Getting busted by Homeland Security
Yesterday I was walking with a friend through Quincy Market in Boston. We noticed a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk and almost immediately an oversized police SUV pulled up to arrest him.
Only it wasn’t the police: it was the feds. Stenciled on the SUV were the words “Department of Homeland Security.” Out stepped an enormous mesomorph––almost certainly on steroids––wearing a black uniform and sun-glasses. I watched him contemplate the homeless man as he slept, donning rubber gloves before waking him to arrest him.
On one level, this is a simple process of rationalization: Homeland Security has to protect “terrorist targets” and since the downtown Boston has historic value, it could conceivably be a terrorist target. (Just like all those roller rinks in the mid-west). But of course there are no terrorists and Homeland Security has to do something, so they begin acting as regular police. But it is still incredibly ironic that a stone’s throw from Paul Revere’s house there are federal officers patrolling the streets and arresting American citizens. My generation is the first in American history to see people being arrested by this so-called, “Department of Homeland Security.”
What would happen if this guy arrested me–say for jay-walking? Would I be put on some terror watch list? Maybe he would put my name in his computer and declare, “Oh, you’re anonymousrex. According to the MIAC report, you’re part of a terrorist hate-group.” Certainly if there were ever a real or imaginary crisis in Boston, this would be the guy making sure I evacuate my home to go to a FEMA camp.
Also near Quincy Market is a holocaust memorial with a famous quotation attributed to Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemoller. To paraphrase that quotation, “First they came for the homeless guy and I didn’t speak up––because I wasn’t a homeless guy. . . . Then they came for me.”
The Obsolete Man
This clip is a synopsis of a Twilight Zone episode called “The Obsolete Man.” It was one of their best episodes and has been embraced by numerous individuals who find themselves at odds with their society. (This particular clip was posted by a Christian millennialist.) I think that everyone who has a stake in higher education must be shown The Obsolete Man. If you are reading this, e-mail it to the president and trustees of your college or university.
Let me preface this by saying that I recently learned that Harvard’s Program in Religion and Secondary Education has been put on hiatus due to funding issues. Granted, I have selfishly given up the fight as a teacher. But the PRSE was one of few entities in my life that I feel a sense of loyalty to. Everyone else at Harvard engaged in sparring and infighting, but not the PRSE—because we had a real fight and it lay outside of academia (I realize that my peers thought of this as “helping people” but for me, meaning and struggle are intimately linked.) So when I saw this notice posted on the PRSE website, I felt a little like Yoda watching the Jedi academy burn down.
Then last night I saw this New York Times article with the headline, “In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth.” (The article has been moved to archives, but subscribers can read it here.) Reading this made me angry and, after sleeping on it, I’m still angry. Whenever that happens I write. This article brought up a lot of long-standing issues I have with the myth of an American meritocracy, titanomachy, and my realization after college that I am what Charles Dickens called, “surplus population.” (See previous blog entry “If a Thousand People with Master’s Degrees Died.”)
I am going to take up the gauntlet of “justifying the worth” of humanities. But the fact that this must be done is an incredibly pathetic comment on our society. Imagine an anthropologist who asks a tribesman about their gods and sacred stories only to be told, “Oh I’m pretty sure we have lots of gods! And stories too! But I don’t know them because learning about them is foolish––anyone who doesn’t fish for sixteen hours a day is a fool.” The tribesman might then ask, “You not only learn your own stories but try to learn those of other tribes, also? Your tribe must be the weakest, laziest, most pathetic people in the world! We’ve been talking for five minutes now and you haven’t caught a single fish!” At the center of this tribal village, naturally, is a heaping pile of rotting fish.
We are rapidly becoming this tribe of demented fishermen. The humanities are under attack because of a misguided consumer model of education, failure on the part of educational institutions to defend their own principals, vague fears or losing our technocratic dominance, and a failure to understand the division of labor.
THE CONSUMER MODEL OF EDUCATION
The primary argument that humanities should not be taught comes from a market perspective on behalf of the students (and more importantly their parents). It goes like this: as consumers, students expect their education to result in a lucrative career. As producers, institutions are obligated to respond to consumer expectations or else the market will destroy them. Colleges that do not teach humanities will prosper: Those that do will have no enrollment and will perish from the earth.
There are so many things wrong with this argument I hardly no wear to start. While it is true that college graduates have higher average salaries, studying something “practical” is no guarantor of financial success. In 2001, I used my BA in religion to drift from temporary job to temporary job. But I stood in line with people who got their degrees in engineers and computer science. By the end of it, former Enron managers were interviewing for the same crappy office jobs as me. So nobody got a job, but at least I studied something interesting and had some wisdom to console me in my misery. The computer science majors didn’t even have that.
Furthermore, this is a country that prides itself on the success of its drop-outs. I once saw a CEO tell a room full of high school students that “the world is run by C students!” The people who praise Bill Gates for dropping out of Harvard to start his own company are the same people who expect college to guarantee financial success.
It actually may turn out that the higher salaries of college graduates are largely a result of networking while in college. Bill Gates did meet his future business partner Steve Ballmer before dropping out of Harvard. For many students, leaving their neighborhood and meeting people from around the country may be as much a boon to their careers as the education they receive.
It is also illogical for institutions to cater to this demand. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say that whenever educators alter their curriculum to accommodate the demands of parents, the result is a watered down curriculum, a devalued degree, and dumber graduates. If the consumers of education really believed that college was simply about vocation, they would send their children to technical colleges, which are far cheaper. But they don’t.
