SURPRISE, a cop is caught beating a Mexicano who lies on the ground while shouting slurs at him.

Obviously, the cop is racist. Worse, he is a fifteen year veteran on the force. This is not the first time he has done this. Were it not for the ubiquity of video in the hands of everyday citizens, these incidents would still be happening without witnesses or being reported.

The anchor on the television clip at FOX doesn’t play the police officer’s entire statement, so I don’t know if he apologizes to the innocent victim of his hateful brutality directly. Which is weird, but then again, not. I hear him express regret at bringing dishonor to the force, embarrassing his colleagues, and acting not in a “professional manner” before he finally gets around to apologizing to the Latino Community because he says he knows his “words cut deep.”

What??? Your words? Ay. Save your tears, dude. Sheesh. You and Glenn Beck.

The anchors say Officer Racista was responding to a tip called in where a man claimed four Mexicans with a machete robbed him. I say anonymous tipsters work hand in hand with William Gheen and FAIR and CIS and NumbersUSA and Stormfront and random teenagers in Long Island and Arizona and New York and California and Patchogue and Russell Pearce and Joe Arpaio and random gurgling cesspits of latent police racism—maybe without knowing it, all tapped into the same dank vein, the same gross vibe, all wanting to eradicate my people and our legacy on this continent, all handmaidens in the long war on the indigenous.

I note it here so I have a post to link to later when I speak (once again) about how the law in this land, and the prison system in this land are arms that work together with many other factors to bring sanctioned destruction on gente.

Mala at VivirLatino offers an important political reminder that many of us constantly have to remind DC folk:

The point is that laws like SB1070 and the current Comprehensive Immigration Reform framework put out there by Senator biometric Chuck Schumer works from the default position that immigrants, painted broadly as Latinos, painted broadly as Mexicans are criminals. It works from the framework that we need to prove ourselves worthy of humane treatment via speaking proper English, paying fines disguised as taxes, getting to the back of the line. Resistance to this, asking for legalization and/or basic human rights is seen as ungrateful and as an unwillingness to play the political game we asked to swallow in the name of political efficiency.

I am happy to see the boycotts and the civil disobedience in response to SB1070 just as I am happy to stand on a corner of my hood with my hija just talking to my vecinos about what this means for ALL of us. Pero I am bothered by the treatment of what happened to this man in Seattle, the disrespect towards the lives of our hermanos andhijas, and the accolades paid to Democrats for moving forward on a CIR plan that takes its lead from Arpaio. I am bothered that too many being credited with leading the movement talk about all of these things as if they are separate. As if one monster isn’t feeding the others and are all being led by the same master.

Kai Wright at Racewire agrees, and points out who bankrolls that monster as well as where the slime trail leads:

The officer’s obnoxious language can easily overshadow a deeper concern the video betrays: a casual and capricious use of police violence when confronting “gang” suspects. The fact that the offending officers are from a special gang unit is significant; the presumably elite special forces that federal dollars have supported in police departments around the country have long been criticized as acting with too little oversight as they militarize communities of color. As I’ve written previously, incidents like these exist along a spectrum of police violence that ends with the high-profile suspect-shootings that draw national outrage.

It’s horrible. And it’s the reality on the ground. Every day and for years. Any bets on the verdict of any investigation launched to determine his guilt?

Rituals and roles. Bodies and Souls.

the feedback loop of positive resistance and support

This is what needs to be understood by anyone warning me off of linking to (admittedly reactionary) trailers like Machete. Or the tone of my writing. This is what needs to be understood by online typists who muse that the Arizona Boycott will “surely backfire.” Cuéntame, in our interview a couple months ago, even asked me (among many other questions) if I thought I was making things worse with my strong stances! O, Cuéntame. I hardly knew ye. (But welcome to Facebook.) Only if you consider years of email responses from raza (and others) thanking me for stirring their fires and helping keep them going “making things worse.” Look, people. Indian-killing sentiment and brutality ain’t new! I call it the Long War for a reason. And guess what? It won’t get better by those being targeted and hunted stooping even lower and being even quieter. It will end when you stop asking those standing up to shhhhhh and start opening your mouth and standing with us. And loudly.

This is why black and brown and gold and red unite in so many cases to push back on white supremacy and racist currents and actions in our society. I welcome as many gente to join us as want to. We already understand what is at stake, and how long it has been at stake. We understand this danger. We all know it always awaits. We all  know the law forgives the violence in this direction. We know the TV stations don’t care much about violence in this direction. We know how it all ties together, in law, legislation, and media saturation. We know we are stronger standing together.

