nagasaki, some 74,000 men, women and children, dead.

In Nagasaki, like in Hiroshima, on a bright morning in August, with a sudden flash, brighter than the sun, a city was converted into a scene of hell. The sky went dark, buildings were thrown into the ground, and everything began to burn. People staggered through the ruins, with their eyes blinded, with their clothing burned off their bodies, with their own skin and faces burned off in the heat. Everyone was desperate for water, because they were burning, because everything was unbearably hot. They begged soldiers for water from their canteens; they drowned themselves in cisterns. Later, black rain began to fall from the darkened sky. They thought it was a deliverance. They tried to catch the black rain on their tongues, or they caught it and drank it out of cups. But they didn’t know that the rain was fallout. They didn’t know that it was full of radiation and as they drank it it was burning them away from the inside. All told, between these two deliberate atomic bombings of civilian centers, about 210,000 people were killed — vaporized or carbonized by the heat, crushed to death in the shockwave, burned to death, killed quickly or slowly by radiation poisoning and infections and cancers eating their bodies alive.

Here is a city street completely reduced to rubble, with fires smoldering in the background and smoke hanging in the air. A single Shinto gateway remains standing over the rubble.

Photo by Yosuke Yamahata

Jocelyn Pook (1997), “Oppenheimer”

What else is there to say on a day like today?

Having found the bomb, we have used it.

We have used it…

Here is a mushroom cloud, seen from the ground, towering into the sky over a bridge in Nagasaki.

… on Hiroshima, a military base…

We wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.

Here's a survivor's drawing of a cistern near ground zero. A dozen dying people crowd together into it, desperate for water.

We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor …

We have used it … against those who starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war …

We have used it … against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare …

We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war.

See also:

The audio clip above is from a recording of President Harry S. Truman’s radio report on the Potsdam conference, recorded by CBS on August 9, 1945 in the White House. The song linked to above is a recording of Oppenheimer (1997), by the British composer Jocelyn Pook. The voice that you hear at the beginning is Robert Oppenheimer, in an interview many years after the war, talking about his thoughts at the Trinity test, the first explosion of an atomic bomb in the history of the world, on July 16th, 1945.

Cops are here to help you: Tacoma, Washington police Officer Ryan Koskovich and Officer Michael Young taser, handcuff and imprison a deaf assault victim for not obeying commands that she could not hear.

In Tacoma, a few months ago, a woman called 911 seeking protection when a fight with a guest turned violent. Unfortunately, when you call 911 they send the cops, and government police are not interested in protecting you; they are interested in controlling the situation. The victim in this case is a black woman who has been deaf since birth. The cops were told ahead of time that she was deaf, but what with a situation to control, when they showed up at the apartment they tortured her with a taser, handcuffed her, and hauled her off to jail for running at the police in an assaultive manner. She was running outside to meet the police, so that they could protect her from the person that was beating her up. Instead, a white police officer, Ryan Koskovich, screamed at her, whipped out his taser to drive her to the ground with a painful electrical shock, and then handcuffed her and arrested her, all because she didn’t stop running immediately when they bellowed commands at her that she could not hear. The police claimed, in reports that they wrote up after the fact, that they had also held a hand out. Other people in the neighborhood were watching and nobody else says they saw the cops hold a hand up. Of course, it’s possible that nobody saw it because it was 11:30 at night and dark; but then, that might be a reason for the police to think that someone might not necessarily be able to see their hands, and might not necessarily be able to hear their bellowed commands, and perhaps they ought to adopt a different strategy from maximal confrontation and Taser first, ask questions later. But that of course is only the sort of thing that you do if you give a damn about not torturing and imprisoning innocent people.

Officer Ryan Koskovich, Tacoma, Washington
Tasered, handcuffed and imprisoned deaf assault victim Lashonn White
Photo from NY Daily News

Police use Taser on deaf crime victim

TACOMA, Wash. — KIRO TV's investigative unit has discovered Tacoma police used force to arrest and handcuff an innocent deaf woman after she called 911 for their help.

Instead of an apology, she ended up bloody and in jail for nearly three days without an interpreter before a prosecutor declined to press charges.

After months of digging, investigative reporter Chris Halsne found significant discrepancies in the official police version of events leading up to Lashonn White's arrest.