I once met a girl at a party who had just graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. She asked me what my major was and when I said, “religion,” she answered, “Whoooah!” I found out that her major had been communications. I asked, “What exactly do you learn as a communications major?” She said, “You know . . . like how to make a PowerPoint presentation and stuff.”
I couldn’t believe it. PowerPoint was designed so that anyone can teach themselves how to use it. Charging to teach someone PowerPoint is like charging to teach someone how to pee. The state of Texas owes this girl several thousand dollars and an apology. Why did her family send her to a university to learn something she could have learned at a community college or from her 13 year old neighbor? Clearly her family wanted her to learn something “practical” and yet she probably went to UT for reasons that have nothing to do with education—possibly because they have a good football team.
The point is: if Americans were going to abandon the university model in favor of cheap, “practical” education they would have done this long ago. The fact that everyone does not attend a technical or community college proves that institutions do not need to cater to this perceived “market.”
THE ROLE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
The point of education has NEVER been as a means to making money––this is at best a pleasant side effect. The desire to learn seems to be part of the human condition and there is no consensus as to the nature and purpose of education. Free public education was instituted in this country because it was seen as necessary to the survival of a republic. Socrates said that, “Education does what it does.” Educational institutions are aware of this and it is their duty to explain this debate to the American public. That they have capitulated towards a consumer model of education is cowardly, pathetic, and shameful.
If thousands of families were willing to save for a generation to send their students to a college that taught courses on the history of NASCAR––would Harvard rush to start a NASCAR program? Would Yale cut its English department to hire experts on stock cars? If institutions are really following the consumer model of education, then logically they would.
Institutions of higher learning are supposed to stave off barbarism, not cater to it. If Americans really don’t want their minds to be challenged, or to think about life’s larger questions, then colleges and universities rightfully should be destroyed. At least then they would die with honor. Better no university at all than a university that teaches only PowerPoint.
People still want to go to universities: maybe for the network, maybe for the football parties, maybe to get stoned and go to drum circles. Who knows what draws the masses? But as long as they are coming, institutions should defend their philosophy of education. Not to do so is to be guilt of huckstering.
This doesn’t mean that universities should continue to do what they have always done. The Ivory Tower has fueled this wave of anti-intellectualism. This is not defending humanities–this is taking a stand on the nature and purpose of education. Universities must produce and support public intellectuals and must emphasize that their work fosters a strong republic.
TECHNOCRATIC DOMINANCE
What I found most upsetting about the New York Times article was the suggestion that the humanities are a luxury that our country can no longer afford. This is a separate argument from the consumer argument but it is equally absurd.
Let me start with the article’s use of the phrase “technologically complex world.” The implication is that students trained in humanities will lack the technical skills to compete in the job market. This suggestion seems to come from the same school of thought that would charge thousands of dollars to teach someone PowerPoint.
It also implies that America’s technocratic superiority is a function of our number of science majors. This is a fallacy too. Technological breakthroughs are achieved by individuals with natural talent, intelligence, and creativity. In 1954, the federal government spent millions on math and science education in secondary schools. They spent this money because the Soviets had launched Sputnik and they wanted to train a generation of Tony Starkes––children that would build futuristic weapons to protect us from the Russians. But all this curriculum did was inundate students with tedious lab work that taught them to hate science. The result is that many graduate programs in the sciences have empty spaces. However, our military-industrial complex still manages to produce things like death rays and goats that make spider silk (see previous blogs). They can do this, because technological advances are still made by individuals––those few who loved science in spite of the tedious lab work. This emphasis on science over the humanities has brought this country to its current situation: a weak republic with devastating weapons.
OUR SURPLUS POPULATION
The national unemployment rate for January was 8.5%. However that number doesn’t factor in people who work only a part-time job that doesn’t pay the bills or people who have simply stopped looking for work. The actual number of unemployed people is probably over 10%. So 1 in 10 Americans isn’t going to work and we are supposed to think this has something to with the humanities? Does anyone actually believe that if these people had studied PowerPoint instead of Plato they would have jobs?
What these unemployment rates tell us is not that humanities are a luxury but that EVERYTHING is a luxury! We can fire millions of people and society still functions more or less the same. No one is essential, everyone is expendable. This really should not come as a surprise. Tibet was a technologically backwards country with absolutely terrible agricultural resources. And yet Tibetan farmers could support themselves as well as thousands of monks who––economically speaking––contributed nothing whatsoever. If Tibet could do that, how many useless philosophers could America support with our industrial farm equipment and our amber waves of grain?
We cling to the idea that our major in college will determine our financial success because we insist that this country is a meritocracy: The idea that all of our talents and training are ultimately useless and not needed by anyone terrifies us. But we cannot move forward as a society until we realize we have this surplus population and make logical solutions about what to do with it. What ought millions of unnecessary people do all day?
Traditionally, war has been the best way of getting rid of surplus population. In fact, ever since I graduated from college the military was the only entity that was always willing to take me. First they wanted me as a soldier, then as a chaplain. I always interpreted the army’s pitch as, “You are young and male, and we have too many young males. We want to kill you. You and all your brothers.” I have also noticed how many people from my high school are now lawyers. Maybe instead of wars we can simply occupy our surplus population with endless litigation.
Logically, the only thing to do in the face of this surplus population is to support as many bizarre and specialized pursuits as possible. If someone can read Latin and wants to spend their life reading old books––God bless them, that’s one less person you have to compete with for that PowerPoint job. This is the lesson of the Twilight Zone: The humanities professor, the president of the university, the engineers building the death-rays, the bankers who created this financial crisis, the journalists who report on it––they can all drop dead and the world will go on fine without them. We are all obsolete men and women.
