Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
November 29 / 30, 2003
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
November 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
November 13, 2003
Jack McCarthy
Veterans
for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade
Adam Keller
Report
on the Ben Artzi Verdict
Richard Forno
"Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time
Vijay Prashad
Confronting
the Evangelical Imperialists
November 12, 2003
Elaine Cassel
The
Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope?
Col. Dan Smith
Unsolicited
Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo
Jonathan Cook
Facility
1391: Israel's Guantanamo
Robert Fisk
Osama Phones Home
Michael Schwartz
The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike
John Chuckman
Forty
Years of Lies
Doug Giebel
Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency
Uri Avnery
Wanted: a Sharon of the Left
Website of the Day
Musicians Against Sweatshops
November 11, 2003
David Lindorff
Bush's
War on Veterans
Stan Goff
Honoring
Real Vets; Remembering Real War
Earnest McBride
"His
Feet Were on the Ground": Was Steve McNair's Cousin Lynched?
Derek Seidman
Imperialism
Begins at Home: an Interview with Stan Goff
David Krieger
Mr. President, You Can Run But You Can't Hide
Sen. Ernest Hollings
My Cambodian Moment on the Iraq War
Dan Bacher
The Invisible Man Resigns
Kam Zarrabi
Hypocrisy at the Top
John Eskow
Born on Veteran's Day
Website of the Day
Left Hook
November 10, 2003
Robert Fisk
Looney
Toons in Rummyworld: How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East
Elaine Cassel
Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag (of Tricks): Patriot Act Spawns Similar
Laws Across Globe
James Brooks
Israel's New War Machine Opens the Abyss
Thom Rutledge
The Lost Gospel of Rummy
Stew Albert
Call Him Al
Gary Leupp
"They
Were All Non-Starters": On the Thwarted Peace Proposals
November 8/9, 2003
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Zionism
as Racist Ideology
Gabriel Kolko
Intelligence
for What?
The Vietnam War Reconsidered
Saul Landau
The
Bride Wore Black: the Policy Nuptials of Boykin and Wolfowitz
Brian Cloughley
Speeding Up to Nowhere: Training the New Iraqi Police
William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report:
A Permanent Occupation?
David Lindorff
A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq: from Occupation to Guerrilla War
Elaine Cassel
Bush's War on Non-Citizens
Tim Wise
Persecuting the Truth: Claims of Christian Victimization Ring
Hollow
Toni Solo
Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood"
Michael Donnelly
Will the Real Ron Wyden Please Stand Up?
Mark Hand
Building a Vanguard Movement: a Review of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum
Disorder
Norman Solomon
War, Social Justice, Media and Democracy
Norman Madarasz
American Neocons and the Jerusalem Post
Adam Engel
Raising JonBenet
Dave Zirin
An Interview with George Foreman
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert and Greeder
November 7, 2003
Nelson Valdes
Latin
America in Crisis and Cuba's Self-Reliance
David Vest
Surely
It Can't Get Any Worse?
Chris Floyd
An Inspector
Calls: The Kay Report as War Crime Indictment
William S. Lind
Indicators:
Where This War is Headed
Elaine Cassel
FBI to Cryptome: "We Are Watching You"
Maria Tomchick
When Public Transit Gets Privatized
Uri Avnery
Israeli
Roulette
November 6, 2003
Ron Jacobs
With
a Peace Like This...
Conn Hallinan
Rumsfeld's
New Model Army
Maher Arar
This
is What They Did to Me
Elaine Cassel
A Bad
Day for Civil Liberties: the Case of Maher Arar
Neve Gordon
Captives
Behind Sharon's Wall
Ralph Nader and Lee Drutman
An Open Letter to John Ashcroft on Corporate Crime
November 5, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Just
a Match Away:
Fire Sale in So Cal
Dave Lindorff
A Draft in the Forecast?