Late in the evening on April 6, White said she called for police assistance after a guest reportedly attacked her in her own apartment.

. . . Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) logs show Tacoma police officer Ryan Koskovich and his partner, Michael Young, were outside White's apartment complex in about six minutes.

It also reflects that officers received texts along the way stating, Person doing the hitting is a Sophia and Vict. is Lashonn White.

In addition, it appears from internal police records obtained by KIRO Team 7 Investigators, Koskovich and his partner were repeatedly given information that the victim could not hear a thing.

. . . To her, what happened next defies common sense — especially, for a woman with no criminal record, no arrests and just one minor driving violation on her record.

Within seconds of running outside to meet police, Officer Koskovich pulled his Taser and fired a two-barbed electric wire into White's ribs and stomach.

All I'm doing is waving my hands in the air, and the next thing I know, I'm on the ground and then handcuffed. It was almost like I blacked out. I was so dizzy and disoriented, White said.

Witnesses said White began bleeding heavily from her knuckles and the right side of her face swelled up immediately after she hit the pavement following the Taser jolt.

Pictures acquired by Team 7 Investigators also show injuries to her cheek, chin, ribs, neck and arms.

Worse yet to White was the incredible confusion that came with suddenly being handcuffed, under arrest and without the ability to communicate with Tacoma officers, who had no sign language skills.

The next thing I know, they took me to jail. Told me to stand up, you're going to jail. I said, What? What have I done? I couldn't figure it out. I had no idea what was going on, said White.

. . . Margaret Sims's apartment is right over the spot where White fell to the ground after being tased. She said it was around 11:30 at night and dark, but she heard Lashonn screaming in pain and ran to the balcony.

I hollered down and said, She's deaf and can't speak!

Sims says she went down to the street and spoke with officers while Lashonn was still in handcuffs. She told us during an on-camera interview that the police officers at the scene admitted there was a misunderstanding.

They had tased her because he thought she was coming at him, but what she was doing was running to him. But he said, stop and he didn't put his hand up. He just said, stop and she couldn't understand that, replied Sims.

Another apartment tenant, Geraldine Warren, said she also heard the commotion and talked to police.

They just told her to halt. She kept running, she can't hear—she's deaf. I said, Aren't you supposed to say halt like that? asked Warren holding up her right hand.

Tacoma police arrested Lashonn on two criminal charges, simple assault and obstruction of a public servant (law enforcement officer). Then they carted her off to jail. She spent 60 hours there[1] – also without an interpreter- before a city prosecutor reviewed her case and asked that charges not be filed at all. . . . White said despite her repeated requests to police for a certified ASL interpreter, one was never provided.

— Police use Taser on deaf crime victim, by Chris Halsne, for KIRO TV 7 (5 August 2012)

The Incident Is Being Investigated. But Police Officer Naveed Benjamin has already said that the actions of the officers do not appear to be outside of policy. Probably not. And what does that tell you about the policy?

This is of course not the first time this sort of thing has happened. See for example GT 2007-12-07: Law and Orders #4: Wichita cops take control by shocking a deaf man for not following orders he couldn’t hear, GT 2007-11-11: Taser first, ask questions later, AP 2005-03-22: Autistic Teenager is Beaten by Deputies After Being Mistaken for a Prowler, GT 2008-02-05: Rapists in uniform, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.

  1. [1][In other words, a crime victim was imprisoned for nearly three days, because police could not speak her language and chose to respond to her with escalating brutality before they knew what was going on. –CJ.]↩

8:15am

Here is a pocket watch, stopped at 8:15am.

Donated by Kazuo Nikawa
1,600m from the hypocenter
Kan-on Bridge

Kengo Nikawa (then, 59) was exposed to the bomb crossing the Kan-on Bridge by bike going from his home to his assigned building demolition site in the center of the city. He suffered major burns on his right shoulder, back, and head and took refuge in Kochi-mura Saiki-gun. He died on August 22. Kengo was never without this precious watch given him by his son, Kazuo.

— Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Sixty seven years ago today, on August 6, 1945, at 8:15 in the morning, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb over the center of the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima was the first target ever attacked with nuclear weapons in the history of the world.