Fascism on the B Line
MY MORNING
I live about two and a half miles from campus, but I typically leave about forty minutes early because I ride the B line. For those not familiar with this fair city, the B line is the rectum of Boston’s transportation system. You wait in the wind and rain at an unsheltered stop then you squeeze onto the train with several hundred of your closest friends. Sometimes the doors open only to show the people on the platform that there is no room, then close again. On the B line you aren’t lucky if you can get a seat, you’re lucky if you can get something to grab on to. One morning I counted 20 people surfing in the space between rear doors. Because of all the stops and red lights, it takes me an average of 15 minutes to get to campus. This means the train moves at about 10 miles/hour. I could run certainly two and half miles in fifteen minutes, but it would be tiring. A dispatcher somewhere randomly orders the B line to go “express” skipping ahead anywhere from three to ten stops. This is wonderful if your stop isn’t skipped. If it is, you have to get out and decide whether to walk to your destination or wait for another train. If you are riding with cash or have a cash card, well, MBTA just doubled the cost of your trip.
Only a few years ago, the B line was free above ground––probably because civic planners didn’t think anyone would actually pay for such wretched service. I say all of this so that non-Bostonians can understand why someone might not want to pay to ride the B line.
I get to the stop and already a dozen people are lined up. The train could be around the corner or it could be another twenty minutes. I wait ten minutes and another dozen people show up to stand on this little island of filth and garbage in the middle of Commonwealth Avenue. A train comes. We all watch as it careens through the stop, slowing down just enough to show us the hundreds of passengers packed in like cattle. The B line often reminds of me of Shindler’s List. We continue to wait. When a train finally comes, we’re like pirates boarding a merchant vessel. I’m serious—watch an old pirate movie where a crew of angry corsairs has to get onto another ship as fast as they can using only two little boarding planks. The driver has no time for people to swipe cards: if you board in the front they wave you back as soon as you hold your card up. If you board in the back, you usually just hold your card so the driver could conceivably see it if he bothered to look in the rear-view mirror. Those who have cash are sort of like the Wildebeast with three legs you see on Animal Planet.
When the train starts to roll, this blond woman and an Asian man walk to the center of the train and whip out shiny badges on chains. Now having worked at a high school where we had several unconstitutional drug stings, I know what those badges mean. “Gosh,” I thought, “A drug bust on the B line. What an exciting way to start my morning. It’s a good thing I can’t be hurt by bullets.”
“EVERYBODY SHOW US YOUR PASSES!”
Are you fucking kidding me? I watch as they harass several people who didn’t hold their passes high enough when they boarded, before they issue tickets for “fare evasion” to two people. Fare evasion results in a $15 ticket and the offender’s name is put in a registry. A second offense is $100. Fortunately I purchase monthly passes, but I have evaded fares on the B line. Everyone in this city who rides the B line has ridden without paying––probably including these two undercover officers.
WHY THIS IS WRONG
Now I do not hate police officers. I’ve trained with many of them, even shared a beer with them. But what I saw today is morally wrong and damaging to a free society. I don’t believe that undercover officers should be used for any reason. The uniform symbolizes an open and honest relationship with the community. It is cowards, predators, criminals, and terrorists that try to blend in with the population. I think the war on drugs is fundamentally racist and a step down the road to fascism. In fact, in Naomi Wolf’s 10 steps to fascism, that’s step 4: create a network of police spies. Mussolini did it. Hitler did it. Now the MBTA is doing it.
But even if you think narcs are warranted to catch drug dealers, how can anyone defend using undercover officers to catch fare evaders? I didn’t break any laws today but now I will forever be paranoid that a fellow passenger might be a cop. A uniformed cop on the B line wouldn’t bother me––but a fascist spy definitely does. This creates a feeling of alienation from other Bostonians. I have to ride the B line everyday and now I will have a vague feeling of uneasiness. If I had more time, I could sue the city for emotional damages. I might not win, but I think there are serious grounds for a case and it would change the level of discourse about undercover police. Read: If you are unemployed and ride the B line, why not find a lawyer who works on commission and sue? Don’t you think sitting next to narcs everyday is stressful?
I also found a copy of one of these citations here. I don’t see a court date here. I find this extremely troubling. Even in a traffic ticket, you are given a day in court and the arresting officer has to show up. If anyone knows the legal apparatus surrounding these tickets please post it here.
Finally, let’s be clear: this is using police for the sole purpose of revenue collection. Traffic tickets are about revenue collection too, but there is at least the excuse that speeders cause traffic accidents (which they do.) But no one can claim that a public interest is served in stopping fare evasion or that fare evaders represent a threat to the populace. If MBTA wants more money, they should hire someone to collect fares in the back of the car. Lord knows there is no shortage of unemployed people in Boston. The job of the police is to protect the public, and they can’t do that if they are riding the B line looking for “fare evaders.”
WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT THIS
Historically, using increasingly violent methods to extract revenue from the populace has not played well in Boston. This is a moral issue and it will get worse unless moral citizens take steps to fight it. Here are some ideas I’ve had:
In the long run, Boston badly needs a strong citizen police-review board. Efforts to create such an entity began in 2004 when police SHOT VICTORIA SNELGROVE IN THE EYE with a pepper-spray pellet, killing her (Remember that?) The board was created but I couldn’t find any news about it after 2007. At that time, the BPDs Internal Affairs Department was required to turn over dismissed cases of police misconduct to a panel of citizens––but had refused to turn over a single case. Someone needs to find out what happened to that board and get it going again.