Robert Jensen
How I Ended Up on the Professor Watch List
Joanne Mariner
Prisons as Mental Institutions
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Not Organizing Iraqi Resistance
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Centaurs
from Dusk to Dawn: Remilitarization and the Guatemalan Elections
Josh Frank
Silencing "the Reagans"
Website of the Day
Everything You Wanted to Know About Howard Dean But Were Afraid
to Ask
November 4, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing
Said and Ashrawi: When Did "Arab" Become a Dirty Word?
Ray McGovern
Chinook Down: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Vietnam
Woodruff / Wypijewski
Debating
the New Unity Partnership
Karyn Strickler
When
Opponents of Abortion Dream
Norman Solomon
The
Steady Theft of Our Time
Tariq Ali
Resistance
and Independence in Iraq
November 3, 2003
Patrick Cockburn
The
Bloodiest Day Yet for Americans in Iraq: Report from Fallujah
Dave Lindorff
Philly's
Buggy Election
Janine Pommy Vega
Sarajevo Hands 2003
Bernie Dwyer
An
Interview with Chomsky on Cuba
November 1 / 2,
2003
Saul Landau
Cui
Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off
Noam Chomsky
Empire of the Men of Best Quality
Bruce Jackson
Midge Decter and the Taxi Driver
Brian Cloughley
"Mow the Whole Place Down"
John Stanton
The Pentagon's Love Affair with Land Mines
William S. Lind
Bush's Bizarre Korean Gambit
Ben Tripp
The Brown Paste on Bush's Shoes
Christopher Brauchli
Divine Hatred
Dave Zirin
An Interview with John Carlos
Agustin Velloso
Oil in Equatorial Guinea: Where Trickle Down Doesn't Trickle
Josh Frank
Howard Dean and Affirmative Action
Ron Jacobs
Standing Up to El Diablo: the 1981 Blockade of Diablo Canyon
Strickler / Hermach
Liar, Liar Forests on Fire
David Vest
Jimmy T99 Nelson, a Blues Legend and the Songs that Made Him
Famous
Adam Engel
America, What It Is
Dr. Susan Block
Christy Canyon, a Life in Porn
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Albert & Guthrie
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
October 31, 2003
Lee Ballinger
Making
a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy"
Combs
Wayne Madsen
The
GOP's Racist Trifecta
Michael Donnelly
Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam"
Elaine Cassel
Coming
to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie)
Linda Heard
An Arab View of Masonry
October 30, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Popular
Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia
Eric Ruder
"We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military
Families
Dave Lindorff
Big
Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"
Philip Adams
"Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of
Israel
Sean Donahue
Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak
Robert Jensen
Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption?
Alexander Cockburn
Paul
Krugman: Part of the Problem
October 29, 2003
Chris Floyd
Thieves
Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton
Robert Fisk
Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans
Rick Giombetti
Let
Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy
The Intelligence Squad
Dark
Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors
as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists
Marie Trigona
Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement
Gary Leupp
Every
Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures
October 28, 2003
Rich Gibson
The
Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003
Uri Avnery
Incident
in Gaza
Diane Christian
Wishing
Death
Robert Fisk
Eyewitness
in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"
Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte
Jason Leopold
Halliburton in Iran
Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten
Chris White
9/11
in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective
October 27,
2003
William A. Cook
Ministers
of War: Criminals of the Cloth
David Lindorff
The
Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer
Elaine Cassel
Antonin
Scalia's Contemptus Mundi
Robert Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia
John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls
Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October 25 / 26,
2003
Robert Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets' Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October 24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
Weekend
Edition
November 29 / 30, 2003
Inside a Miami Jail
One
Activist's Narrative
By MICHAEL ADLER
This article is not supposed to be about me because
I'm so great or something, it's just that I can only write about
what I've seen and heard, so that' s what I'm going to do. It
helps that I was in the more interesting and/or hairy situations.
This will not include everything because I'm not writing a novel
here, but most important details will be included.
Unfortunately, the amount of writing
dedicated to certain events is not proportional to their importance,
but to their complexity. Also, I'm not going to address the corporate
media's deceptions. Don't believe them, they lie. I was there.