EUGENE, OREGON CONTINUES ITS WOEFUL TASER TRIALS, fumbling with this new electric torture device that has cops in a tizzy from coast to coast.

I covered the very first use of Tasers in Eugene, Oregon while working for MTV’s Street Team in 2008. I also covered the fifth use of tasers here in Eugene, when demonstrating college student Ian Van Ornum was tazed to the ground until he had seizures (video here, and embedded below; article here). +/-»

Well, now we have another incident of Taser abuse in Eugene, Oregon (sombrero tip to Angry Asian Man) and believe it or not, it’s by the same cop who tazed Van Ornum. This time, he sent 50,000 volts into the body of a human being for Sleeping While Chinese.

The same Eugene police officer who used a Taser to subdue a protester last year in downtown Eugene is at the center of another high-profile stun gun incident — this one involving a Chinese, non-English-speaking college student whom the officer shocked during an ill-fated confrontation last month in west Eugene. …

This isn’t the first time Warden has faced Taser-related criticism. In May 2008, he used the weapon to control anti-pesticide protester Ian Van Ornum at a downtown rally while another officer struggled to handcuff the University of Oregon student.

Several witnesses charged that Warden unjustly used the Taser on Van Ornum, who was later convicted of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

Van Ornum filed a formal complaint with the city against Warden and other officers involved in his arrest, which prompted a city investigation into their actions.

That’s about the connection to Van Ornum. Here’s the recent result of our new Electric Sadism Machines:

An investigation is under way to determine whether a Eugene police officer overreacted when he used a Taser stun gun to subdue a foreign college student who the officer mistakenly believed was trespassing in a west Eugene apartment.

The male student is a resident of an Asian country who does not speak English. He is involved in a University of Oregon program, but it is unclear whether he is an enrolled student, city Police Auditor Mark Gissiner said.

The incident unfolded the evening of Sept. 22 when a prospective tenant of an apartment on West 11th Avenue saw a man sleeping inside and reported it to police.

The property’s landlord, Timothy Breen of Eugene, said police called him about the initial report. Breen — who said transients had caused trouble at the complex before — met officers at the apartment complex and told them that he believed the unit should have been vacant.

A few minutes later, Breen said, he overheard the sound of a stun gun being deployed. Officers then came outside and spoke to Breen.

It was then that the landlord realized that the two Asian men inside the apartment had picked up keys for the unit from his office about three hours earlier.

The last time Officer Judd Warden was accused of discharging his Taser in an inappropriate way, the Lane County District Attorney pulled some sneaky stuff. Before Cristina Beamud finished auditing the situation to determine if Warden should be disciplined in any way, the DA decided to jump up before she was done and instead charge Van Ornum with crimes. (See second letter for one Eugene resident’s feelings on this—they were not alone, many felt this way because it was a plainly dishonest maneuver.)

The cop was declared righteous, the student deemed criminal, the electricity that laid him to the ground in spasm, validated and just. And so the law and the law’s thugs work hand in hand to prevent a larger sense of justice from playing out, while a young man concerned with toxins in the environment learns a harsh lesson in college. Fighting the power means you are in a serious underdog position and that sooner or later, they will come for you with violence sanctioned by law.

This time, the Officer Judd Warden and the landlord, and probably the state will excuse this as “Well, Jeez. I meant to blast the shit out of a sleeping transient! Not a person who rents an apartment!” and I hope it’s immediately clear how amoral this type of thinking is.

And why is it that the cops—these supposed badasses with jingly guns, darts, masks, cuffs, and training in submission holds—are always blasting homeless people, sleeping people, wheelchair users, shackled people…?????

You really want the nation to fear and hate cops even more than so many do now? Keep at this. Keep zapping people. Keep electrocuting people for “attitude problems” or “fast moves” (like turning away from you), or for sleeping in the wrong place; keep making it clear that being law-abiding isnt good enough anymore. Keep creating a collective mental image of bulletproofed goons shocking vulnerable or already incapacitated people, and handicapped, and pregnant, and elderly, and mentally confused, and homeless people.

Enough of that and one day you’ll need to hire your own protection from those you are ostensibly here to protect!

[This is the video I made while the auditing process—of what was deemed a "test case" by the Oregon Emerald for Taser use in the city—was still playing out.]