Here are some short-term solutions:
1) Write letters. Probably the most effective place to send letters is the Boston Globe. Writing mayor Menino probably won’t help, since he’s been mayor since 1993 and now seems comfortable doing whatever he feels like. Writing city council might be more productive.
2) Use Copwatch.com. This is the most active entity for reporting cases of police abuse. An undercover officer giving you a ticket is not abuse, but they resources for protestors.
3) Don’t carry ID on the B line. It is not a crime not to carry ID and it’s not like you need your driver’s license on the B line. Obviously lying about your identity is illegal. But if all fare evaders had to be trusted to give truthful information, MBTA might rethink their sting operations. Remember Gandhi burned registration cards in Africa.
4) Narc on the narcs. I think it would be really interesting to take a picture of arresting officers using camera phones and upload them onto a website. This is a gray area legally. My prediction is that a court would decide such a website violates officer safety. However, this could lead to a high profile case that would embarrass advocates of undercover police. Alternatively, you could just ask for the name and badge number of the arresting officer and put that up on a website. They should sign their name on the ticket anyway.
5) Chalk is a great tool for protest. Legally, chalk is not vandalism because it just washes away. What if every stop on the B line contained messages that MBTA is destroying civic polity by using fascist tactics to collect revenue? I have only recently moved back to Boston, but my experience today made me want to get involved in local politics.
I would love to hear other people’s thoughts on this. Maybe there are already campaigns underway that I don’t know about?
On owning a rifle
For the first time in my life, I am considering owning a rifle. Despite being voted most likely to be a terrorist in high school, being an avid martial artist, and the owner of a several medieval weapons, I have never had any interest in owning a gun. In fact, I have fired a gun only once and found it somewhat tedious.
I do not need a firearm to protect myself from criminals. The criminal threat, like the terrorist threat, is almost entirely made up. Books like Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun have shown that most of the people killed by firearms in the inner city are––surprise––teenagers from the inner city. And Michael Moore has convinced me that gang members get many of their guns from the suburbs, where they were originally purchased for protection from inner city criminals. Don’t forget I educated both the victims and perpetrators of inner city violence for three years. At any rate, if I were afraid of criminals, I would purchase a pistol.
Alex Jones made the most compelling argument for gun ownership I have ever heard: and it had nothing to do with self defense. He said that throughout history, weapons were owned by free people and elites. It was the slaves who were deprived of weapons.
I want to own a rifle because I think that a new population of armed liberals may be the best defense against martial law, the end of our civil rights, and a tyrannical world government using the armies and weapons of a fascist America as its imperial hit man.
I arrived at this conclusion after reading The End of America by Rhode Scholar and third wave feminist Naomi Wolf. Like me, Wolf is from a demographic that strongly supports gun control. However, in researching her book, Wolf came to the painful conclusion that a well-armed militia was the only defense against a “jannisary” army that is loyal only to the executive.
Then Naomi Wolf went on the Alex Jones Show to talk about martial law. Naomi Wolf and Alex Jones should definitely NOT have anything to talk about. Jones is a college drop out who has lived in Texas his entire life, owns numerous guns, and is rapidly pro-life. Wolf is a Jew from San Francisco who legitimized the term “hooking up.” Only when martial law is a serious threat could this conversation have occurred.
Jones and Wolf both discussed the steps we have taken towards martial law, the need for an armed population, and the circumstances under which armed resistance would become necessary. Jones has been contacted by several people claiming they were hired by FEMA to install electricity and do other contracting work for large “camps” that FEMA has created around the country. One of them reported that FEMA had TRAIN CARS FITTED WITH SHACKLES for transporting populations to the camp. “That’s the line,” said Jones, “When the army comes to your house and says you have go to a FEMA camp, that’s the time for armed resistance.”
(Incidentally, there is evidence that FEMA is hiring thousands of preachers to help them in pacifying the population. These preachers are to cite Romans 13 to their congregations and instruct them to cooperate with the government.)
Apparently Wolf is not the only liberal to change her views on gun control. The owner of an Austin gun store called the show to say he had never seen so many strange people in his store stocking up on ammunition––many of them educated liberals. He reported a “grannie” purchasing an assault shotgun. When he asked why she needed it, she answered that she feared martial law.
The point of owning a rifle is not to use it. Even though I have already been put on every government watch list as of the fourth paragraph of this blog, I am not advocating a violent revolution. We should own rifles because the American people are already engaged in an unstated cold war with the American government.
It’s been two years since Blackwater was deployed on the streets of a US city where they killed American citizens. They “heard some gang-bangers” and fired in the direction of the noise. Remember, the good old days when all we had was police brutality? Blackwater are fucking mercenaries! The very people Thomas Jefferson said warranted a violent revolution in The Declaration of Independence!
According to the other Naomi––Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, it is part of Blackwater’s business plan that they will get jobs not in foreign countries but in American cities, quelling civil unrest.
In addition to mercenaries, the NorthCom brigade was set up shortly after September 11th as part of Homeland Security. This is a military unit whose sole purpose is to respond to threats within the United States––essentially to declare martial law. Such a unit would have originally been inconceivable under posse commitatus, but recent modifications to the Insurrection Act allow the president to deploy troops if there is a natural disaster, an epidemic, terrorism, or the catchall “conspiracy.”
Finally, let’s not forget all the high-tech “non-lethal weapons that have been prepared for use on the American people. I write this not far from Kenmore Square in Boston where I girl was shot in the eye and killed by police with rubber bullets. Last month I saw a riot cop guarding Bank of America with his ninja staff on proud display. I have already posted on this blog images of sonic weapons deployed in New York. Remember those microwave weapons? It’s now been admitted that they’re death-rays: that a dial can be turned so that the beam will kill you instead of just cooking your skin.