Their reporting can be summed up in the sentence, "The emperor's
new clothes are exquisitely beautiful."
A reporter named Al Crespo wrote some
good stuff about it if you get to see it. I've been working on
this protest for about 2 months. I've been building puppets full-time
(overtime actually), except for a week and a half when I was
in Gainesville and the Ruckus
Society action training camp. The Lake Worth Global Justice
Group opened a warehouse for building puppets, attracted puppet
builders from all over, organized housing for probably almost
100 people, and supplied delicious vegan food at least once a
day. (They even posted my bond.) So I built 4 major puppets and
helped on other people's projects. I made a 23-foot tall corn
stalk, corn being a sacred crop; it also symbolized the dumping
of surplus mass-produced, subsidized corn into Mexico under NAFTA
which helped to displace 5 million rural people, and created
a desperate class of people to staff the sweatshops popping up
along the US-Mexico border. Unfortunately the corn stalk puppet
never flew because the wind was too strong so I didn't put it
together. I built a puppet of the Statue of Liberty, being hanged
from a gallows that read "FTAA". I also built a puppet
of caged water, and a big ass sunflower.
The Miami City Council passed an anti-protest
ordinance at Chief Timoney' s request. The original version would
ban puppets, so we brought some puppets there and let them see
what they were going to ban. We carried a dragon-like alligator
puppet through the meeting too. We protested it three times.
Miami revised its ordinance to have an exception for puppets.
Boca Raton followed Miami's example with
an even more ridiculous ordinance that banned "gyrations"
among other things. We got 5 minutes each to speak at the commission
meeting. When Waffle's turn was on, he put duct tape over his
mouth and stood there at the podium for 5 minutes, at the end
of which, he put his fist in the air and started gyrating his
hips. Boca revised its ordinance too.
We took all the puppets to Ft. Lauderdale
on Nov. 16 for the "Root Cause" people's march. Root
Cause is an alliance of grassroots movements, such as LIFFT (Low
income families fighting together) of the Miami Worker's Center,
Power U, and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The purpose
of the march was to bring the concerns of low-income communities
of color to the forefront of the FTAA issue, and they did some
terrific organizing. We walked 34 miles into Miami over three
days and had lots of media coverage, as well as lots of police
intimidation. A woman from a church where we stayed the night
said that before anyone had even asked the Church about our staying
there, the police had threatened the pastor with selective zoning
enforcement and warning him about what kind of dangerous anarchists
we farmworkers are. Everywhere we went, we were flanked by squads
of police; in Miami, they came in full riot gear. They took our
pictures and baby-sat us at night. The North Miami police, however,
contributed some pastries to our breakfast. Pompano Beach, located
north of the beginning of a march heading south) took time out
of its busy schedule to serve march organizers with an injunction
forbidding the march from entering Pompano Beach.
So we walked 34 miles and had lots of
support from onlookers. When we arrived in Miami, thousands joined
us for the first big protest in Miami against the FTAA, and together
we continued to Miami's Berlin Wall (constructed to protect the
rulers from interference by the ruled). We had a concert at Bayfront
Park where I met more people from Gainesville and went to their
hotel with them. We couldn't all fit into Tom's car, but an angel
in the form of a Peruvian student at the community college where
Tom's car was parked gave the rest of us a ride to the hotel.
Wednesday.
Our first stop was the convergence center.
Food Not Bombs was kicking ass. Groups from all over the US came
to work on it and they had massive amounts of delicious food
almost all the time. I put together my dead liberty puppet and
experienced a media circus, with an "Alligator" photographer
being the first one there.
We proceeded to the permaculture site.
My friends Abigail and Rebecca from Sarasota wanted to create
an example of an alternative sustainable structure for society,
and to leave Miami better than we found it. They did a heck of
a job. The Pagans were there and among them my friend Zot from
Gainesville.
Next we went to the Root Cause People's
Tribunal. Representatives of affected communities testified against
the FTAA and it was sentenced to destruction.
That evening, we ate at a Cuban restaurant.