AND FINALLY, after 12 days or so, I am just about done with the conventions and with flying and with huge political extravaganzas and with taxing my credit card and with blogging for Kenneth Cole Productions and with mixing my brain up with wildly fluctuating sleep schedules. Honestly, I have stretched my perception and comfort levels and environment to such a degree and for such a stretch of days that I nearly feel completely displaced from my own persona and identity. Nothing has remained reliable or constant: not time, not place, not people, not things, not activities. This has not been strange or disturbing as I am not so tightly wed to my “self” that I don’t know how to let these things go, should a moment present that might require it. I’ve done so before many times and I know how to roll, to shift, to adjust, to change, or just to unlock and let the gears turn until they find purchase again. If anything, though, it has been tiring. I will be glad to rest a little bit. As well as to use a full size keyboard. I am typing this entry, as I did the last one, on my iPhone.

I only regret that I couldn’t meet up with more people who extended invitations but when you both have schedules to get around and you don’t have a vehicle and are not staying downtown, these things are hard to arrange.

The two conventions had distinctly different flavors and themes (regarding my personal experience) but I won’t go into that too much here because I think I may expand on that for my last Kenneth Cole Blog (awearnessblog.com). I will say, though, that St. Paul basically felt like a land that was foreign to my experience. Not that I haven’t seen police get nasty, ugly, or violent before. It wasn’t that, it was the sheer numbers, the gas masks, the full body armor, the bikes, horses, strange military vehicles, huge formations, blockaded streets and National Guard units and camo uniforms. It must have come with an astronomical price tag and I don’t see what the point was, nor how citizens today so eagerly justify military and paramilitary presence in their streets. All of it gives me a very unsettling feeling in my gut. It seems most of the population is docile, wanting to be controlled, too comfortable, and alien to my understanding. Pathetic is another word I’d use. This subservience and rationalization that people are so happy to adopt is on the same continuum as the upper middle class bourgouise bloggers who now eschew protest, radical action, or assembling physically in large numbers to confront the system and it’s agents directly–and yet pat each other on the modem and agree they are crashing gates, shaking things up, or more laughably, “revolutionary.”

Reminds me of my last “citizen journalism” gig, for VIACOM/MTV. We were operating under the guise and brand of Citizen Journalism and yet we needed to secure more release forms than actual news units, were given constantly fluctuating rules, and last I heard (I resigned from the gig a while ago but am very much in touch with the friends and coworkers I made there) the supervisors were giving explicit and specific instructions on where to go and what to shoot, down to the shot, the content of the shot, the lighting of the shot, and told “the idea is to create a feeling that people are watching these [convention] speeches all around the country.” Levered on top of this was the very real threat that if the specific shots were not delivered, the “citizen journalist” is not to be paid a cent. Yeah. So much for citizen journalism (the essence of same) and up with Citizen Journalism(TM) the symbol.

Reminds me of The Huffington Post meeting with Pelosi, and Arianna Huffington polling her readers on what question we most wanted asked of Ms. Pelosi. Resoundingly, the consensus was IMPEACHMENT. (My administrative assistant tallied about 15 pages of comments and I have the data if Stoller or Bowers or any other geekboys want a pie chart.) Arianna substituted a different question, tried to gloss over it until readers began trippin out, at which point she offered a line about her own preferences and reasoning…which really made the idea of polling about as sensible as citizen journalism being directed and controlled by a massive corporation. I commented that HuffPost had abdicated its duties as a blog, was now in league with the MSM (which blogs supposedly exist to replace and counter) and corrupt warmongering politicians, and all that was left for The People (in the sense of trustworthy dialogue and information dissemination) were the smaller blogs–and true to form, my comment was deleted.

Corporate goodies, comfort, and personal glory and power are too tempting for most of us. I’ve seen friends I never would have guessed fall into this. I dont judge them too harshly or very long because I often need to feel my way también. Perhaps they will taste ash in their mouth and spit out the fake steak. I hold out hope. We need as many as we can gather en la lucha. Too many forces conspire to trick us, to drain us, to weaken us, to deceive us, to use us.

It is good to turn this way and that. It is fine to be unsure for a time. Or often. It is good to come home. It is better to realize you carried it with you all the while.

I SHOT THIS and edited it at the DNC, and I had a real raw setup there and was always on the move, so there are no titles or anything, and it’s very short and simple. I have more footage, but as my last post makes clear, I have no time! I’m off to the next convention, and though I’d really love to edit for days and make about five videos with much more finesse, that will have to wait. As most of my film ideas lately have to wait. But there is no doubt that the streets are not safe anymore for those of us who believe in true power to the people, in democracy and freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Tough shit. We ain’t goin nowhere. Beat us down, beat us back, raid our homes, steal our computers. Desperate governments resort to desperate means. But as one of my favorite movies puts it, “an idea is bulletproof.” So let’s keep writing that idea over and over and over, let’s take it to the fore, let’s not keep it in their fenced in zones, and we can leave it to the flabby-headed bourgeoise to adopt the idea that all political action should happen in a swivel chair or a tent with people checking credentials. Some of us still believe in bringing it to the street, being loud, throwing tea. You know, that American stuff.

