Kevin Gosztola 
Flickr Photo by Carl W. Heindl
What is supposed to be a forum for deliberation and the development of agreements on global economic governance was an utter failure. In the end, over a billion dollars was spent to build a temporary system of apartheid in Toronto to keep protesters out so that the twenty most wealthy countries in the world could agree to disagree on what to do about the state of the global economy.
Somewhere between a billion and two billion dollars was spent in the end on the G20 in Toronto (and the G8 meeting in Huntsville). It was used to create a fake lake, a fence around the city (a veritable apartheid wall) to keep protesters out, and it was used to enforce a regulation that gave police secret arrest powers that never went through the legislature.
The Toronto Star reported:
“the regulation kicked in Monday and will expire June 28, the day after the summit ends. While the new regulation appeared without notice on the province’s e-Laws online database last week, it won’t be officially published in The Ontario Gazette until July 3 — one week after the regulation expires.
According to the new regulation, “guards” appointed under the act can arrest anyone who, in specific areas, comes within five metres of the security zone.
Within those areas, police can demand identification from anyone coming within five metres of the fence perimeter and search them. If they refuse, they face arrest. Anyone convicted under the regulation could also face up to two months in jail or a $500 maximum fine.
The security was characterized by Toronto Star’s Catherine Porter as “the Miami Model.” The reference goes back to seven years ago when the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit took place.
Porter explained that “Manny Diaz, Miami’s then-mayor, called the police methods exemplary–a model to be followed by homeland security when confronting protesters” while “human rights groups including Amnesty International called it a model of police brutality and intimidation.”
From an interview with Naomi Archer, an indigenous rights worker from North Carolina, Porter outlined how the main identifiers of the “Miami Model” are: information warfare, intimidation, always suggesting the protesters triggered the violence, and congratulating themselves after all is said and done no matter what brutality took place at their hands.
State Repression of Journalists, G20 Protesters
The following is just a handful or small combination of the many videos and first-hand written accounts from those who were there at the G20 in Toronto attempting to exercise the right to assemble peacefully and protest.
-Amy Miller, independent journalist, discusses the threats of rape that were made against women in the detention center. She also details how guards in the center were strip-searching, traumatizing and sexually abusing prisoners by fingering some of the women who had been detained.
Amy Miller – Alternative Media Centre, Independent Journalist (VIDEO)
-Stefan Christoff, an independent journalist who was targeted prior to the G20 and featured on last Friday’s edition of Democracy Now! details the attacks on protesters who gathered for jail solidarity actions outside the detention center.
-A Guardian journalist (a newspaper from the UK) was assaulted, arrested, as were numerous others even if they had press credentials to prove they were “legitimate” members of the press who had a right to be covering the police and the protesters
-A large march and rally against the meeting of the G20 ended in police attacks against peaceful protesters and video journalist Brandon Jourdan in Queens Park.
-Community organizers, while on the way to a press conference, were targeted by plainclothes officers refusing to show badge numbers or identification.
-Calls to Amnesty International were made to report on the “illegal, immoral and dangerous” conditions at the detention center, where detained protesters were being held up to 35 hours without food, refused water or given as little as an ounce every 12 hours, subjected to “over-filled” cages, delayed processing, put into solitary confinement, refused the use of pillows or mattresses, forced to endure non-stop light exposure/loss of natural light rhythm/sensory deprivation (interrogation techniques used on Guantanamo detainees), subjected to extreme cold (another interrogation technique used on Guantanamo detainees), and sexually harassed.
There were peaceful protests. Most likely, few saw these images unless they sought them out.
A video like the one above doesn’t match the idea that protesters were a danger to the well-being of small businesses, people in the city, and those who were failing to come to agreement on how to tackle the economic crisis.
That’s why the police probably used agents provocateurs; their needed to be at least one incident to justify the level of police state brutality being utilized against protesters.
The images and video of police cars up and flames have raised many questions. Given the history of agents provocateurs in Canada, Cory Doctorow explored the possibility that police had incited the violence that many have linked to black bloc protesters who were at the G20. (Global Research also has an article up looking at the shoes the police and the alleged provocateur were wearing.)
