Global

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me

Pastor Martin Niemoller, speaking about Nazi Germany

First, they’ve come for the people of color.  

America’s police forces increasingly serve as a a private corporate army, beyond the reach of the law.  

But our nation is distracted by race.  And millions of white Americans are under the illusion that what was done to Michael Brown and Eric Garner can’t happen to them.

These un-prosecuted killings of African-American men go way beyond racial prejudice.

They are the calling card of an Orwellian state:

Here in Virginia, U.S.A., I'm aware that the native people were murdered, driven out, and moved westward. But my personal connection to that crime is weak, and frankly I'm too busy trying to rein in my government's current abuses to focus on the distant past. Pocahontas is a cartoon, the Redskins a football team, and remaining Native Americans almost invisible. Protests of the European occupation of Virginia are virtually unheard of.

All the original "starving hysterical naked" beatniks, cool cats, flower children, hippies and freaks are now advancing into their senior years or dead.

But their innocence and experience -- and complex experiments with words and ideals, and celebration of life -- is still available here across hilly and chilly San Francisco.

Guide books and maps will help, but you don't really need those to discover the remains of "the scene" if you keep your eyes open while wandering the city.

In the sanitized, unaware 1950s when it all began, America lacked what later became known as a mass "youth culture," which quickly branched into a deeper "counterculture."

In January 1967, the social changes engulfed San Francisco's Golden Gate Park at "The Human Be-In, A Gathering of the Tribes."

There, an invisible baton passed from revered beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg to the hippies' ex-Harvard psychedelic psychologist Dr. Timothy Leary.

Today, on nearby Haight Street, you can buy a copy of the luminescent poster of that beatific event which soon spawned a "Summer of Love."

“Some of the key technocrats and scientists of the Cold War say the nation has become overly confident about its nuclear deterrence. The nuclear enterprise, they say, ‘is rusting its way to disarmament.’”

Let’s meditate on this irony — that disarmament, finally, means no more than growing old and weak and pathetic.

What brilliant Cold War Revival propaganda, masquerading, in theLos Angeles Times last week, as objective reporting. Let’s meditate on the dark chuckles of the Cold War technocrats, as they attempt to summon an extra trillion dollars or so from the national coffers to restore America’s nuclear weapons program to the glory of the 1960s and push on vigorously with the design and development of the next generation of nukes: our national strength, the foundation of our security. All that’s missing from the article — “New nuclear weapons needed, many experts say, pointing to aged arsenal” — is Slim Pickens screaming “Ya-hoo!” as he rides the bomb into human oblivion at the end of Dr. Strangelove.

In the wake of the failure of a grand jury proceeding to indict Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson Missouri, President Obama has finally taken a material rather than rhetorical step on the issue. The widespread unrest sparked by public anger at the killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, who witnesses testified had his hands up surrendering to Wilson, could not be ignored by the Whitehouse any longer. Purportedly to institute policy changes to prevent more Ferguson situations, and return the nation to a modicum of normalcy in the wake of widespread domestic unrest, the President has appointed a commission to recommend national policing reforms.

That commission, rather than being stacked with civil libertarians, seems to be built around a handful of national policing figures with little regard for human rights. Some figures involved in this new process have a long history of suppressing domestic dissent. Their long history of violent repression, and the solutions they and the White House have already made, may lead to a vast expansion of police presence and domestic surveillance.

My fiancé died more than twelve years ago and of all the things he left me, it is a box of love letters–and poems, cartoons, and crossword puzzles–I cherish most.   They run the gamut of emotions:  heartfelt, whimsical, poignant, hilarious, romantic, and are a tangible testament to our very special relationship.  Even with a wonderful new man in my life, I will cherish them always.

            Likewise when Jean died, it was the act of hand writing all those thank you cards that set me on the long, long road to healing from my unexpected loss.  The funeral home provided pre-printed thank you notes, but the act of sitting down and putting pen to mourning paper–a difficult find in the age of instant communication!–to individually thank all the people who were so kind to me after his death gave me something on which to focus.  It also allowed me to share with his friends and colleagues the personal connections he had developed with them and to acknowledge that they, too, were grieving his loss.

Coup leader Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha demanded, "Who put a gun to her head?" after ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra said the bloodless military putsch in May seemed like "gun at my head" forcing her to submit.

Gen. Prayuth said he could harshly punish Ms. Yingluck and anyone else by banning them from leaving Thailand or using money, if they voice dissatisfied or misleading statements about his May 22 coup and current martial law regime.

"Whenever anyone causes unrest, there are rules ranging from soft to tough," Gen. Prayuth told reporters on Tuesday (November 25) when asked about Ms. Yingluck's interview.

"Some people may not be permitted to travel abroad," warned Gen. Prayuth, who is prime minister and head of the dominant National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) junta.

"The next level may be that they are banned from financial transactions," he said.

"Who put a gun to her head?" Gen. Prayuth asked, according to Wednesday's (November 26) Bangkok Post, which is Thailand's biggest English language newspaper.

When news reports alleged that the two cousins behind the Jerusalem synagogue attack on 18 November were affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a level of confusion reigned. Why the PFLP? Why now?

The attack killed five Israelis and wounded others. It was, to a degree, an expected addition to a violent episode caused by police-sanctioned right-wing violence and abuse targeting the Palestinian population of the illegally occupied East Jerusalem. Much of the violence targeting Palestinians is systematic, involving severe restrictions on Palestinian movement, targeting houses of worship, and nightly attacks by Jewish mobs assailing Arabs, or anyone who may be suspected of being one. It also included the hanging, lynching and burning alive of Jerusalem Arab residents.

Palestinians responded in kind. But most of their violent responses seemed to be confined to individual acts, compelled by despair, perhaps, but certainly removed from the organized nature of armed-resistance.

In a recent article, full of insight, Professor Bill Quigley identified ten different illegal actions police often take 'to prevent people from exercising their constitutional rights' to take nonviolent action to address a grievance. He noted that these police tactics are commonly used by law enforcement agencies in big protests across the US. See '10 Illegal Police Actions to Watch for in Ferguson' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/ten-illegal-police-action_b_6171964.html

I would like to complement Professor Quigley's fine article by identifying ways in which the risk of police or military personnel using illegal and violent tactics can be minimized and, in many cases, thwarted, wherever in the world the nonviolent action takes place.