http://k.olc.edu/Events_files/widget1_markup.html?channelId=89a24e46aac04e1b98c86f6ddc09418f&channelListId&mediaId=89e70a0dc4aa4ecdb5dd8012ef4100a9
November 1, 2011
Video: Lakotas protest Keystone Pipeline on Pine Ridge
http://k.olc.edu/Events_files/widget1_markup.html?channelId=89a24e46aac04e1b98c86f6ddc09418f&channelListId&mediaId=89e70a0dc4aa4ecdb5dd8012ef4100a9
Oakland Police: 'We are the 99 percent,' confused by mayor
An Open Letter to the Citizens of Oakland from the Oakland Police Officers’ Association
1 November 2011 – Oakland, Ca.http://www.opoa.org/uncategorized/an-open-letter-to-the-citizens-of-oakland-from-the-oakland-police-officers’-association/
We represent the 645 police officers who work hard every day to protect the citizens of Oakland. We, too, are the 99% fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families. We are severely understaffed with many City beats remaining unprotected by police during the day and evening hours.
As your police officers, we are confused.
On Tuesday, October 25th, we were ordered by Mayor Quan to clear out the encampments at Frank Ogawa Plaza and to keep protesters out of the Plaza. We performed the job that the Mayor’s Administration asked us to do, being fully aware that past protests in Oakland have resulted in rioting, violence and destruction of property.
Then, on Wednesday, October 26th, the Mayor allowed protesters back in – to camp out at the very place they were evacuated from the day before.
To add to the confusion, the Administration issued a memo on Friday, October 28th to all City workers in support of the “Stop Work” strike scheduled for Wednesday, giving all employees, except for police officers, permission to take the day off.
That’s hundreds of City workers encouraged to take off work to participate in the protest against “the establishment.” But aren’t the Mayor and her Administration part of the establishment they are paying City employees to protest? Is it the City’s intention to have City employees on both sides of a skirmish line?
It is all very confusing to us.
Meanwhile, a message has been sent to all police officers: Everyone, including those who have the day off, must show up for work on Wednesday. This is also being paid for by Oakland taxpayers. Last week’s events alone cost Oakland taxpayers over $1 million.
The Mayor and her Administration are beefing up police presence for Wednesday’s work strike they are encouraging and even “staffing,” spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for additional police presence – at a time when the Mayor is also asking Oakland residents to vote on an $80 parcel tax to bail out the City’s failing finances.
All of these mixed messages are confusing.
We love Oakland and just want to do our jobs to protect Oakland residents. We respectfully ask the citizens of Oakland to join us in demanding that our City officials, including Mayor Quan, make sound decisions and take responsibility for these decisions. Oakland is struggling – we need real leaders NOW who will step up and lead – not send mixed messages. Thank you for listening.
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Response: Mayor didn't tell them to use tactics unapproved for warzones
by Jack Smith
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Interesting how they try and paint themselves as the victims of a failing mayor to earn sympathies. Everything is PR (public relations) and managed by people who analyze and decide what the public wants to hear or needs to hear. The mayor may be sending out mixed messages, but to join with the police and allow them to co-opt? Let's check some facts and ask some questions first:
• Did the mayor direct them to abuse their authority and violate their oaths to protect people?
• Did the mayor tell them to use tactics not even approved of in war zones?
• Did the mayor direct an officer to fire a canister at the head of an unarmed Marine who was only a short distance away?
• Did the mayor direct them to act as a domestic terrorist force as evidenced by their actions from video footage?
So while the police are now seeking to claim unity with the 99%, let them actually join the 99% and stop from this moment forward violating the 1st Amendment. Tell them to bring forth those officers who violently abused citizens for prosecution; specifically including the officer who fired on Scott Olsen.
Truth be told, the police actually serve as a protection barrier for the colonial Empire of America, who creates the conditions for unrest and violence within every state and county. We are at war with ourselves because this system promises us luxuries if we "work hard" and propagandizes us into lusting after inanimate objects instead of being in solidarity with fellow humans. We get weighed down, frustrated, feel defeated, and that boils into criminal minded behavior because we begin realizing we were sold out to lies. Instead of joining together and fighting the system of lies, we more often become liars and take the attitude, "the world owes us", and we go off kicking ass and toting guns to get it. That is changing now and they fear that change. We now see each other more and more as fellow humans and stand boldly in solidarity with each other as the days pass. We want to change the system and rid ourselves of colonial war-games. No more in our name will this system exploit the earth, provoke wars, and divide us.
The whole system is rigged for corporate profit at the expense of human needs. This includes the police who ticket and arrest people to fill quotas and secure budget funding so they can afford more military-type equipment. If they want to be a part of the so-called 99%, they need to change their ethics, stop using tax dollars to suppress free-speech, and stop arresting minorities disproportionately to stockpile the privately owned prisons with people to profit off of. This system is corrupt from the core. It ends now!
Honestly, I can't even believe they released this piece of low-level gibberish as if people were not hip to the games. This is emotional exploitation at its weakest form in the clever department.