The menu had "freedom fries" on it. After dinner we
went to the Union concert. Billy Brag and Dead Prez played.
Thursday.
We woke up at 5am to get to the convergence
center for the high risk action. My Gainesville based affinity
group was in the puppet cluster. The plan was to break into affinity
groups and swarm Government Center from all sides. There we would
put on a puppet show, and then march to the fence, take it apart,
get into the hotel, and disrupt the meetings. So we swarmed.
The black block massed at the convergence
center, and began marching to Government Center just after we
left.
Cops were running frantically to mass
for the black block (their enemy). We took a path less traveled
and came upon the puppet truck, being detained, and stayed to
watch. After some watching, the black block, trying to outflank
the cops, came around a building and headed south toward us.
Then a battalion of bike cops came at us from the east along
the road where the puppet truck was being detained. We ran. Most
of us got around the leading edge of the bikes, but some were
corralled in with the black block, who were led toward the police
station and detained until the morning's actions were over, at
which time they were released.
Finally, we reached Government Center.
The puppet truck had been freed and passed us along the way.
We were out of time for the puppet pageant, but we still unloaded
the puppets and paraded them down the street in an unpermitted
march. All the stores downtown were boarded up. The cops had
told them all to close.
We didn't get far. Police set up barricades
at various intersections to close us in. There were about 1500
of us. Drums played, people danced, then the cops started pushing.
Like really mean rude shoving in a line, and if you got too close,
they'd pepper spray you.
The barricade on one side of us disappeared.
We were approaching the fence. It looked like a set-up. Some
people attacked the fence. Cops beat their heads in with batons.
We were being pushed toward the Union march that was to start
in a couple hours.
My friend Lela was hit on the head and
needed stitches.
We got into a permitted area and stayed
there, near the fence, for some time. Then the cops decided to
push us right into the Union activities, where we had agreed
with the Unions not to hold high risk actions. I had leaned my
caged water puppet against a tree and went to a bathroom. When
I got back, it was behind a line of riot cops. Tear gas went
off, concussion grenades, pepper spray. People tried to hold
space, but every time the chemical weapons were used, people
would surge forward, trying not to run.
A couple times, the witches tried to
hold space on the front lines. They got sprayed. My friend Zot
got sprayed all over her face. She displayed the characteristic
red skin, with all kinds of mucus and tears flowing out of her
face. She was helping put water on other victims. She said something
like, "I just got pepper sprayed all over my face and I'm
as calm as a pussy cat." She is an inspiration.
Despite all the danger, I was surprisingly
unafraid. I was not scared, or angry, or even had a thought of
responding to the police violence. It was strange, because I'm
a coward. A week before I was scared shitless. But there, it
didn't seem so scary. So I'll get sprayed, I'll get over it,
no big deal. A lot of people seemed remarkably calm like this.
Then the cops stopped pushing. People
hung around on the wide road by the bayfront where the Union
rally was in progress. Cops were still making trouble though.
A few times, "snatch squads" of plainclothes cops would
grab someone and drag him or her across the police line.
The black guy in the foreground is with
the squad. I think this victim is the guy who was tazered before
being dragged. He was electrocuted again after they placed him
in custody.
Cops electrocute people for fun. In case
you don't know, a tazer shoots barbed electrodes into you that
are very difficult to remove. They are attached to the gun with
wires, and it electrocutes you. It makes a characteristic popping
noise. People have died from them.
The AFL-CIO announced that police had
detained 187 of their buses and kept all those people from attending
the march. I heard police also closed the exits of hotels and
people couldn't get out. A line of riot police controlled entry
and exit from the amphitheater that the Unions had rented. They
let in most of the large Union groups walking from their busses,
but were rather erratic about other people. This was despite
the fact that we had an open invitation to the rally.
I heard that at one point the crowd inside
the railing was pushed so hard that a bunch of retirees fell
over the side. Riot cops jumped on them and started swinging.