I wish Obama would simply make all this go away, but I have little hope of that. All of this power that the Bush administration has gathered to the executive is like Tolkien’s “one ring.” What president would willingly give that power up. All I’ve heard Obama talk about reversing is stem-cell research. As if stem-cells are what we’ve all been worried about for the last 8 years.
I have watched this escalation for seven years and what have I done? I’ve written some angry letters, supported some mainstream democrats, written some blogs. Have I done anything to really show outrage? Or to show that Americans will not tolerate the erosion of our civil rights? Have you? I think having a rifle in the basement would be a step towards matching the armies of mercenaries, and death rays arrayed against us.
My response to Starbucks goes RED day
I posted this on the facebook page I was invited to for “Starbucks goes RED day” in which Starbucks will donate 5 cents to combat AIDS in Africa for every “hand crafted beverage” purchased. (I assume hand crafted beverages cost at least $3, so if you buy a coffee the Africans get squat.)
My message was immediately drowned in a sea of:
I heart Starbucks ; ) !!!! WOOT!
And since I got a bit carried a way in writing this message, I am reprinting it here. I understand that facebook has to pay the bills, which means lame crap like having a giant corporation invite me to an “event.” But I reserve the right to make fun of this lame crap. Enjoy.
This is bullshit. You buy a $5 coffee and 5 cents goes to fight AIDS in Africa. Are you kidding me?! So if I spend $300 at Starbucks they can buy a stamp to mail the check? $1000 and they can buy 1 condom? And since when does Starbucks sell “hand-crafted beverages?” I’ll tell you what’s happening: Starbucks is getting totally killed by this economy and they will do anything to save themselves.
So how about this: I will patronize Starbucks but they have to ADMIT they’re pretentious. No Starbucks goes (RED) Day. Give me a “Starbucks admits to being wannabe Euro-trash who sell overpriced coffee Day.” When you order, the barrista has to say, “Thanks for putting up with Starbucks and their nonsense today.” On THAT day, I will buy a hand-crafted beverage. And it will taste sweet.
Police State
I went through Harvard Square today and watched a mob in front of Citi Bank protesting the bailout. All of the singing and drum beating (there were drums) seemed like a waste of energy to me. Alex Jones says the most effective form of protest is to find the home address of politicians and CEOs and show up outside their home with a bullhorn.
I kept walking and passed Bank of America. I hate Bank of America but I am forced to have an account with them while I live in Boston. Standing in front of the bank was a riot cop in black uniform. He was armed to the teeth with zip-ties and carried one of these new “cop quarter-staves” I’ve been seeing lately.
A word about this weapon: I don’t know when cops first began buying and training with them but I did see footage of them being used on civilians in Denver. From my own weapons training I know what this weapon is for. First, it is designed to be intimidating. This thing is about a three feet long, painted black, and fits quite nicely with Teddy Roosevelt’s idea of diplomacy.
But the second reason for these night sticks is that they allow you hit civilians (let’s be honest here, these aren’t for using on criminals) with the two butts of the weapon. By contrast, a night-stick has a handle and a “business end” used to beat people. You can hit someone just as hard with the butt of a stick but IT DOESN’T LOOK AS VIOLENT when you do it. In other words, this weapon is PR applied to beating people with blunt objects. If a journalist snaps a picture of this cop hitting me in the jaw with the end of a night stick, this would make a sensational picture. It would evoke the civil rights movement and raise resentment of police. On the otherhand, if the cop inflicts the same strike with the butt of a quater-staff, it looks far more mild. The picture might seem as though I had accidentally walked into the officer’s weapon.
I came very close to asking the officer if he was there to protect Bank of America from protesters but thought better of it.
When I came back an hour later, the protest had ended and–of course–the riot cop was no longer guarding Bank of America. In his place was a hired goon. That’s the only way I can describe this guy: he had a collared shirt with the logo of some private security company and swaggered about making sure everyone in the bank could see his hand gun. He had smarmy mustache and looked exactly like the white guy from an ’80s cop drama.
The cops were still around though. In walking from Harvard Yard to the bus stop I passed one cruiser and an oversized SUV which I have never seen the Boston police use before.
Isn’t this use of police a form of corporate welfare? How much of our tax-dollars did it cost to train and equipment that riot cop? How much are we paying him to guard Bank of America? Probably something like $40/hour. Someone probably got murdered in Roxbury today and I can bet there were no black uniformed cops to protect people with their quarter-staves.
Unfortunately, I think this sort of thing is going to become increasingly common as the financial crisis worsens. If you want a nice scare do a Google News search for “Northcom” and see what comes up. Or if you some spare time and a strong stomach, I recommend reading this.
Death Rays in Denver
Imagine you’re a super-villain. You have $18 million to spend on high-tech weaponry to use against the American people. What would you buy? A weather machine? Sharks with freakin’ lasers on their heads? No, of course not. You buy a death ray.
The city of Denver received $50 million in federal money for security expenses for the DNC. The city’s police department is spending $18 million on new equipment but refuses to say what they bought. The ACLU is currently suing for this information while the Denver Department of Safety claims that revealing what high-tech weaponry our police possess would be against the public good.
In July, Denver told the ACLU that no high-tech or unconventional weaponry had been purchased. The DNC has come and gone with minimal violence. Police were seen firing rounds that exploded into blinding pepper powder as well as using armored vehicles and what appear to be ninja bo-staves. (Maybe Napoleon Dynamite now works for the Denver 5-0). Although no death-rays were used in Denver, some are claiming that they saw such weapons.
