See the following articles for a more comprehensive review of what happened. Police and much of the corporate media consider the driver to be the victim, without wasting time gathering eyewitness reports.
http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/last_nights_critical_mass_melee (with longer non-cyclist witness reports)
http://seattlest.com/2008/07/26/media_no_one_is_safe_from_rampaging.php
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/372364_criticalmass27.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008075512_reading27.html
As an avid cyclist and occasional Critical Masser, I can attest to the cyclists’ view that the driver was the aggressor. Just this summer, we have had a car bump the back tires of massers, and finally run over a guy’s bike (the driver was in a Prius, no less). One car went into oncoming traffic to pass us, then stopped and feigned backing up into us. Others honk, swear, and engage in dangerous driving just to get around us. Critical Mass asserts cyclists’ rights to be safe on the road, but also challenges American drivers’ ill-perceived sense of entitlement to drive, and to drive fast.
The right to be safe is always in danger when biking alone or in small groups, which is why Critical Masses are so important — it’s safety in numbers, and when a driver hits one of us and drives off, there are more to make sure he is stopped.
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The immigration movement has reached somewhat of a stand-still: Republicans will not barge on amnesty, and seem content with flooding our senses with increasingly Orwellian and dehumanizing terms like “illegals” and “anchor babies”; and Democrats, since 2006, have lacked the spine to take any sort of positive action to protect immigrants living within our borders. Furthermore, all discourse has been completely void of any mention of economic, social, political, and cultural conditions in home countries which breed the necessity of emigration.
Ever-worsening conditions
Two wonderful documentaries — Documigrante and Voice of a Mountain — were screened over the weekend in Madison, Wis., which show conditions in Guatemala, and follow immigrants to the United States. In 1954, democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown by a U.S.-led coup d’etat, at the behest of the powerful United Fruit Company, which had on its Board of Directors the U.S. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen, the head of the CIA. Following the coup, Guatemala was plagued with several decades of a brutal dictatorship and harsh repression against indigenous peasants, who make up the large majority of the country’s population.
Peasants and communities were stripped of land, which was given, or “sold,” to large multinationals like the United Fruit Company. U.S. foreign policy unanimously supported UFC’s agenda and the dictatorship, up until the mid-1980’s. A guerrilla army formed to counter the government, and Guatemala was hurled into civil war. Peace accords were signed in 1996, promising land ownership and additional economic security, but these were broken promises. During the Civil War, 450 indigenous rural communities were destroyed, and over 1 million Guatemalans were displaced, with many fleeing to southern Mexico and the United States. Truth Commission reports have found a deliberate governmental policy of genocide against the indigenous. Despite the return to free elections, peasants lack basic social services like health care and education, and they continue to lose land, their chance at subsistence.
Some communities, like Santa Anita (which is featured in both documentaries), have fared better than others. Santa Anita has formed a partnership with Madison-based Just Coffee, a fair trade coffee distributor. But it is also trapped in debt, and struggles to even pay off the interest of its loans. And it is impossible for the whole country to follow this path. Often, the only solution is to travel to the U.S. to look for work, either to provide for the family there, or send remittances back to relatives in Guatemala.
But Guatemala is not unique
Unfortunately, what has happened in Guatemala is the rule, rather than the exception, in Latin America. With the help of the CIA, but sometimes independently, most countries have spent much of the past 50 years in dictatorships. Even borders have not provided security, as operations have extended internationally to track down and jail or kill dissidents (most notably, Operation Condor, which even led to an assassination of a Chilean politician in Washington, D.C.). Economic policies coming from NAFTA and the IMF have only exacerbated the problems, by stripping land from peasants and small farmers, privatizing or eliminating access to social services (health care, social security, education… and even clean water), further militarizing police against protest and dissent, and further degrading working conditions in factories.
If unpermitted immigration is indeed a problem for the U.S., it is a problem exclusively of our own doing. With the barrier to legal entry so high, it should not be surprising that many find other ways into the country. Even a tourist visa is cost-prohibitive for many middle class Latin Americans, but entering on this type of visa (or on a student visa) is one of the most popular ways of entering without permission. It is often ignored that many from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean are undocumented — several of the detained Postville workers were from Israel and the Ukrain — and these groups cannot just walk across a border; instead, they come legally and stay longer than they are allowed to.
If we are to reduce unpermitted immigration (for it simply cannot be eliminated, nor would we want it to be), we need to take a diagnostic approach to the problem. Treating the symptom is not enough, we cannot seal the border or deport millions of immigrants and expect the problem to be solved; we need to look at the social virus that leads to emigration and immigration, and begin taking responsibility for unleashing it upon the world. The danger that many in Mexico and Central Americans go through to come here — days without food or water in the desert, train-hopping, dealing with coyotes — is clearly desirable compared to what they are fleeing.
Preventing another Postville
We should not expect any meaningful action on immigration reform before Obama or McCain are inaugurated in January, nor is there any reason to believe that things will be sufficiently different during the next presidential term.