The bomb exploded about 200 yards over the city, creating a 13 kiloton explosion, a fireball, a shock-wave, and a burst of radiation. On the day that the bomb was dropped, there were about 255,000 people living in Hiroshima.

The explosion completely incinerated everything within a one mile radius of the city center. The shock-wave and the fires ignited by the explosion damaged or completely destroyed about nine-tenths of the buildings in the city. Somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 people–that is, about one third of the entire population of the city–died immediately. The heat of the explosion vaporized or burned alive many of those closest to ground zero. Others were killed by the force of the shock-wave or crushed under collapsing buildings. Many more died from acute radiation poisoning–that is, from the effects of having their internal organs burned away in the intense radiation from the blast.

By December 1945, thousands more had died from their injuries, from radiation poisoning, or from cancers related to the radioactive burst or the fallout. It is estimated that the atomic bombing killed about 140,000 people, and left thousands more with permanent disabilities.

Almost all of the people maimed and killed were civilians. Although there were some minor military bases near Hiroshima, the bomb was dropped on the city center, several miles away from the military bases on the edge of town. Hiroshima was chosen as a target, even though it had little military importance, because It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focussing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. 1. Hiroshima was also one of the largest Japanese cities not yet damaged by the American firebombing campaign. Military planners believed it strategically important to demonstrate as much destruction as possible from the blast.

Thomas Ferebee, a bombadier for the United States Army, was the man who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. His commanding officer was the pilot of the Enola Gay, Paul Tibbets. Tibbets and Ferebee were part of the XXI Bomber Command, directed by Curtis LeMay. LeMay planned and executed the atomic bombings at the behest of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and President Harry Truman.

Kengo Nikawa died on August 22nd, 1945 because of the bombing. This is his pocket watch.

We will never know the names of many of the 140,000 other residents of Hiroshima who were killed by the bombing. We have only estimates because the Japanese government was in a shambles by this point in the war, and countless records, of those that were successfully kept, were consumed by the flames, along with the people whose lives they recorded.

Video taken from Hiroshima nine months after the bombing.

The late, great Utah Phillips called this one of the first songs he ever wrote that ever made any sense. It’s certainly one of his best.

U. Utah Phillips (1994), Enola Gay, on I’ve Got To Know

Enola Gay

Look out, look out
from your school room window
Look up young children from your play
Wave your hand
at the shining airplane
Such a beautiful sight is Enola Gay

It's many a mile
from the Utah desert
To Tinian Island far away
A standing guard
by the barbed wire fences
That hide the secret of Enola Gay

High above the clouds
in the sunlit silence
So peaceful here I'd like to stay
There's many a pilot
who'd swap his pension
For a chance to fly Enola Gay

What is that sound
high above my city
I rush outside and search the sky
Now we are running
to find our shelter
The air raid sirens start to cry

What will I say
when my children ask me
Where was I flying upon that day?
With trembling voice
I gave the order
To the bombardier of Enola Gay

Look out, look out
from your school room window
Look up young children from your play
Your bright young eyes
will turn to ashes
In the blinding light of Enola Gay I turn to see
the fireball rising
My god, my god all I can say
I hear a voice
within me crying
My mother's name was Enola Gay

Look out, look out
from your school room window
Look up young children from your play
Oh when you see
the war planes flying
Each one is named Enola Gay.

–U. Utah Phillips (1994), on I’ve Got To Know

It is worth remembering that the atomic bombing of the Hiroshima city center — a bombing in which forces acting on behalf of the United States government deliberately targeted a civilian center, in order to break enemy morale, and in which they killed over half of all the people living in an industrial metropolis — remains the deadliest act of terrorism in the history of the world.

See also:

Free Alfonso Perez

Remember back when Barack Obama made a big announcement that his Immigrations and Custom Enforcement agency wasn’t going to be detaining or deporting undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children? When he made the announcement, I was happy, but very cautiously so — as long as it holds up, that will at least help some people out. But I wondered whether the promise would last even a few months after election season, or whether it would promptly go the same way as his promises about Guantanamo and his promises about ending DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries. This was too optimistic of me. The answer is that it never even lasted through campaign season, and was broken within weeks.

This is appalling. From my friend Evelyn in Las Vegas:

Another DREAMer Detained! Alfonso Is Being Denied Shoes While In Detention. Let Him Free!