In my previous post, Death-rays in Iraq, I warned that death-rays would be used against protesters and now that day is almost here. The new toys which the Denver police have acquired with my federal tax dollars may include include: the LRAD, a sonic ray gun and the ADS a microwave weapon. Fox news also promoted a rumor that the DPD has acquired a “crap cannon.” This weapon, also called “the brown note,” is designed to emit a sonic frequency that causes involuntary contractions of the lower intestines (i.e. a ray that makes you shit yourself.)
According to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, these weapons SHOULD be used on American protestors as this will make them more justifiable for use against civilians in Iraq and elsewhere.
We are rapidly advancing into an Orwellian nightmare. This is a cross-roads: either the public will become outraged that these weapons are being researched and purchased by our government, or else we will come to accept their presence as another “unpleasant” aspect of modern life. This missive will attempt to disseminate some information about these weapons, look at the evidence as to whether they were present in Denver, and finally present homework as to what can be done about them.
Let’s start with the LRAD (Long range Acoustic Device). This “non-lethal” weapon is made by the American Technology Corporation (ATCO). It was originally marketed to the military but is now being sold to local law enforcement and private security companies (mercenaries.) It is marketed as a communication device capable of emitting a “deterrent tone.” You say deterrent tone. I say sonic death ray.
LRADs could be seen everywhere in New York City during the 2004 Republican convention but were never used. Most people didn’t even know what they were. Note the large black dish mounted on the police hummer below:
An LRAD at the 2004 RNC
However, I DID find footage of the LRAD in action against unarmed civilians.
This footage made me sick to my stomach. About three minutes in, you can see the LRAD being used on protestors in Georgia!
Golly, I wonder where Georgia got all this high-tech weaponry? I mean the US military just starting using this weapon a few years ago and already Georgia has it?
This is further evidence that Georgia’s attack on Russian citizens in South Ossetia was engineered by the US government. I strongly suspect that this attack was encouraged so that Russia could be presented as an enemy in time for elections. (Youtube is crawling with posts from angry Ossetians saying they were attacked by US special forces. I wish I could read Cyrllic.) I can’t go into this here, it deserves another post.
Next, the Active Denial System (ADS). This is a microwave weapon that makes you feel like your skin is on fire. Alex Jones warned of this device for years and years but no one took him seriously. Then it was featured on 60 minutes.
And early ADS (Raytheon
I found an interview with one Federal Agent “Dave Gaubatz.” He claims the ADS was never intended as non-lethal technology and was always intended as a death-ray. This seems far more likely to me. At any rate, it is a moot point as a non-lethal microwave frequency can always be modified into a lethal one.
Raytheon has made a smaller version of the ADS called “The Silent Guardian.” The FCC has allowed Raytheon to market this weapon to law-enforcement so it is totally reasonable to assume that Denver spent some of their $18 million weapons-shopping-spree on a Silent Guardian.
Alex Jones claims to have video-taped a police vehicle outfitted with and ADS. Here is the footage:
What is this thing? It appears to be a newly purchased, black police vehicle. As to its purpose—we will never know unless the ACLU wins their lawsuit.
Here is another link claiming to show an active denial system mounted on a police vehicle. I think that this is almost certainly the hatch of the vehicle and not a weapon. However, watching the “conventional weapons” used by the Denver police is disturbing enough.
Homework:
1) Tell everyone you know about these weapons. This needs to become a political issue. A lot of effort has gone into hiding the existence of these weapons and using misleading information to describe what they do. It needs to become opprobrium if a company is contributing to this research or if elected officials are using your tax dollars to purchase death rays.
2) We need to bankrupt companies that research these weapons. ATCO currently has representatives to sell their weapons in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. They invest in the suppression of democracy around the world. You should not invest in these companies and you should make sure mutual funds and other portfolios are clean too. More importantly, this means not voting for elected officials that do business with these people. Almost all of their contracts are either to the military or law enforcement. That means these companies are run by our tax-dollars. Without us, they die.
The American Technology Corporation is evil. They make sonic weapons.
Raytheon is evil. They make microwave weapons.
3) If you live in Denver, you should seriously consider whether you want this man
in charge of your safety. This guy’s department claimed it goes against your safety to know how $18 million in federal money was spent. If you believe ignorance is freedom, then by all means let him stay in office. Otherwise:
Here is his e-mail address: Alvin.LaCabe@denvergov.org
Here is his phone number: (720) 913-6020.
I declare war on Comcast
I hadn’t planned to do much blogging this summer. I’m trying to crank out a manuscript at the pace of about 100 pages a month. I’m also putting the finishing touches on two journal articles. And then I’m moving to another state. But I have to write about Comcast.
Tonight I learned that Comcast has literally put the life of someone I care about in danger. How can an incompetent cable and Internet provider threaten someone’s life? Simple: my friend is in law enforcement and has to keep their address private so that convicted criminals cannot take revenge by attacking my friend in their sleep. So my friend gets a landline through Comcast and pays an additional $1.50 a month just for privacy.
In typical Comcast fashion, they took my friend’s money and failed to provide the promised services. Now my friend has to find a new place to live and I would not want to be the first person to move into that apartment after it has been vacated. Naturally my friend is suing Comcast for moving expenses, but that isn’t enough.
Comcast: Pick up your sword. Anonymous Rex declares war on you. This will not end until one of us is dead.
I am going to begin by presenting the case for why Comcast deserves to die before discussing the legal and ethical dimensions of my battle plan. Let’s start with the facts. The CEO of Comast is Brian L Roberts. The company employs about 8,7000 people that serve about 25 million customers. Last year, Comcast earned about 2.5 billion in profits. And if you didn’t know any of that, you probably knew this: Comcast has the worst customer service in the world.