Members of Recreate ’68, The Troops Out Now Coalition, Unconventional Action, and the People’s Law Collective give a Press Conference informing the public of the previous day’s actions and abuse perpetrated by the Police, as well as the Denver Police Department’s refusal to honor the lawful permit held by Recreate ’68. Pepper spray was used by the Police, and according to the spokesperson featured in this video footage, so was unwarranted violence.

EARTHLINGS need to know that I don’t feel interested today in a long post on any given topic. Yet—dammit—the planet requires my input on certain subjects and I’m not going to stand in between humankind’s need for that input and…me. Because that would just be selfish. Aside from spatially impossible.

1. Firstly, the illo above does not appear in, but spins off of (black and white) art I did for Gods, Gachupines, and Gringos: A People’s History of Mexico, a book by a fella who’s been a reader at  UMX since back in El Grito days, Richard Grabman over at the MexFiles. You’ll see comments from him usually under some variation of “El Pinche Guero.” We’ve banged heads a few times, but anyone who stays my friend can give and take lumps with the best of ‘em!

2. The Sanctuary. You may have heard of this group that I’m a part of. If you search this blog you’ll see that we are getting more media attention lately, and this is because we are taking on some issues head on. Issues like human rights, even as they apply to measly ole Mexican migrants, and because we have a core group of smart, dedicated, passionate people. We could use all hands on board, so if you feel that you want to get in on the act, speak out, join the community, write diaries, please come on by. And if you’re not ready to do that, and even if you are, please visit this page I’ve created to grab a badge for your sidebar and help us spread the word and show solidarity.

3. On the topic of Stinking Badges, you know I’ve already offered you a page where you show your UMX love. But now, in the hopes of recruiting even more of you to give Nezua your very best link-love, I’ve made another page with even juicier badges. They are shown at full-size (200px wide) for those with the newer, wider sidebar you see a lot of lately, but they are coded to display at no wider than 150px, for the thinner sidebars that still are the standard. If you want them to show in all their wide glory, just strip out the piece of code that says width=”150″ and in its place, make sure there is only one space between the remaining attributes. If you paste the provided code as-is, the badge will simply show as 150px wide. Included are AlienCholo, the No-Boundaries icon, the Calavera Cosmica, Sailing el Sexto Sol, and The world-famous Melting Pot image. Grab ‘em while they hot!

And if you are a site or blog or business that wants a page like that, so you can offer your readers badges and code and make it very easy for them to use, drop me a line, I can cook up one of these pages to match your current theme/logo/colors (prices vary depending on how much art I am creating/do you have your own art, are you a non-profit/business/personal).

4. Anthrax. Do you buy this stuff about Ivins? I don’t, not for a minute. Granted, I haven’t read the evidence. But the story as presented? Dunno. It feels real thin. A number of details jumped out at me right off the bat. For one thing, people who plan violent massacres with shotguns (and statistically most males) do NOT SUICIDE WITH PILLS. I don’t say this out of guessing. I did spend some time being educated on matters psychological and was a counselor for a short time. Sure, that statement is nothing more than circumstantial. Men still do kill themselves with pills. But a homicidal maniac? I’m sort of laughing at the idea. Anyway, Tylenol??? A brilliant scientist with scientist friends can’t secure anything better than Tylenol to off himself with? Thats too much. And we could go on. Did you read about some of the FBI’s tactics? Showing up at a mall when he is with his family? Bullying him and scaring his family? “Do you know your father killed someone?” Bribing his own son with millions to testify against him?? Sorry, folks. This is not an investigation. This is mob tactics. The USGOV sent out its goons to threaten and scare this man and make it clear that they were going to set him up, that they were setting him up and there was no way out. Government needed a fall-guy. And for now, that’s how I’m writing it, that’s how I’m filing it.  Why? Because you know what this government has earned from me in almost eight years of holding power?

TOTAL DISTRUST.
 

5. Email. Do you ever feel like there is a certain amount of your email that just goes into a hole in the sky? Letters nobody replies to that you don’t follow up on because you are sure they didn’t reply on purpose. So you let it go. But maybe they just never got the email and somewhere….somewhere there is a massive clustered orb of ballpoint pens and unanswered emails and they are dancing with the blackboxes from the planes that disappeared on 9/11, and the whole party will be joined before long by our melting ice caps which will make Indian Santa shed tears of acid rain down upon all our thirsty oil derricks.