President Obama stated that, as of June 15, DREAMers[1] will no longer be detained or deported. Alfonso was detained one month after the announcement and he has yet to be released! Why is DREAMer Alfonso still being detained?

On July 26 at 6 a.m., Alfonso was walking out of his apartment to head to work when ICE officials detained him. He has been held at Henderson Detention Center in Nevada ever since. Alfonso has a 14-month old baby and a fiancee who need him home! Please call and sign the petition so he can be released.

Make a Phone Call

  1. Call ICE – John Morton (202.732.3000)

Sample Script: “I am calling to urge you to release DREAMer Alfonso Perez (A# 205-151-137) from Henderson Detention Center in Nevada and stop his deportation. Alfonso has been living in the U.S. for 20 years. **He has a 14-month old daughter and a fiancee who are suffering without him. Alfonso is a DREAM Act youth and, according to President Obama, should have never been detained. Release Alfonso from detention!”

Please help us raise funds with your contribution to help Alfonso and his family: Help Free DREAMer Alfonso Perez!

— Dream Activist.org: Alfonso Perez

Please:

Alfonso Perez was brought to the United States by his grandmother at four years of age (when his parents abandoned him in Mexico). After twenty years of living in this country, he was detained by I.C.E. on Thursday, July 26th, 2012 at 6:00 a.m. when he walked outside of his apartment to go to work.

He is currently detained at the Henderson Detention Center and has not been provided with shoes, nor has our family been allowed to provide any for him. We need your help to release him, reunite our family, apply for Obama's DREAM deferred action, and fulfill his dream of attending college.

His lifetime calling is to become a Registered Nurse and help heal his community. In fact, he has a track record of working with elderly and disabled people since the age of sixteen. He DREAMs of finishing college and dedicate his life to provide for his family and care for those people who are most in need.

Alfonso is a dedicated father to his fourteen month old baby and a loving partner to his fiancé. He is the sole financial provider for his family and works 10 hours a day, 6 days a week as a landscaper in Las Vegas, Nevada. His family is distraught by his incarceration and his baby misses him a lot.

— Help Free DREAMer Alfonso Perez @ IndieGoGo.com

  1. [1][Undocumented immigrants who would have been eligible for a path to citizenship under the DREAM Act — i.e., people who were brought to the United States as children and have lived and gone to school within the U.S. –CJ.]↩

The Police Beat: Las Vegas Metro Edition

From Rikki Cheese and Spencer Lubitz at ABC 13 Action News:

Civil rights advocates want those treated unfairly by police to speak out

Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) — A group of civil rights advocates want to hear from people who feel they’ve been mistreated by Metro police.

People have been shot, beaten and tasered by Metro officers across the department’s jurisdiction. Civil rights groups hope airing those stories in public forums could help change police behavior.

Mitchell Crooks was beaten by a cop for videotaping a burglary investigation across the street from his home near Desert Inn and Maryland Parkway. Erik Scott was shot and killed at a Costco in Summerlin. Both Caucasian men. Civil rights advocates say they’re not Metro’s usual suspects in officer-involved shootings, or accusations of excessive use of force.

I can’t say whether there’s a conscious racial bias, but certainly the evidence reveals a disproportionate impact on minority populations, and that’s just brought out by the data, Staci Pratt with the ACLU said.

Pratt says 2010 census data shows the largest proportion of officer-involved shooting occur in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods in Clark County.

Advocacy groups also want to hear from people who feel they’ve been mistreated by law enforcement in all ways, and who feel their complaints have not been heard.

Pratt applauds Metro’s recent changes in their use of force policy and for accepting recommendations from the ACLU and NAACP but says officers need to be more sensitive to the people they police.

That may not be a conscious thing on Metro’s part, Pratt said. But it certainly is an issue that needs to be raised and addressed.

It is good that they are doing this. Legal reforms and use of force policies don’t do a damn thing, but here and elsewhere they may be reflections of, and concessions to, something much more poewrful. The only thing that is ever going to restrain police abuse is a culture of popular resistance, public exposure and social accountability for abusive cops, and hard driving community activism.

Support your neighborhood CopWatch.

See also:

Anticopyright. All pages written 1996–2024 by Rad Geek. Feel free to reprint if you like it. This machine kills intellectual monopolists.