I’m not kidding. In 2004 and 2007, the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey found that Comcast had the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency in the country, including the Internal Revenue Service and the Transportation Safety Authority.
How is Comcast so bad? I think they actually try to suck. Check this out:
You think THAT’s bad! A mother in Illinois received a bill addressed to “Dog Bitch.”
Best of all: try a Google search for “Comcast sucks.” A lot of hits right? But did you happen to notice that there is a SPONSORED LINK for Comcast Customer Care. That’s right: so many people hate Comcast, that they have made it part of their business plan and PAID GOOGLE to have their propaganda linked to the words “Comcast Sucks.” (Note to the petty: every time you click this link, it costs Comcast money.) Frank Eliason, a Comcast representative who has posted on this blog, is also part of this tactic.
OK, so Comcast has shitty customer service and you probably shouldn’t deal with them. That’s capitalism, right? Wrong. A recent study found that as Comcast’s customer satisfaction eroded by 7% over the past year, revenue increased by 12%. How can a company flourish even as it is universally hated by its customers? Where is the invisible hand of the market?
Of course everyone knows how Comcast does this: by being a monopoly. In this day and age you really HAVE to have a high-speed internet connection and in many communities, Comcast is the only game in town. If it weren’t for this fact, Comcast would never be the media giant that it is.
Comcast is more than just a monopoly. It basically shits on the entire notion of a free market. They see capital not as a way to improve production and lower costs but as a way to consolidate power through lobbying and bullying their customers. That’s not what Adam Smith imagined. That’s not even capitalism, that’s war on the consumers. Even if you’re a right-winger, even if you’re Milton Friedman, Comcast should be your enemy.
Would you want a private company to replace the US post office, charge you $30 a month for sending letters, and give you a shitty customer help line to call? Of course not! Americans have a right to a postal system and 99% of the time my letters get there. We have a right to high-speed internet and the local government should provide it, not Comcast. Philadelphia, the city where Comcast is headquartered, offers free wifi! Has this created a crushing tax burden on Philadelphians? No? Could that be cause the city of Philadelphia didn’t make 2.5 billion dollars by offering free wifi?
Now the worst part. What is Comcast doing with the 2.5 billion it took in last year? You think their using it to improve customer service? Maybe investing in better infrastructure to lower the cost of their product? Of course not! Comcast is using our money to take away our basic freedoms. They have already established a monopoly for internet access, but now they are using their money and influence in a bid to control the internet itself:
Comcast has violated Net Neutrality. They are under investigation by the FCC for “traffic shaping”—interfering with what you can access on the internet. This is a violation of our rights as Americans. In some cases, efforts to control Internet access have been followed up with harassing phone-calls:
You can go to this link to see leaked internal memos informing Comcast employees to lie about these practices
Essentially, the ultimate goal of Comcast is to reduce America to serfdom. They will perfect a system in which you must purchase cable, Internet and phone access from Comcast and pay them absolutely anything they ask for. Comcast will this money to control the media and to lobby for further control taking away your choice as a consumer and your freedom of speech. Comcast’s future is a boot stomping on a human face for eternity. It is the duty of every American to take down this corporation.
The solution.
I am shocked to see how many websites dedicated to hating Comcast have rolled over to the enemy. Consider this post from Comcastmustdie.com:
“Actually, I have no deathwish for Comcast or any other gigantic, blundering, greedy, arrogant corporate monstrosity, What I do have is the earnest desire for such companies to change their ways.”
Comcast will not change their ways. They have invested into pretending to change their ways, but this is not at all the same thing. Comcast CANNOT change their ways. They are a corporation and corporations are legally obligated to make as much profit as possible. If Comcast ever did change its ways, Brian Roberts would be fired and replaced with someone worse.
Comcast must be destroyed utterly and replace either with a free market of competing internet providers or else a public service controlled by the people. The fight against Comcast is four fold front: Financial, Legal, Social, and Revolutionary.
Financial
Let’s start with the obvious. Don’t give Comcast any money. Giving money to Comcast is like giving bullets to a terrorist. They will only it against you. All of Comcast’s power, their corruption of our government, their censorship, is facilitated by our money. If we starve the beast, it will die.
Comcast betrayed me (see previous post) so I’m boycotting them. Obviously, since your reading this I have found other ways of accessing the internet. I live about five minutes away from a coffee shop with free wireless. Comcast wanted $60 a month just for Internet access. That’s 30 cups of coffee and daily Internet access. I’ve actually been more productive since dumping Comcast because I only use the Internet when I really need it.
Now we already know that Comcast reads this blog because their customer service reps have posted on it. I’m sure part of Comcast’s business plan already entails identifying small business like my local coffee shop and preventing them from offering free wireless. This is why boycotting is not enough.
While I’m on the subject of finance, if you have any stock in Comcast you should sell it. Owning Comcast stock is immoral. Also don’t invest in any of their subsidiaries.
Legal
First of all, everyone needs to go and petition their elected officials for The Net Neutrality Act.
This will help to combat Comcast’s bid for greater control over the internet and reducing the American people to serfdom.
We must also fight Comcast at the local level. Comcast spends millions of dollars annually on government relationships. Regularly, Comcast employs the spouses, sons and daughters of influential mayors, councilmen, commissioners, and other officials to assure its continued preferred market allocations.
If you find out a local politician has sold your town out to Comcast in exchange for a cushy job for their son, you must activate local Comcast haters and vote this person out of office.
