Police state Chicago?

2.18.2012 1 Comment

Fears emerge that the Chicago Police Department will jam electronic communication signals during some protest events:

Protesters will be flocking to Chicago for May’s G-8 and NATO summits armed with smartphones, video cameras and links to social media sites they’ll use for strategizing and sharing images of what’s happening — right in front of a police force known for responding with tough tactics.

Now a city councilman wants to forbid the police department from pulling the plug on the electronic communication during the events, taking away a tactic employed by authorities during a crackdown on democratic protests in Egypt and during protests in the San Francisco Bay Area last year.

We’re putting down a marker and saying this has happened in other places and we don’t even want it considered here,” said Alderman Ricardo Munoz, who proposed his anti-crackdown ordinance at a Chicago City Council meeting Wednesday, after which it was referred to a committee.

Munoz said he has no indication police are contemplating shutting down cellphone use or social media sites. A police department spokeswoman said Superintendent Garry McCarthy has no plans to take such a step.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office has said the same thing. But after he was asked Wednesday whether he was concerned that an ordinance could hamstring the police department’s ability to react to an emergency, Emanuel would only say that “Garry and Al (Wysinger, McCarthy’s first deputy superintendent) are working with the alderman on that.”

Of course, Chicago’s city government could always declare a state of emergency and use that declaration to evade any law restrict government interference with the local communication system. It is not unknown for the police to break laws when it considers law-breaking to be an acceptable consequence of a useful tactic.

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Quote of the day

1.17.2012 Leave a comment

Thomas Naylor claims:

The euro is going down and may take the 17 nation euro zone with it, if not the entire 28 nation European Union. Or maybe it will be the other way around? Does it really matter?

Having never recovered from the 2008 recession, the collapse of the euro will drive the U.S. economy deeper into the quagmire of more unemployment, negative economic growth, schizophrenic fiscal policy, Congressional gridlock, inflationary monetary policy, and the rout of the dollar. Is it possible that whatever the White House, the Congress, or the Fed may do will make not one whit of a difference?

To deflect public opinion away from their incompetence and corruption the White House, the Congress, the Fed, the European Central Bank, and all of the political leaders of Europe need an international scapegoat. What could be better than a war against some unpopular rogue state such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, or Venezuela whose leader is considered by many Americans to be demonic.

Enter Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bearing gifts for American and European political leaders. “Have I got a deal for you,” says Netanyahu. “Why don’t NATO and its Arab allies take out the nuclear weapons program of the terrorist state of Iran? It would divert the attention of the American and European people away from their economic woes. Everyone (except the Iranians) would gain.”

Serendipity or conspiracy?

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Quote of the day

11.4.2011 Leave a comment

Alexander Cockburn avers:

I’ve no doubt that if by chance the left in Greece today were to evict the local political agents of the international banks, it would not be long before a NATO intervention, covert and then overt, was under way, using the usual arsenal of assassination, drone attacks and armed support for whatever security forces do not defect to the left.

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Question of the Day

4.1.2011 Leave a comment

Alexander Cockburn asks:

In terms of evil deeds, is Qaddafi a Mobutu, a Bokassa, a Saddam, or any U.S. president?

His answer: “Surely not.”

I find it difficult to disagree with his answer given Qaddafi’s opponents, who were all unrepentant killers.

I ought to mention that neither Cockburn’s question nor his answer would hold any significance whatsoever if it were not for the American need to justify its imperial sorties by claiming these military actions were meant to check the actions of or depose outright an archfiend. It is believed, wrongly, I would guess, that Americans will not long tolerate war-making unless the war-makers target radical evil. Thus, for this American President, the name Qaddafi along with the aura that surrounds that name does provide the President with the fortitude needed to produce another costly political-military spectacle. That Obama’s actions in Libya are legally dubious and morally suspect are matters which remain unresolved. Neither the quality of Qaddafi’s character nor America’s pretensions to being exceptional can resolve them. Nor also an act of Congress and a Supreme Court judgment.

Fortunately, Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich have already identified one path that would resolve the issues raised by Obama’s Libyan actions: Impeachment. I believe this outcome, one that would be politically and legally relevant, would provide a more effective and durable remedy to Executive branch lawlessness than would Congressional disapproval or a Supreme Court ruling that could not be enforced except by the use of violence. After all, the impeachment option would require the proponents of the action to make their case in public to the American people and thus by extension to the whole world.

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Disturbing image of the day

3.21.2011 1 Comment

Der Spiegel recently published three of the suppressed photographs it has of Americans committing a war crime in Afghanistan. They can now be viewed online, and include this image:

A GI with his trophy

NATO is bracing for the consequences produced by the publication of these photos, according to a Der Spiegel online report:

At NATO headquarters, there are fears that the coming days could see angry protests in Afghanistan or even potential attacks against NATO units. “The images have an enormous potential here in Afghanistan,” one NATO general told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “Experience shows that it might take a couple of days, but then people’s anger will be vented.”

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