--Jack Smith
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Business Insider: Marine said Oakland used crowd control prohibited in warzones
"How did a cop who is supposed to have training on his weapon system accidentally SHOOT someone in the head with a 40mm gas canister? Simple. He was aiming at him."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/marine-with-crowd-control-training-points-out-oakland-used-methods-prohibited-in-war-zones-2011-10#ixzz1cUHGaLKQ
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October 31, 2011
Photos: Unidentified officers arrived before Marine Scott Olsen shot
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Officers on the far right, unidentified, arrived on the police line in front of Marine Scott Olsen, moments before Olsen was struck with a projectile in Oakland. The uniformed officers are with the San Francisco Sheriff's ESU, Emergency Services Unit. |
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Officer in the center, unidentified, with pepperball or paintball gun, appeared in the area from where chemical agents were fired shortly before Marine Scott Olsen was struck. Censored News OAKLAND, Calif. -- Videos reveal that the San Francisco Sheriff's ESU, Emergency Service Unit, were on the front line when chemical agents and flash bombs were fired and Marine Scott Olsen was struck Tuesday in Oakland. However, moments before chemical agents and flash bombs were used, unidentified officers arrived on the scene, as shown in these photos. The San Francisco Sheriff's Department defended its officers on Monday and said that they carried guns that shoot a stun projectile, but those were not used in Oakland on Tuesday. The Alameda Sheriff's Department, coordinating the Bay Area police units, said its officers were armed with a large amount of tear gas, but no flash bombs. Scott Olsen, Marine and member of Iraq Veterans for Peace, suffered a skull fracture after being hit as he stood peacefully with Navy seaman Joshua Shepherd. Shepherd held a Veterans for Peace flag. The two stood between the police and the crowd, directly in front of the San Francisco Sheriff's ESU police line. After Olsen was hit, and was being carried away, a flash grenade was thrown at them, and hit one of his rescuers in the leg. Videos show that the flash bomb was thrown from the police line of the San Francisco Sheriff's ESU and the unidentified officers above. |
Roberto Rodriguez: Arizona's Experiment in Democracy Failing Badly
Column of the Americas
Arizona's Experiment in Democracy Failing ... Badly
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
The experiment in Democracy seems to be failing badly in Arizona. Here, government, the state legislature, law enforcement, the educational system, the courts and the media are a testament to this colossal failure. Here, rampant hate and bigotry starts at the top and here, it is government by [ugly] mob rule.
Acourt proceeding earlier this month in Phoenix – with a decision expected any day now – attests to this experiment gone awry; the court hearing was as absurdas the daily Kangaroo trials in Tucson known as Operation Streamline (70 migrants are charged, tried, convicted and sentenced in one hour). This Phoenix proceeding was part of an appeals process, being held to determine whether Tucson’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) Department is out of compliance with HB 2281, the state’s anti Ethnic Studies or mind control measure. The program graduates nearly 100% of its students and sends over 70% percent of them to college. Yet, these phenomenal accomplishments are of little consequence for those trying to eliminate it.
This last hearing featured a formidable sounding state witness, Dr. Sandra Stotsky.She testified that multiculturalism is harmful to students. Upon review of MAS curriculum materials, she testified that she saw no evidence that MAS students are being reminded of the virtues of being American citizens (her specialty is teaching the virtues of democracy to students in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe). Her very presence, given her expertise, gave off a disturbing message. She made the further assessment that MAS students were being taught to resent whites [HB 2281 bans classes that teach resentment, create ethnic solidarity and that promote segregation).
Her testimony sounded very damaging to the MAS cause … until she was cross-examined. She readily acknowledged that she was not an expert in Ethnic Studies, Mexican American Studies or Critical Race Theory. She further revealed that she had never set foot in an MAS classroom nor had she ever spoken with an MAS teacher or student, nor read MAS books, though she claimed to be familiar with some of them.
Upon making these acknowledgements, the erudite-sounding scholar and the state’sstar witness was thanked and asked to step down.
Atthe previous hearing, the director of MAS-TUSD, Sean Arce, was forced to defend the MAS curriculum in a manner comparable to the 1950s McCarthy hearings.[Indigenous] knowledge itself was on trial. The proceedings were actually closer to an Inquisition; they were about what can be taught inside ofArizona’s K-12 classrooms. Books, authors and even classroom posters (“Who’sthe Illegal Alien, Pilgrim”) were on trial.
Glaringly absent was any mention of the independent Cambium Study, which was commissioned by State Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal. It foundMAS-TUSD to be in compliance with HB 2281. Despite this, Huppenthal rejected the findings and declared MAS to be out of compliance. This is what triggered the appeals hearings. Inexplicably, neither the Cambium authors, nor Huppenthal, were called to the stand.
TUSDsuperintendent, John Pedicone, however was. He testified that there were things that bothered him about the curriculum, but admitted that he saw nothing illegal. Eerily, no one was there to ask him why he ordered the May 3rdschool board meeting militarized, at which time the neighborhood and TUSDheadquarters were occupied by riot officers, students and elders were arrested inside the meeting (some were physically thrown out of the building) and youths outside were beaten.