When they pulled all the retirees off, they found a young person
on the ground and said "He's not one of yours, we're taking
him." Eventually the Union people marched out of the amphitheater,
and began their march. There were a lot of them, with flags and
banners ,and some of our puppets were still being dragged around.
The march snaked through the streets and came back to the bayfront.
Some people went back in to the amphitheater, others hung around
outside.
I was lounging on some grass with some
friends when a crowd, led by drummers, got up and moved south
toward the police line (which was holding quite a distance north
of the fence). I still haven't found anyone who can tell me why
they did that. So they went right up to the cops and had a little
rally there. I walked down to see what was going on, and met
some Gainesville people I hadn't seen in a long time. We were
catching up on things while the situation around us grew very
tense. I think Jackie asked me if the cops would really tear-gas
a group like this, and I said something like "yeah, if they
want to" and it was just about then that they did. Someone
told me later that the commander announced that we could stay
there as long as we were peaceful, and immediately ordered an
attack. Volleys of rubber bullets flew out, as did pepper balls,
and bean bags and tear gas.
Some people who looked like protesters
threw things back at the cops, but I think they were all agents.
Some of them threw smoke bombs, threw back the tear gas canisters,
empty plastic water bottles, rocks--anything they could find.
Police lines started advancing from three sides, forcing us up
one road, away from the open area. Some black-clad people grabbed
anything they could find to construct barricades and light fires.
It was around this time that Suzie was
hit. She was very distraught. She has a black and blue mark on
her butt that's about three inches wide. Suzie probably got hit
with something like the big one. The little ones are hard plastic
balls filled with pepper powder.
The people I met who were hit with things
were not involved in throwing anything. Most of them were actually
trying to get away. Suzie, Faith and I ran up the escape road
together, and got far enough up that things calmed down a bit.
We met more Gainesvillains and had quite a large group together,
until the police assault got closer and we ran again, getting
lost from each other.
We saw people walking up the road past
us with all kinds of welts and injuries, bleeding profusely from
their heads, etc. It was unreal. It was like a war zone. Shots
whizzing by my ears left and right. People panicking, bleeding,
shouts of "Medic, Medic" the walking wounded limping
away. It was like a Vietnam movie. Lots of my friends who were
just trying to get away were shot. Some elderly people climbing
onto buses in the area were shot. I heard that a couple of people
tried to stand and face the police, holding peace signs or placards,
and that they were riddled with bullets mercilessly.
The police pursued us east on that road
to Miami Ave. (the main N/S road), and then north on Miami Ave.
Riot cops had all the other roads blocked. At the back side of
the turn onto Miami Ave. was a government building surrounded
by a fence, guarded by a few riot cops. When we came up to it
to go around the corner, they opened fire too. I could see the
ordinance exploding on the bars of the fence, and sometimes on
people.
Lots of Union busses were parked along
that road too, and some people were trying to board them. I met
back with a couple friends , and at NW 8th St. the way was open
for us to go west. Police were pushing the crowd toward the convergence
center, and a poor black neighborhood called Overtown. As we
left Miami Ave., some people were setting up a barricade there.
I saw one guy throw an empty plastic bottle at the approaching
police. It didn't get there. He stuck out his middle fingers
at them and then took off. So did we. We went to NW1st Ave, which
runs roughly parallel to Miami, and headed north again. I had
told some friends we'd meet back at the convergence space.
So police pursued the crowd relentlessly
from bayfront park down roads, for more than a mile. They would
attack, people would surge forward, then wait to see what happened
next, and the police would attack again. Lots of people tried
to escape.
When our escaped group got up to 10th
St, we saw the bulk of the crowd coming west toward us. People
were running around a train crossing gathering debris for a barricade.
I heard they had a major standoff there.
The residents of Overtown all stood outside
their apartments to look at the commotion. We warned them of
the approaching police violence as we passed. They were very
supportive.
We went west to 2nd Ave. and continued
north. Other groups trying to escape went north on 2nd too. So
did the cops. A phalanx of riot police was in pursuit. We ran
northwest, across empty lots and fences, and finally found a
good hiding place. We watched the event horizon pass before us,
and stayed there till dark.