6. The McCain Ads on the site. A person has complained on one of these posts. A friend has alerted me through Twitter with a four-fire alarm. THERE ARE MCCAIN ADS ON YOUR SITE!! It made me wonder if I should be more upset. Do I support McCain? No. I think he is a fool and a dangerous one. Do I think he has the right to advertise? Sure. Have any ads brought UMX more money than McCain ads so far? Nope. Do I want them there? Well….nah. Not really. Two people have inquired lately about ads on UMX and I don’t mean to ignore them, I will be speaking with you this week. I’ve been really really nariz to tha grind with illustration job above, and my administrative assistant thinks her law school education is more important, lately, than assisting me so some things have got slacky. But I am guessing I will be replacing some of those google ads with ads I feel better about soon. Just give me a little time. Come on, you know Johnny McCain smiling at ya makes you feel like buying a ninth house and bombing Iran!

7. The Continued Sadistic Behavior of our Police. You do know what they are after? The same thing that our government is after with their insane and brutal GWOT tactics. Nobody really expects these things to “work.” The idea is simply to terrify people—as well as get their rocks off, of course. They use the “non-lethal” weapons as pain compliance, as “told ya so”, as “fuck you punk”, as “I can get away with this” weaponry. They rarely if ever are convicted for it, just like the twisted old men in government office who have carried out crimes against humanity so far have escaped their rightful due. And they want you to carry in your mind that this could happen to you at any time, and that there will be no recourse available to you. It’s part of the War on Freedom. The most successful war ever launched, unannounced, and enforced daily. They want you to begin treading lightly, shutting up, bowing down. They want to look at you and have you flinch. They want no more protests and no more free speech and the fact that some people can be punched senseless, tased to death, blackholed, tortured, disappeared, spied on…it all lends itself to better controlling people. I’m not saying “THEY” all get together and plan this. But certain mindsets desire certain outcomes and this informs certain actions and not even one of them ever has to articulate their sick condition for it all to work just so. Tasers. And now they are talking about putting them in schools? Giving taser guns to police in schools? Oh, that sounds like a good idea.

Someone needs to design an underclothing that sends that shock back to the sender. Make the triggerfinger think twice.

8. Denver. I’m still going! I think. I mean all plans are on. I still need to take care of a few things. I am lucky enough to benefit from the brains and hard work of Liza Sabater (an amiga who is both involved with The Sanctuary, as well as the publisher of CultureKitchen, where I sometimes blog) and the monies of Kenneth Cole. I am an officially credentialed blogger for the DNCC under those auspices, and as such, have been given a grant that is making hotel and airfare possible. (I am the official videographer on this gig.) I am very grateful, because that is 95% of what is making this possible. A couple generous and very cool readers here at UMX have also sent some donations, and if you would like me to suck an olive in your name, please chip in and know that I will make this happen. You have my word. (Related, I’ve been accepted as a blogger for Huffington Post’s Off the Bus, and will soon be setting up that profile. Will drop links when ready.)

9. Batman. I came home after seeing it and was so overwhelmed by the feeling that GWBush had been praised by proxy that I typed a writeup that focused on that. I got a little pushback and not that in and of itself that warrants a stutter-step, but because I did feel it was an enjoyable movie with a lot going on, and because it was written without notes or review, I also felt it wasn’t fair to just leave it at that. So it will take me a few days to finish viewing and taking notes and then gathering screenshots and polishing up a second review, but lo! I have been working on it, and we will soon have a new first for UMX, and that is a second pass at one movie. I did play with the idea for a few of my reviews, but this time it shall be done!

10. Sometimes Justice crawls backward. Thanks to an incoming link from resist racism, I see that this situation has been rectified! Yeah! Nice!

And with that, I’m outta here! Enjoy another beautiful day alive, amigos. For some, and I hope not you or me, it will be the last. Precious stuff, precious gift. Yours today, free.

AS CHINA CRACKS DOWN ON DISSIDENTS in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, I can’t help but think of the slaughter at Tlatelolco. And I don’t mean the original slaughter. I mean the more recent one, where the Mexican Government, instigated and aided by our CIA, sent its army out to suppress student protests in preparation for the 1968 Olympic games and ended up gunning hundreds to death. To this day, there remain bullet holes in standing edifice, as well as a monument to mark the terrible day. To this day, the Mexican government lies about the body counts.