Protests and rallies like the one in Postville this past Sunday show that many Americans do favor a more compassionate approach to immigration, but it really does little to free the nearly 400 workers still detained and those forced to wear ankle monitoring bracelets. Nor does it guarantee that another raid will happen in the near future. There was very little discussion about what steps should be taken in the future, and indeed this is a question which has received scant attention.
As in most civil rights and human rights struggles, it will probably take the arrest of many allies and supporters (since unpermitted immigrants cannot risk arrest) before things can change. We have reached a juncture where a nationally organized campaign of direct action and civil disobedience is absolutely imperative.
Such a strategy would be two-fold, with direct action and civil disobedience organized separately (as they fill separate roles), but strategically united, with neither condemning the other. A diversity of tactics and approaches is always necessary, but tactically it would follow two main paths. Currently, churches and religious institutions have played a critical role in the movement, and have established a consensus on the moral argument surrounding immigration.
Civil Disobedience. This is the more pacific or tame part of this strategy, but nonetheless necessary. Because of the moral argument built by the religious community, this is most effectively carried out by religious leaders, but is appropriate for labor leaders, immigrant leaders, students, or just about anyone else. Such a strategy can involve sit ins at government offices or outside detention centers, or locking oneself to the gates of jails where immigrants are being held. It is non-confrontational and non-violent in all interpretations; it is “going to jail for justice.”
Direct Action. This is a more radical approach, creating creative space for those who can risk more. It is beyond the symbolic strategy of civil disobedience: it physically confronts raids, detentions, and deportations, and the structural conditions which breed hatred for immigrants and minorities and their exploitation. It is also strictly non-violent, in that it refutes aggression, the injury of living things, and the destruction of personal and community property. But in its very nature, it is an ideology of self-defense, physically defending our relatives, friends, and neighbors from physical, social, and economic harm.
In simpler terms, what this means is real-time civil disobedience, targeted to prevent raids, detentions, and deportations from being carried out, even as these actions are initiated. This can mean human and material blockades of homes and businesses where large raids or smaller arrests are happening; blocking streets or surrounding ICE or local police vehicles to prevent officials from transporting arrested individuals to detention facilities. Activists engaging in direct action tactics may also choose to be detained alongside unpermitted immigrants; refusing to show identification, giving false immigration status, and speaking only Spanish or another language will force ICE and local law enforcement agencies to process U.S.-born and naturalized citizens as unpermitted immigrants, and will slow down and confuse ICE’s ability to process detained immigrants and carry out basic institutional tasks.
Next steps
Such a strategy will require coordination on several levels: nationally, among the various organizations already fighting for immigrant rights; regionally, so that activists can respond quickly and provide bodies for actions; and locally, among churches, NGOs, activists, and most importantly, immigrants. All Americans should fight on behalf of immigrants, since they are a part of our communities; but taking part in actions may place them in jeopardy of deportation — and since our main focus is to prevent the unnecessary fracturing of our families and communities, the rest of us with less to lose should take up more of the burden when we can. But throughout this process, because they do have so much to lose, both through action and inaction, we must be very cognizant of their best interest; thus it is critical that we be in constant contact with the immigrant community.
Developing ties of solidarity and communication with immigrants, especially unpermitted or undocumented immigrants, is necessary for rapid responses to raids and detentions. But it can also mitigate the culture of fear that is pervasive in immigrant enclaves. Often, crime and exploitation goes unreported because the victims are afraid of their status coming into question; this allows employers like Agriprocessors to exploit workers, short workers on overtime and normal wages, demand long hours, provide inadequate working conditions, and prevent unionization or informal hiring. We cannot hope to achieve total protection and always keep ICE out of our communities; but by standing up and defending our neighbors, friends, and family, we can hope to create safe space for those individuals to also stand up for themselves and demand justice where there currently is none.
That is one thing which the Postville rally did achieve. While news coverage highlighted that many of the attendees were from out of town, given the small population, the turnout gave people from Postville their own voice. By lending our solidarity and bodies in coordination with immigrants provides greater security so that they may clamor for justice and respect and demand an end to abuse and exploitation.
If you have any interest in helping coordinate such a project nationally or developing an additional call for direct action to stop the raids, email betinho@riseup.net.
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http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gPTbcw3PrMnPkSg3Pd2IYYetk-MwD926ONUG0
By HENRY C. JACKSON
POSTVILLE, Iowa (AP) — As the chants of 1,000 or so people roared near the center of town, Dave Hartley stood on the periphery wearing a look of wonder and bemusement.
The 50-year-old Postville resident said he never expected this sleepy community of about 2,200 to become a flashpoint in the debate over immigration. As a three-hour protest concluded just blocks from his house, he spoke regretfully about what the town had become.
“It’s not their fault,” he said of the protesters. “It just didn’t need to get to this, to a boiling point.”
With chants of “End the raids!” and “Si se puede!” — or “Yes, we can!” — hundreds of immigration protesters brought a national debate to this isolated corner of northeastern Iowa. The protests came in response to a May raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant, the largest enforcement effort in U.S. history.