Friday.
Lots of neat workshops and events were
planned. We checked out of the hotel, and once again, we could
not fit into Tom's car. This time no angels. I humped my pack
to the train station and eventually got it to a friend's house
where it still lies. We hung out there for a little while, and
eventually I got to the "really really free market"
event. I think there was something about giving people ribbons
if you liked something of theirs and writing on it and having
some sort of free commerce, but I got there late and someone
else can explain it better. Food Not Bombs was giving away food
and the witches were having a spiral dance.
I communicated to my ride who was at
the jail support rally, and she said cops had massed and looked
menacing. So I figured if I was going to get to the jail support
protest, I'd better go soon or it would be over before I arrived.
As it was, I got there just in time to get arrested.
When I got there, not many people were
left. Maybe 50 people were standing around the southeast corner,
mostly on the sidewalk. I stayed on the sidewalk the entire time.
The police were across the road on the west side. They charged,
weapons drawn. We backed up, our hands in the air, chanting "put
down your weapons."
They backed us up the street a short
way, and stopped. An officer spoke on a bullhorn, saying, "Pursuant
to section (something) of the Florida State Statutes, I declare
this assembly to be unlawful, you are ordered to disperse"
The crowd demanded to know on what grounds the assembly had been
declared unlawful. The reply was because we were blocking the
street, so everyone moved to the sidewalk.
We asked, "Who's blocking the street
now?" An ambulance appeared to be trying to get through
and the police wouldn't let it. One guy yelled out at the police,
"I declare you to be an unlawful assembly. You are ordered
to disperse."
Then the police came at us again. We
moved down the sidewalk, our hand still raised, chanting "we
are dispersing". The police surrounded us, and attacked.
I was thrown into a bicycle that was on the ground and cut up
my knee. Someone said "everyone sit down" which seemed
like a good idea, so I did. The cops started dragging people
away and hosing the crowd with pepper spray. An officer in back
of me hosed me with pepper and I had my head turned and caught
some in the right eye. Around that time, enough people had been
thrown into a chain link fence to push it down, opening some
more space. I grabbed a water bottle out of my bag and moved
to the less crowded area across the fence to pour water on my
eye.
I pulled my right contact lens out at
that point. I wear a very strong prescription, so I couldn't
hardly see anything with that eye. For the rest of the story,
think about how things looked to me. I could not focus on anything,
had no depth perception, and my brain could not resolve the images
my two eyes were seeing, so everything was double.
A girl with pepper sprayed eyes was calling
for a medic, so I put water on her eyes too. some for you, some
for me, etc. Cops were standing around and after a little while
one in front said to me. "that's enough, give me the water
bottle you're being arrested." A cop pulled my hands behind
me and handcuffed me. I cooperated fully and felt like a sellout.
The girl in front of me was wearing a
nice backpack. The cops cut it off with a knife. Another guy
was wearing glasses. He said a cop twisted up the frame until
the lenses broke and put them back in his pocket. In processing,
cops called the broken glasses a weapon. The police dumped people's
belongings on the road, including expensive camera equipment
of the reporters, and left it there for cars to run over.
The girl in back of me recognized my
UF Hillel t-shirt that said "Florida" in Hebrew letters.
We talked hebrew to each other in that line, and later in the
processing facility. She knew it better than I did, and communication
was not easy, but it was nice. Her name was Elaine. She had straight
brown hair, glasses and a pretty face. That's all I know about
her.
I learned later that the cops had chased
down everyone who had tried to escape earlier, arresting some
as far as 10 blocks away. One guy was talking on a payphone and
never went to the jail support rally. He was charged with loitering.
I smiled for the picture with my arresting
officer before they loaded me into the paddy wagon. In my half
of the paddy wagon was Ernesto, a friend from Gainesville, who
was a legal observer. Two Indymedia reporters from Ann Arbor
were in our half, too. We were able to get to some cell phones
and put them in our laps and yell into them to contact legal.