The massacre was preceded by months of political unrest in the Mexican capital, echoing student demonstrations and riots all over the world during 1968. The students wanted to exploit the attention focused on Mexico City for the 1968 Summer Olympics. The students demanded:^[1]

1. Repeal of Articles 145 and 145b of the Penal Code (which sanctioned imprisonment of anyone attending meetings of three or more people, deemed to threaten public order).
2. The abolition of granaderos (the tactical police corps).
3. Freedom of political prisoners.
4. The dismissal of the chief of police and his deputy.
5. The identification of officials responsible for the bloodshed.

President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, however, was determined to stop the demonstrations and, in September, he ordered the army to occupy the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the country’s largest university. Students were beaten and arrested indiscriminately. Rector Javier Barros Sierra resigned in protest on September 23.

Student demonstrators were not deterred, however. The demonstrations grew in size, until, on October 2, after student strikes lasting nine weeks, 15,000 students from various universities marched through the streets of Mexico City, carrying red carnations to protest the army’s occupation of the university campus. By nightfall, 5,000 students and workers, many of them with spouses and children, had congregated outside an apartment complex in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco for what was supposed to be a peaceful rally. Among their chants were ¡No queremos olimpiadas, queremos revolución! (“We don’t want Olympic games, we want revolution!”). Rally organizers did not attempt to call off the protest when they noticed an increased military presence in the area.

The massacre began at sunset when police and military forces — equipped with armored cars and tanks — surrounded the square and began firing live rounds into the crowd, hitting not only the protestors, but also other people who were present for reasons unrelated to the demonstration. Demonstrators and passersby alike, including children, were hit by bullets, and mounds of bodies soon lay on the ground. The killing continued through the night, with soldiers operating on a house-to-house basis in the apartment buildings adjacent to the square. Witnesses to the event claim that the bodies were later removed in garbage trucks.

The official government explanation of the incident was that armed provocateurs among the demonstrators, stationed in buildings overlooking the crowd, had begun the firefight. Suddenly finding themselves sniper targets, the security forces had simply returned the shooting in self-defense.

In October 1997, the Congress of Mexico established a committee to investigate the Tlatelolco massacre. The committee interviewed many political players involved in the massacre, including Luis Echeverría Álvarez, a former president who was Díaz Ordaz’s minister of the interior at the time of the massacre. Echeverría admitted that the students had been unarmed, and also suggested that the military action was planned in advance, as a means to destroy the student movement.

—Wikipedia Aug 7 2008

Luis Echeverria was ultimately put on trial for genocide. But was let go due to the statute of limitations running out. (Just my opinion, but seems to me that’s a charge that shouldn’t expire?) And the CIA eventually released [redacted] documents that gave a bit more insight into the event.

This is but one page, but I don’t think even all of them give the entire picture. If they did, they wouldn’t be released to the public. Because we know what the entire picture is, don’t we? Even if we don’t know all the facts of Tlatelolco, or exactly what is going on in China from our vantage point, or the particulars of any of the violence that proceeds, trails and surrounds our grand and fraudulent symbols of international family. Because anywhere the People gather to express their voice, the government—be it communist, democratic or otherwise—will be infiltrating and disturbing the cohesion and strength of that voice, finally using violence with no real hesitancy or remorse. And wherever these games go, the hosting governments will have to deal with this, and I imagine more and more. Because the People’s issues and voices—now increasingly outlawed, punished, minimized, or sent to Fenced-in ‘Free Speech’ areas—do seek a hearing, will always seek the public eye. And the unsettling juxtaposition of profit, spotlight, and ignored oppressions will always cause this confluence of energy and tumult. This is our modern-day Olympic Games Carnival settling down uneasily into a world where war and class divides are hurting so many.

A DEVELOPING country gets the Olympic games as an acknowledgment of its new, exalted status. An authoritarian government, awash with money, exploits the chance to project a peaceful, progressive image. Critics of the regime use the games as a chance to demand more democracy and human rights. There are demonstrations, forcefully broken up. [...]

The president … was determined that nobody would hijack or derail them; the games would go ahead whatever happened. He also realised how hard that would be when, on August 27th, about 400,000 people converged on the centre of Mexico City to hurl abuse at him.

Another rally was planned for October 2nd, just ten days before the opening. Thousands gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, part of the vast new Tlatelolco housing project. Security forces were waiting for them. Plain-clothes agents tried to mingle with the crowd, but they stood out by wearing a single white glove.

They were subsequently found to belong to the self-styled “Olympia Battalion”, a shadowy paramilitary squad. Acting as agents provocateurs, just after 6pm they fired on the crowd, prompting army troops to open up with machineguns. As people tried to flee, some were killed by soldiers wielding bayonets.