Finally, there is recourse in some communities that form Franchise Agreements with Comcast. If you become aware of Comcast forming such a relationship with your local government, you should attend the town meeting and explain that this is inviting evil into your town.
Social
Tell the people. Increase public awareness of Comcast’s evil. Not just their shitty customer service, which is infamous, but tell your friends and co-workers about all of the underhanded and dirty tactics they use. Join the petition at FuckComcast.com.
Revolution
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a student of Reinhold Neibuhr, also supported boycotts and famously stated that, “It is just to break an unjust law.”
Let’s start by sharing wireless. If you share WiFi with your neighbor, you are probably robbing Comcast of $30-60/month. That’s starving the beast. By the way, sharing WiFi is a third degree felony and a man in Florida was recently tried for it.
However, he was reported by a man who saw him parked outside his house. (Why this guy called the police instead of inventing a password is beyond me.) And why is this a felony instead of a misdemeanor? $100 says Comcast’s “influenced” local politicians to giving this victimless crime a stiffer penalty.
But as we starve the beast it will be harder and harder for Comcast to prosecute offenders. Remember when the record companies tried to prosecute everyone that was sharing MP3s? Seriously, if the corporations had their way they would make public libraries illegal.
Another revolutionary resource are antennae. These devices will plug into your USB port and allow you to pirate WiFi signals from farther away. You can also modify them with a coffee can to make a sort of radar dish.
Do you know who Mona “The Hammer” Shaw is?
She is a 75 year old woman from Bristow, Virginia. She and her husband waited in mid-August in a customer service line for two hours to speak the manager, only to be told that the manager had already left. So Mona returned to the Comcast office with a claw hammer and destroyed a keyboard, a computer monitor and a telephone.
Mona has received praise from a variety of media sources but always with the caveat that her acts were “inappropriate.”
Well let me say this: Mona “The Hammer” Shaw is an American hero, her actions were absolutely appropriate, and I wish this woman were my blood relation. Sing with me (Firefly fans, you know the tune):
“The hero of Bristow, the gal they call SHAW!”
Seriously, every old person in America who has been mistreated by Comcast should become a Mona Shaw. And this isn’t just about her age. Mona is part of the greatest generation. She fought the Nazis. Not like Brian L Roberts and his spineless generation, the baby-boomers.
Potential Mona Shaw’s should know that Comcast is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and also has corporate offices in Houston, Detroit, Denver,and Manchester, NH.
Finally, let’s talk about these scabs that were hired by Comcast to fill seats and undermined democracy at an FCC hearing in Boston. I will be in Boston soon, where another FCC hearing is being planned. Scabs should not cross the path of Anonymous Rex.
Soy Veganza.
Soy LaNoche
Kevin James is an idiot
I’ve been too busy to do much blogging lately between the end of the school year, preparing to move, and a manuscript due this fall. But just LOOK at this:
First a press secretary that doesn’t know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was and now this. You can’t blame the schools for this one either. Kevin James could have easily looked up Chamberlian or “appeasement” on Wikipedia before going on air. Hell, he probably has a Blackberry or something so he could have done it in the cab-ride over.
I’m generally not one for big government but I think that abusing history to attack a political figure should be illegal. Of all the threats to Democracy, that’s a pretty serious one. And aren’t we tired of Democrats and Republicans comparing each other to Hitler? Doesn’t that desecrate the greatest generation that died fighting Hitler? Not to mention the 11 million people Hitler killed? All just to make a nasty insult for a mud-slinger to keep in his bucket.
This law would be almost impossible to prosecute and that’s probably best. I don’t really care if Kevin James goes to jail. But as a society we need to recognize that we did is not only stupid, it’s wrong.
The government is evil
Today I found this story courtesy of Alex Jones.
In a previous post someone commented that they doubted Jones’ claims about CPS abducting and torturing children. I am not a parent and, despite my job, I don’t have a lot of experience working with CPS. But this story about a child put into foster care because his dad accidentally bought him a lemonde chilled me. I lived in Anne Arbor in the fourth grade. My parents aren’t that hip. This could have easily have been me in that foster home.
Note the comments by Don Duquette at the end of the article: he expresses surprise that the father was only separated from his son for a week and admits that CPS’s emergency removal powers are out of control. Any emergency powers are by definition going to be out of control! Positions of power attract evil people. The founding fathers knew that. Hell, the Roman senate knew that. Alex Jones commented on this story, “Where do you think pedophiles work?” While I have never seen evidence that CPS hires a large number of pedophiles, the theory makes perfect sense. If I were a pedophile, I would work for CPS. I were a sadist, I would seek a job as a prison guard or in law enforcement. If I enjoyed murdering people I would join the military.
This was a tenured faculty member in a town where the university pretty much runs everything. He had time, money, and resources. I can’t help but think about my students, many of whom are teenage mothers and fathers. What if this happened to them? The answer is simple–they would never see their children again, it would not be reported in the news, and no one would blog about it. It would just be one more awful thing that happens in a long string of awful things that is the life of an American living in poverty.
Alex Jones of course thinks that this part of an elaborate plot to destroy the family unit and to enslave humanity. It’s possible. That tactic is mentioned by George Orwell in 1984. His ideas about monster states were formed by his own work as an imperial police officer and the likes of Karl Rove have certainly adopted other “Orwellian devices” in their quest for power.
But here is what I think really happened: the CPS emergency powers were signed into law because legislators and their constituencies formed a mental picture of an otherized abusive parent. A parent that was poor and black and lived in the ghetto and that any child would be privilleged to get away from. Only when there is a breach in selective enforcement and the victim is a middle-class white family from the suburbs do we question whether this law is just.