G20 Leaders’ “Final Communique”
This only scratches the surface of all that went on. Instead of focusing on each incident individually, what about considering all the security and repression in the context of the discussion at the G20? What were leaders deliberating behind the apartheid fence built to keep protesters out? Why was it so important that the protesters get nowhere near the site where leaders were discussing global economics?
Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine who has been covering globalization, trade and disaster capitalism for more than a decade, explained on Democracy Now! on the Monday right after the G20 that she thought the “real crime scene” was “what actually happened at the summit on Sunday night.”
Klein explained that the “communiqué” would not levy even a measly tax on banks to help pay for the global crisis banks had created and prevent future crises. No financial transaction tax to create fund for social programs and action on climate change would be created. And, Klein added, “real action to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuel companies” that they have created many social and environmental problems for the world would not take place.
On what the G20 did do, Klein said:
“”What there would be was very decisive action on deficit reductions. These leaders announced that they would halve their deficits by 2013, which is shocking and brutal cut. You know, I don’t believe–maybe some of the leaders intend on keeping–making good on this promise, but, on the other hand, they can hide behind this promise as the excuse to do what a lot of them want to do anyway, and say, you know, “We have no choice; we made this commitment.” But so, just to put this in perspective, if the US were to cut its deficit, its projected 2010 deficit, in half by 2013, that would be a cut of $780 billion, you know, if there were no tax increases in that period. So, you know, that’s why I wrote the piece that came out this morning in Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail, that what actually happened at the summit is that the global elites just stuck the bill for their drunken binge with the world’s poor, with the people who are most vulnerable, because that is really who’s going to pay, when they balance their budgets on the backs of healthcare programs, pension programs, unemployment programs. And also, the other thing that they did at this G8 summit, that preceded the G20 summit, is admit that they were not meeting their commitments to doubling aid to Africa, once again, because of the debt that was created by saving the banks.”
Indigenous natives of Canada reminded all protesters that indigenous rights are the first to go and the first people to be impacted because of the policies that the leaders in the G20 push and promote.
Arthur Manuel, former chief of the Neskonlith Band in British Columbia and spokesperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade, explained on Democracy Now!:
“…basically indigenous people are the first ones that are impacted by the major sort of resource extraction-type industries that these big conferences actually, you know, engender in their strategies, you know? And so, we have to let–you know, we are part of the whole process, you know, in the sense that we’re the people that are hurt at the community level, in terms of hunting and fishing and food gathering that we depend on. It doesn’t matter if it’s just North America, but it could be anywhere, in Central, South America, in Asia, you know, all around the world. There’s like 370 million indigenous people globally, you know?…”
Indigenous people have been challenging the environmental impacts of “proposed massive pipelines that would carry Canadian tar sands oil 2,000 miles from northern Alberta all the way down to refineries in Texas and tankers off the Gulf Coast.” Not surprisingly, BP is trying to get into the dirty energy game of tar sands or resource extraction and environmental degradation of land in Canada.
In the end, what the National Post wrote about the G20 as it concluded may bemost apt:
“…the Toronto summits represent a near total collapse of efforts to create some kind of overarching centre of global economic power. Despite repeated reference to strong collective commitments to international cooperation, sustainable development and macroeconomic co-ordination, the G8/G20 separately and jointly agreed to go their own ways and avoid collective action as much as possible.
On everything from deficit reduction to climate change, from financial regulation to trade, foreign aid, currencies and Afghanistan, the G20 ultimately marched off in 20 separate directions.
Reality trumped fantasy in Toronto, the fantasy being that leaders can legally or would even want to commit their nations to the objectives of an unelected collective of political leaders from the four corners of the world — as if leaders from China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Brazil and elsewhere could set global policy by some kind of balloted consensus at a weekend meeting. Mr. Harper, in his wrap-up news conference yesterday, acknowledged the pre-eminence of national sovereignty. Everything the G20 does is “voluntary,” he said in answer to a question about the deficit targets. “Everything is voluntary that we do here, because we are sovereign countries.” U.S. President Barack Obama put it more starkly: “Every country is unique, and every country will chart its own course”…
Over ten thousand community activists engaged in a US Social Forum in Detroit. Over ten thousand regularly engage in World Social Forums that have been organized since January 2001 when the first Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Those who have participated in the World Social Forums or the US Social Forums in the past decade know every country is not unique and every country should not chart its own course.