The wagon was hot and sweaty. The sweat mixed with pepper spray
that was all over my back. I spent 3 hours in that wagon, sweating
and burning, I had some pepper spray on my leg, the skin turned
bright red, it also ran down my fingers. My hat fell off and
I tried to pick it up with my mouth. More pepper. I left the
hat.
One of the Indymedia reporters had needed
to use the bathroom before she was arrested, and pleaded for
it the whole three hours. She was told she could go when we got
to the processing facility. I don't think they let her go there,
just threw her in the cage with everyone else. It was probably
six hours she had to hold it until she got to the jail.
We met an interesting officer who held
the doors open sometimes so we could get air. He had been a bounty
hunter in the former British territory of Rhodesia, and defended
the white racist government of Rhodesia to us. He talked about
one arrested person who he said "got a little too cute,
and now he's in the hospital." He said we were lucky they
didn't kill him, or they'd charge us with his murder, and explained
the legal concept of "felony murder." They arrested
a lot of people that day and it took three hours before we were
let off the wagon.
When we got to the processing facility,
they called me out of the wagon for decontamination. I had to
stand under a freezing cold fire hose and then go to a tent.
I was shaking uncontrollably from cold. They cut my cuffs off
and I was ordered to take off all my clothes, shoes and underwear,
and throw them in the garbage. A woman officer was present, which
seemed improper. They gave me a towel and some paper-like hospital
clothes, and put the cuffs back on, tight.
The processing facility was a parking
garage with cages. They threatened us if we didn't want to give
our names. Said if we gave our names, we'd be out that night.
Lies. I was told I wouldn't last 2 minutes on the 4th floor where
we're going. They talked our ears off with their lies. I was
made to stay in one of the cages for a number of hours. I have
an unstable shoulder that was hurting a lot from being cuffed
behind my back. I asked lots of cops if I could be cuffed in
the front because of it. They laughed.
I was finally taken for more processing.
They demanded my birthdate. They said they couldn't process me
without it. Lies. And that I would be kept here all night with
my cuffs on if I didn't tell them. They said "you can go
over there and finish the processing and get your cuffs off if
you give us your birthdate." I needed to get those cuffs
off and agreed. Lies.
The charges they wrote on my ticket were
"illegal assembly," "resisting arrest without
violence," "failure to disperse," and "assault
of a police officer."
I was taken "over there" and
was talked to in Spanish by an officer who didn't believe that
I didn't understand him. We filled out forms for my belongings
that they had taken. No news of my backpack. My new clothes did
not have pockets, so they stuffed the forms in my waistband,
and made me wait for a paddy wagon.
Once we were on our way, they shut off
the ventilation and let us cook. They had a bbq to celebrate
and let us cook in the parked truck while they ate. We were taken
into a lobby of the jail, which was refrigerated, and I was all
sweaty. More hypothermia. After we were taken for mug shots,
they handcuffed us in front with loose zip ties. Much less bad.
My wrists were badly bruised and I have some nerve damage now
so I can't feel anything on part of my left palm and thumb.
We were split up into a few rooms and
fingerprinted, catalogued, photographed, etc, etc, etc. It took
a long time. We demanded water and food. Our demands were mostly
not met. It was between nine and 12 hours after arrest before
any of us were allowed water for the first time.
Our paperwork was all stamped with a
bright red FTAA. And our form numbers all started with FTAA too.
Food was bologna and cheese on imitation
white bread. I ate the bread. It tasted like balogna. Around
3am, we were taken to our cells. They had cleared out enough
space to put each and every one of the hundreds they had arrested
into solitary confinement.
Solitary confinement sucks. It's not
just being alone, I've been alone for a lot longer than that.
It something else. In addition, the place has a spirit to it.
A very bad spirit. It was the most terrible place I have ever
been. It must be like what it feels like to walk through Auschwitz.
Just being there made me want to cry. Everyone else I talked
to had the same experience.
The cell was cold. We didn't get bed
sheets or toilet paper. There was something that looked as though
it may have once been a pillow, the last such thing I encountered.
