As we think, so we become

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A voice of reason from Congress on Gaza

found via The UpTake: My congressional representative, Keith Ellison, talks about what is going on in Gaza. He presents a rational alternative perspective, one he expresses in respectful but absolutely clear language. It is unacceptable that Israel is slaughtering civilians by the hundreds who had nothing to do with Hamas's attacks.

Want to know more? For context and analysis, Professor Zero recommends this article by Lisa Roy.

Z is for zapatazo

"This post brought to you by the letter Z" over at The Mex Files.

The Young Turks bring us this update on M. Al Zaidi (who is still in custody, although it is not clear whose, or where, but his brother says that he has been savagely beaten and he faces trial) and the reaction to his act both in the Arab world and elsewhere.

Estimates on the number of civilians who have died as a direct result of violence during the course of the war in Iraq vary widely:

In November 2006 Iraqi health ministry estimates ranged from 100,000 to 150,000 dead. This contrasts with a survey of Iraqi households in the Lancet, which suggested about 655,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the war by July 2006.

A survey published by a UK-based polling agency Opinion Research Business in September 2007 suggested up to 1.2m people might have died because of the conflict.

The campaign group, Iraq Body Count, said the civilian death toll by October 2007 was between 74,000 and 81,000, although it has warned many deaths may have gone unreported.

Another survey, published by the New England Journal of Medicine in January 2008, said approximately 151,000 civilians had suffered violent deaths between March 2003 and June 2006. This World Health Organization study was based on 9,000 interviews across Iraq.(BBC Special Report, Aug. 2008).

Bush's reaction? To laugh, make jokes, and leave. Never a word to acknowledge that at least 200 civilians have been murdered in Iraq this month alone. Dick Cheney admits that he authorized waterboarding and torture on national TV. WHY have these men not been impeached? Kucinich presented articles of impeachment earlier for both Cheney and Bush earlier this year.
Why no impeachment?

Oh, yeah, we had to elect Obama.

More eyewitness reporting of police abuse of journalists, bystanders.

"Police gas docile crowd" In one incident yesterday, police blocked of streets (in front of the Children's Museum) hemming in about 100 people who were marching peacefully--no anarchist window breakers, just the Poor People's March-- then launch tear gas grenades at them. Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthese, who has been doing a phenomenal job of reporting events at the RNC, was an eyewitness and links to her photo essay

"248 arrested yesterday in St Paul", many of them were not participants in protests, but were caught up when the police hemmed in a crowd on its way to a concert.Rich Broderick's editorial in the Twin Cities Daily Planet states that the armed forces: city and county police, national guard, FBI and Secret Service, are completely out of control in the Twin Cities right now. Who is in charge? Who is directing them? Not the mayors or the City Council, not even the Sheriff of Ramsey County who directed some of the actions. Most mainstream press coverage has presented those arrested as a bunch of "anarchists" who were plotting dreadful things, but local Aaron Landry tagged along,.He has the most astute and evenhanded account of the vandalism by a few, and arrests that I have yet read. He talks about how frightening it was for people who were just passing through and were caught up in the chase between police and the small number who did throw and break things.

But the vast majority of police actions were not directed at people who were breaking the law. What agency is coordinating police actions that have treated every citizen as an enemy, regardless of their actions (or lack of actions), press status, or the legal rights supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution.

Thinkery has the links for coverage of the RNC on the 4th day of police running wild in St Paul. She links to Mary Turck of the Twin Cities Daily Planet, who has a comprehensive day-by-day set of links that shows the "scorecard" of police actions starting this weekend.

Here's the entire story of the arrest of Democracy Now! journalists, including video, transcripts and interviews with the arrested journalists. It is worth watching the video, which ends with an interview with Congressman Keith Ellison (who practiced law in Minneapolis for 16 years).

Live footage of Nicole Salazar, Democracy Now! producer's arrest (she's screaming Press! Press! as police knock her to the ground and drag her by her leg on her face). You can hear her screams of pain.
Producer Sharif Kaddous was also violently tackled and kicked several times, while trying to show his credentials, yelling "Press!"

I was just on the outskirts of that, and I saw what had happened. So I ran in. I was holding a microphone. So I held it, you know, above my head with my left hand high to pose no threat. I held—I had a Democracy Now! press pass, as well as an RNC press pass, which gave me access to inside the convention, which is a hard one to get. You know, you have to get vetted through your Social Security number to get that one, so it’s a higher-degree press pass, as well. Anyway, I was holding my Democracy Now! one and screaming, “She’s press! She’s my co-worker! Let her go!”
And then, when I was doing that, three—two or three police officers tackled me. They threw me very violently against a wall. Then they threw me to the ground. I was kicked in the chest several times. A police officer ground his knee into my back. And I was handcuffed with plastic handcuffs. And I was also, the entire time, telling them, “I’m media. I’m press. I’m credentialed. I’m an accredited journalist.” But there was no—that didn’t seem to matter at all.

I looked over, saw Nicole on the floor on her stomach with her hands cuffed behind her back. I yelled over to her, and I saw her face was completely bloodied. This entire time, I kept telling them to let us go. There was a photographer right next to me who was also taken down pretty violently. He was screaming he was press, as well. He had credentials. He kept saying he was a photographer for the New York Post. And quite funnily, he said, “For Christ’s sake, it’s a Republican paper!” But that didn’t seem to matter.

Then when Amy Goodman tried to talk to police, she was arrested as well. All three were released, after their press credentials were taken from them by the Secret Police.