Busloads of protesters from the Twin Cities and Chicago as well as hundreds of others from around the region rallied as residents sat on their lawns and gaped. Organizers said there were more than 1,000 people participating.
Protesters walked, stomped and chanted on a route about a mile long. The rally started at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, winding its way through town and pausing near the driveway of Agriprocessors.
“This is an awesome moment, a historic moment,” said Sister Mary McCauley of St. Bridget’s. “We’re calling for reform, not raids.”
The May 12 raid at Agriprocessors — the nation’s biggest kosher meatpacking plant — resulted in 389 arrests. Most of those arrested were Guatemalan and Mexican nationals who lived in Postville and the surrounding area.
Sunday’s protesters included hundreds of Hispanics but had a diverse collection of ages, races and genders. Elderly white women marched next to young Hispanic men and Jewish men from Minneapolis and Chicago. They clutched banners and signs like one that read, “United for immigrant and worker rights.”
The protesters circled the streets of Postville before returning to the center of town. They passed a much smaller group of anti-immigration protesters along the way, outshouting them during their march.
One of them was Claire Jamison, who said she’d traveled from Minneapolis to protest the protesters. She wore a hat emblazoned with a U.S. Border Patrol logo and held up a sign reading “What would Jesus do? Obey the law” as she shouted across the street.
“I’m just so fed up as an American. We have laws. Why can’t they obey our laws?” Jamison said. “I empathize with those people, but they are not victims. They should not have even been here.”
Apart from a few moments of cross-shouting, Sunday’s protests remained orderly. Local police formed a perimeter around the march, separating anti-immigration protesters from marchers.
The march ended with a rally outside St. Bridget’s, before a heavy rain storm forced the crowd to disband.
Getzel Rubashkin, an Agriprocessors employee and a member of the family that owns it, said it was unfair to blame his family and Agriprocessors for the raid and theorized that unspecified competitors and enemies of the plant were behind the enforcement action.
The reaction from Postville residents appeared largely supportive. Cindy Moser, 53, from nearby Elkader, said her daughter and son-in-law were marching while she watched her two grandchildren.
“If they want to come and work here I say fine,” Moser said. “We all saw the effect of this. My grandson, he told me, ‘Grandma, they took my friends away.’ I hope this stops.”
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The full + original version of Naomi Klein’s speech is here.
Stimulator writes:
Naomi Klein’s speech at the National Conference for Media reform was not included on the conference website. subMedia contacted Free Press, the organizer or the conference, to ask why Klein’s speech could not be found online, and the person explained that Free Press is a non-profit organization and that I should reefer to the disclaimer on their website which reads:
“Despite our best efforts, we feel that some of our speakers encroached on electoral space during their remarks at the National Conference for Media Reform. It is not in our interest to disseminate these recordings. We are reviewing all of our video content and will add that which we determine to be free of electoral statements to this page.”
I don’t quite understand how these things work, but whatever. Two sources have told me the reason Free Press did not include the speech was Klein’s criticism of Barack Obama. It would be pretty fuckin lame if it were true.
She is so completely spot on. “Power yields nothing without a demand,” or so says Frederick Douglass. By blindly supporting Obama (and giving him money) without placing demands upon him, we have signalled that he has our unconditional support, no matter how his policies shift. As Klein points out, DEMOCRATS RECEIVE MORE MONEY FROM THE WEAPONS INDUSTRY THAN REPUBLICANS! And Obama, despite his claims, is receiving large contributions from corporations who are hardly progressive in their outlooks. What this means is this: Obama knows he has the support of the left locked up, so he is free to shift further and further right and renege on his original promises.
This is further empowered by the willingness of supporters to excuse and apologize for all of these policy changes and political sliding. And we are beginning to see the same logic of the past two elections: “A vote for [insert 3rd party candidate] is a vote for McCain.” This continues to lock up unchallenging, undemanding support for Obama without forcing him to stay true to his progressive promises. It also enslaves voters into the continuing 2-party system, and prevents them from lending support and legitimacy to a candidate who truly represents their interests, instead submitting to the interests of elites. Want to vote for someone who supports Palestinian right to return, or an end to the embargo of Cuba, or the immediate end to the war? Tough shit, you might as well be voting for McCain, who is guaranteed to be worse.
Supporting (or threatening to support) a 3rd candidate makes Obama work for your vote–he has to slide left to capture those critical votes, instead of feeling entitled to the left’s support. This demonstrates the poverty of the “lesser evil” mentality: it in fact creates a greater evil out of that “lesser evil,” and it explains why the Democratic Party has slowly shifted right with each election, and consequently lost each, despite the massive discontent with the Republicans. Instead of whining about Nader “stealing” (which implies a sense of entitlement and deserving) votes, they should have made a real effort to appeal to those voters, instead of appeasing the corporate donors who supported each party.
I will also agree with Klein that this doesn’t mean we should boycott elections or vote for Nader or McKinney. What should be clear, however, is that much work needs to be done to steer Obama in the direction we need him to go, by building a mass, militant movement to hold him accountable to us.
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From Behind the Orange Curtain 