The hearings revealed that beyond Tucson’sMAS program, it is the discipline, and by extension, a people and their right to history, culture and memory that have [again] been put on trial. Also revealed is that MAS stands accused of being outside of civilization and specifically,outside of Western Civilization, in effect, that its knowledge-base does not concur with the U.S. Master Narrative of history.
Actually,that is not in dispute; MAS’s philosophical foundation is in fact derived from the ancient maiz-based cultures of Abya Yalla or Cemanahuac [Americas], as opposed to Greco-Roman culture. This begs the question: since when is having a different cultural, historical and intellectual tradition, grounds for an intellectualexecution?
While the decision is expected in mid-November, it is actually Huppenthal, who campaigned to “Stop La Raza,” that will render the final verdict. If he rules against TUSD, look for MAS to be openly taught in front of the capitol and other state buildings. The suggestion that the MAS curriculum be remanded to the home is an idea that is so 500 years ago.
Rodriguez,an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com or http://drcintli.blogspot.com/
Arizona's Experiment in Democracy Failing ... Badly
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
The experiment in Democracy seems to be failing badly in Arizona. Here, government, the state legislature, law enforcement, the educational system, the courts and the media are a testament to this colossal failure. Here, rampant hate and bigotry starts at the top and here, it is government by [ugly] mob rule.
Acourt proceeding earlier this month in Phoenix – with a decision expected any day now – attests to this experiment gone awry; the court hearing was as absurdas the daily Kangaroo trials in Tucson known as Operation Streamline (70 migrants are charged, tried, convicted and sentenced in one hour). This Phoenix proceeding was part of an appeals process, being held to determine whether Tucson’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) Department is out of compliance with HB 2281, the state’s anti Ethnic Studies or mind control measure. The program graduates nearly 100% of its students and sends over 70% percent of them to college. Yet, these phenomenal accomplishments are of little consequence for those trying to eliminate it.
This last hearing featured a formidable sounding state witness, Dr. Sandra Stotsky.She testified that multiculturalism is harmful to students. Upon review of MAS curriculum materials, she testified that she saw no evidence that MAS students are being reminded of the virtues of being American citizens (her specialty is teaching the virtues of democracy to students in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe). Her very presence, given her expertise, gave off a disturbing message. She made the further assessment that MAS students were being taught to resent whites [HB 2281 bans classes that teach resentment, create ethnic solidarity and that promote segregation).
Her testimony sounded very damaging to the MAS cause … until she was cross-examined. She readily acknowledged that she was not an expert in Ethnic Studies, Mexican American Studies or Critical Race Theory. She further revealed that she had never set foot in an MAS classroom nor had she ever spoken with an MAS teacher or student, nor read MAS books, though she claimed to be familiar with some of them.
Upon making these acknowledgements, the erudite-sounding scholar and the state’sstar witness was thanked and asked to step down.
Atthe previous hearing, the director of MAS-TUSD, Sean Arce, was forced to defend the MAS curriculum in a manner comparable to the 1950s McCarthy hearings.[Indigenous] knowledge itself was on trial. The proceedings were actually closer to an Inquisition; they were about what can be taught inside ofArizona’s K-12 classrooms. Books, authors and even classroom posters (“Who’sthe Illegal Alien, Pilgrim”) were on trial.
Glaringly absent was any mention of the independent Cambium Study, which was commissioned by State Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal. It foundMAS-TUSD to be in compliance with HB 2281. Despite this, Huppenthal rejected the findings and declared MAS to be out of compliance. This is what triggered the appeals hearings. Inexplicably, neither the Cambium authors, nor Huppenthal, were called to the stand.
TUSDsuperintendent, John Pedicone, however was. He testified that there were things that bothered him about the curriculum, but admitted that he saw nothing illegal. Eerily, no one was there to ask him why he ordered the May 3rdschool board meeting militarized, at which time the neighborhood and TUSDheadquarters were occupied by riot officers, students and elders were arrested inside the meeting (some were physically thrown out of the building) and youths outside were beaten.
The hearings revealed that beyond Tucson’sMAS program, it is the discipline, and by extension, a people and their right to history, culture and memory that have [again] been put on trial. Also revealed is that MAS stands accused of being outside of civilization and specifically,outside of Western Civilization, in effect, that its knowledge-base does not concur with the U.S. Master Narrative of history.
Actually,that is not in dispute; MAS’s philosophical foundation is in fact derived from the ancient maiz-based cultures of Abya Yalla or Cemanahuac [Americas], as opposed to Greco-Roman culture. This begs the question: since when is having a different cultural, historical and intellectual tradition, grounds for an intellectualexecution?
While the decision is expected in mid-November, it is actually Huppenthal, who campaigned to “Stop La Raza,” that will render the final verdict. If he rules against TUSD, look for MAS to be openly taught in front of the capitol and other state buildings. The suggestion that the MAS curriculum be remanded to the home is an idea that is so 500 years ago.
Rodriguez,an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com or http://drcintli.blogspot.com/
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