—economist.com, The ghosts of Mexico 1968

It’s easy to connect Tlatelolco and Beijing right now, even though the violence and body counts are not at all comparable (Easier yet, as that last linked article demonstrates, to connect Tlatelolco and the Tianenmen Square incident). True, both governments are hiding whatever the actual facts are as obtusely and insistently as the USA hides the numerous American corpses being sent back to our shores regularly. And it’s also easy to point to China or Mexico, two countries we both love to vacation to, use products and resources from, and all the while chastise and shame and slander. Maybe it’s not so easy to draw the line back here to the Good Ole US of A because this citizenry believes in taking it. We believe in taking about anything that’s handed our way. As long as we can Twitter and WordPress it! So you don’t see the uprisings other nations deal with all the time.

I read someone recently…a few people, actually, who claim that the Protests of the 60s are some funky, outdated, trendy and now-gauche behavior. It seems to be Teh Cool Progressive Idea here and there to eschew putting your body and mouth where your beliefs are. What a sad, sad, joke this is on ourselves. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. People typing up storms condemning feet in the street, justifying slack muscles and the continued discorporation of our political and social selves, we approach the brain in a jar stage soon, a withering whirl we are of virtual word and war rushing through wires…until they yank the power.

Showing up with your voice and your body is NEVER passe. It is NEVER old or outdated and it will NEVER be less impressive than the most wrathful or righteous email, post, or tweet. To even classify it as a Thing to be Dated is foolish. Showing up with your self, at risk and front and center is the most effective way to make the People’s voice threatening at all. And if the Voice of the People is not threatening, then it is not taken seriously. If it can’t intrude on the proceedings of the more powerful, it is but an item to be considered on a possible agenda (or not).

I’m not condemning online activism, I partake in a lot of it. Yes, we know that petitions mean a lot, even when gathered electronically. But not until they are delivered. Further, I will never cheer on this gradual separation of brain and body that the online world loves to promote. However, I’m not here to set up a dichotomy between the two. In fact, I think a fusion of both is emerging and will continue to emerge and evolve until the Voice of the People moves swift, sure, and stronger than any measures of control. Which is good for la gente, though perhaps scary to those who would control and contain us, yet milk our energies and fuel for their own purposes.

This would be the point where I do tie these govt monitoring/suppression behaviors to my own country. This is where I mention being one of the RNC 1800. The RNC 1800 were only named so after we were behind bars. Or penned up in a greasy bus garage, or shackled for five hours straight without food or bathroom…before being held another 30 – 50 hours. We weren’t any predetermined group. We were simply people who were swept up by the orange nets of NYC police, who had plans in advance to squash all dissent and protest anticipated as a reaction to the GOP sweeping into NYC (to dance on top of the WTC wreckage in order to promote their fake leader for another four years). Some reports say tens of thousands, some say 100,000 people came to New York to make their voices heard. If you follow the links, you see why I connect this to Beijing 2008 and Mexico 1968. The same operations were in effect. Government infiltration and moles, classic COINTELPRO type action designed to crush and detain the proles so that the royalty can come to town without being disturbed. 

So maybe we don’t just “take it.” Some of us get out there and go face to face. But it’s not enough today, and on that aspect of critiquing street protest, I agree. We need the media, too. Which is why, while I joke about Twitter, I think that deployed hand-in-hand with street action, technologies like this will soon be a devastatingly powerful tool of the People. For example, even though Operation Overlord was the first practice drill for mass-arrests and detainment in our country, the news was squashed by the MSM. People even a few states away didn’t hear of it. To this day, many haven’t! (Of course the city was up in arms and behind us, gathering outside the jails and protesting and talking to local media.) It wouldn’t happen that way today. Nor should it.

Nor should we stop asking why billions can be spent on honoring atheletes (who deserve recognition for their talent and competition and achievement), and billions can be spent on police weaponry and detainment centers and tasers and fences and walls and wiretapping, and [UNDISCLOSED BILLIONS] can be spent on super-high tech futuristic control and pain-compliance weaponry—when only a fraction of that money spent with different attitude and purpose would lessen so many pains and imbalances that lead to these disruptions and imagined need for draconian and punitive measures in the first place. We should ask that over and over and over again. With our posts, with our graffiti, with our shouting voices, with our bodies, with our hearts.

SINCE I KNOW THAT THE TALK SHOWS WILL BE ALIGHT with speculation, let me set the record straight right away. I have resigned from the MTV Street Team, for which I worked, representing the state of Oregon as the statewide Citizen Journalist Street Team member.