The solitary confinement drum circle:
Communication was almost impossible, but sound from banging on
the cement carried well. We had a drum circle up there for a
few minutes. I tried to play along even though I'm not a good
drummer.
Jail is very different from the real
world. We got three meals a day, but they're 8 hrs apart. Breakfast
is at 12:30am, lunch at 8:30am, and dinner at 4:30pm.
We got to our cells about 3am. They woke
me up for lunch. I had to walk down the stairs, take the food
off the tray, and carry it back up. Deli turkey and cheese on
white and an orange. I didn't get my acid medication despite
having filled out all their forms and having a 2-week supply
in my pocket. So I ouldn't eat their deli meats both because
it's against my religion and because it aggravates my acid reflux
disease.
Bond hearing. They won't treat us as
a group, few people want to do jail solidarity, everyone wants
to get out ASAP because they can't stand being in solitary. Our
lawyers seem very capable. My charge list is reduced to "failure
to disobey an unlawful order" and bond reduced from $2000
to $250. I gave my name at the bond hearing.
I am put into a cell with a reporter
who was arrested Thursday. He and other reporters were trying
to escape the "river of violence" as he called it,
snaking through Miami. They were surrounded and taken in. People
had already come to pay his bond, but they were told they could
not because he had not been to his bond hearing yet. Another
lie. He didn't get out till the next day.
He told me of a firefighter from Minnesota
who was in Miami on vacation and pulled off the highway to get
a lemonade. Upon returning to his car he found his way blocked
by police and asked them which way to go to his car. They told
him, he went, and then was arrested. He had a special fireman's
knife with him and was charged with weapon possession. At his
bond hearing, the prosecution determined that he actually was
a fireman, and dropped the charges.
Lying on the bed, and looking at the
cieling, the light coming in from the window and hitting the
texture of the cieling formed the image of Ghandi. Either that
or I was halucinating from having only eaten some imitation white
bread and an orange in 24 hours.
Dinner came. Mystery meat. I ate everything
else and was still very hungry. I decided I needed to eat it
to maintain my health. I cannot fast, having acid reflux disease.
I stared at it for a while, a piece on my plastic spoon. It really
didn't taste too bad, but it felt wrong. That was the first time
that I felt like I had done a bad thing. It was something I'm
not supposed to do. I felt like those people in the movie "alive"
forced into cannibalism in order to survive their plane crash
After dinner, the light patch on the
ceiling looked more like Bush #1.
The next day we were moved into a misdemeanor
stockade. A guy was moved with us who didn't look like us. He
said he moved to Miami a few days before his arrest and had no
idea anything was going on. He was sleeping outside the homeless
shelter like all the other people waiting to get a room, when
cops decided he was too light skinned to be an actual homeless
person and therefore must be an anarchist. His paperwork was
stamped with a bright red FTAA too.
The misdemeanor stockade was full of
people in for domestic violence, DUI, and driving on a suspended
license. One of the trustees (in charge of laundry) took care
of us. He was glad to have someone he could talk to. He mostly
talked about how crazy his girlfriend was, that he was in here
for violating a stay-away order with. We were able to eat better
there, as the trustees were able to get extra trays of food.
I imagine that they would otherwise be forced to live on about
1000 calories a day.
I called my parents a couple times from
the phones there. I felt an intense sense of shame, when the
collect call recording said "correctional institution,"
probably because of my subconscious classism, even thought I
knew I didn't do anything wrong.
While in, I made three separate requests
to the nursing staff for my acid medication. I never got it.
It wasn't until Tuesday morning that
the support team succeeded in bonding me out. I was told they
tried a day earlier, but because I had been moved, the jail couldn't
locate me, and our support team had to try again the next day.
The window to claim belongings was closed by the time I was let
out. I plan on buying new shoes and another backpack, pleading
not guilty, beating the charges, and having a hell of a lawsuit.
Wish me luck.
Michael Adler
can be reached at: UFDionysus@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|