And I’ve written this post a few times, trying to get it right.

I’m not here now or later to slam my supervisors. The vice president of MTV News was my editorial guy, the person who checked my pieces and would tell me if copyright issues were a problem, and who ostensibly would have input on stories if that were required. (Only once did he tell me a piece was a bit long, to which I replied that I was trying to give MTV their money’s worth, and we laughed. At least I did.) And my feelings on him are not the issue, anyway. Though he was probably my favorite person there. That was James Fraenkel, who has actually just left MTV News himself, but after 15 years of employment.

The two people “under” him, who were in charge of the project and over the Street Team—I am quite sure they did the best they could with what they’ve been given. 

Yesterday I spent a while writing this post and outlining my trail of disappointment. I have many thoughts and even documentation on just how and when and where the ideal of this gig soured into something far less exciting and far more limited than originally proposed and imagined.

I have just deleted that version of this post. Not from my server, just from this page. It is not that I am afraid of the legal threats they love to wave at us. I am not afraid in the slightest of Viacom and their army of lawyers. Shit, kid. I got the blogosphere on my side. This posse rolls millions deep, cabrón!

But after writing and reading the post as written, I had to weigh what my purpose was in outlining all of it. Was it to justify leaving? To clear myself? Was it just to take personal retribution for suffering frustration? Of course, none of these would be sufficient cause for me to take any risk or start anything. And I don’t want to appear vengeful or as if I am satisfying personal pettiness or biting a hand that has fed me for half a year. The truth is that for much of the time (especially the winning and the three day orientation and gala welcoming/meeting event in manhattan!) it was a lot of fun, and I remain, overall, very grateful for the experience. But it was important for me to understand how something I felt so good about originally (though I did have my qualms) could turn out to be something I wanted no part of.

That doesn’t mean I’ll hesitate to post it or lay down facts here and there as I see fit, should the need arise organically. Because while I do not currently see a need to unload all of that, neither do I think that I ought to obscure certain facts about the venture if revealing them will help serve as needed truth. As I can’t be completely sure where it all falls, I’ll err on the side of restraint.

Some of it is just a bad fit in the end. I find that this hectic pace of making stories once a week, doing everything yourself from investigating, calling, writing, shooting, editing, marketing…it demands your stories remain superficial to a point. I want to go deeper. 

I will not remark on the ratio of pay given to hours spent to make a piece except to say I couldn’t make it worth it and still create quality.

I will not remark on the attitudes and general management style of my supervisors except to say we had more than a few pleasant exchanges in all of it and I choose to focus on that.

Nota: No small part of my consideration to keep this post as spare as possible was also that friends are still working on this crew…and I wasn’t sure how good I felt about writing all I did knowing that. Nahmeen? Related, I also don’t want to unduly bias the mind of whomever the next person to rep Oregon happens to be, should they find my blog. (Unknown person, I remind you, your experience may vary widely from mine. Most of the original Street Team crew is still working for MTV, and from what I know seem to be happy to do so.)

But I will say this in general, as I prepare to detach myself finally and fully from the MTV Street Team and ship back my “free” laptop. camera, hard drive and peripherals:

1. What I love about “Teams” is that they work with each other and are for each other and talk to one another and do their best to win what it is for which they fight. Whether it’s a scrimmage game or a championship game, when they find unfairness or a lack of integrity on the field, they call it out.

If a “team” is discouraged from solidifying, working and talking together or calling out unfairness, well, it may be a “group” or  ”crowd” or a “bunch” or a “roster” but it is not a “Team.”

2. What I love about Citizen Journalism—the idea and the practice in its true (and only) form—is that it is truth finding its way to people unhampered by conventional filters and guards. Despite the best of intentions, a large corporate entity is built to work in direct contradiction to this idea. Bring them together and you can have a citizen journalism flavor. But you do not have what I love about or understand as “Citizen Journalism.”

and perhaps a bit less on the philosophical side,

3. When other factors are less than perfect and regardless—never. Fuck. With. My. Paycheck. In doing so, You have messed up a rent payment, a credit card payment, other payments and my entire feeling of security in one blow. You have rendered my cabinet scarce (and there is a child here).* You have greatly inconvenienced and embarrassed me in a few situations at once and have kept my nervous system nailed to the sound of the Postal delivery person’s footsteps. 

Done. 

And, as always, we move on.

*I am replacing the roughly 30 hours a week that job tried to take from me with other work, so don’t worry about my daughter’s food or my security, peeps!