All humanity is connected. What one country does has repercussions in all the countries of the world.
That any leader would utter such quotes that appeal to an ideology supportive of unilateralism and conflict is unacceptable and should be loudly condemned by all the people of the world.
Yet, that’s the story of the G20–Twenty leaders coming together to say what they want for their country. Twenty leaders ultimately agreeing to disagree and let each country carry out their own agenda. Twenty leaders planning to meet again to do the same and to drop a billion more dollars to militarize the area outside of where the next meeting will be.
Twenty leaders displaying utter disregard for humanity, a love for free trade or global capitalism, and tacit support for police state repression so they can decide to not agree in peace.
Twenty leaders who don’t want to be inconvenienced by the pratfalls of the global economy they have created, who are perfectly okay with forcing those that they govern to foot the tab for their excess and bourgeois view of how to handle the political and economic future of the world.
Kevin Gosztola 
Welcome to the US Social Forum. There are so many issues being discussed, so many stories being told. And, in the past day or two, I have realized if I rest for one hour, one minute, or even one second, I am missing out on something amazing that should be reported and shared with everyone.
Allow me to provide a brief glimpse into what life has been like for me over the past few days (It’s really only been a few days?). It’s a story about how I have taken in the US Social Forum so far, but it’s also much more than that. It’s an ode to all the media makers in the People’s Media Center who have committed to covering the biggest progressive event of the year. (Hell, why not talk like the corporate media and sensationalize it? It’s the largest progressive event in the US in the 21st Century.)
My perspective is one of an independent freelance passionate, ambitious and driven citizen journalist who has been writing and publishing online for over two years. I have been attending grassroots events and actions outside of conventions and at conferences throughout that period. I am used to covering events like this and understand the value of covering movement activity and organizing. But, this is overwhelming.
I knew America had issues. I knew we the people needed to rise up and take action but at this forum, not only have the organizers given a voice to people who are not regularly given voices in media and the greater society but they have also magnified the reality that the Earth and all of humanity is facing a tremendously bleak and dismal future.
Unemployment. The unemployment benefits not extended by Congress. End to industrial economy, less and less need for people in work force. Continued erosion of workers rights. Less unions. Harder and harder to organize labor. Teachers blamed for education problems. States cutting budgets for education. A poisonous agenda of privatization. Safety nets like Medicare and Social Security under threat. Bank bailouts. Cars continue to be used instead of taking the leap and building a mass transit system in America. Failure to admit the role America plays in climate change. Raining oil in the Gulf. Gulf oil leak, gusher. BP. Corporate power. Corporate welfare. Military defense contractors like Blackwater. Robotic warfare like drones tearing communities in Afghanistan apart. Occupations and military campaigns in the name of so-called liberation, as rescue operations when people in their neighborhoods need rescue. Support for Israeli apartheid, the occupation of Gaza. The isolation of Iran and sanctions that will impact a real grassroots movement for liberation. Support for UN and other corporations to come in and rewrite laws in Haiti so that corporations can further colonize the country of Haiti. IMF, World Bank schemes concerning vulture funds in Africa. The rise of China as a superpower who is stepping on America’s turf making it become ever more vigilant, turning its citizens more and more competitive each day. The fear. The fear used to control and take away civil liberties. Checks at airports. Show me your papers laws, racial profiling laws in Arizona. ICE raids and targeted attacks and intimidation of people video taping police or law enforcement activities in public places. Surveillance state. Racism. Utter disregard for law, inability to hold those guilty and responsible for torture and abuse of detainees at Gitmo accountable. Continued use of secret prisons. Bagram remaining open. The wars continuing. Afghan war drones on (literally) with Gen. Petraeus replacing McChrystal. Health care “reformed” instead of removing some of the trillions of dollars going to the military and opting to set up a Medicare for All system, single-payer. And, many of the people of this nation going along with all of this, feeling the need to pacify their anger and be happy and positive and thinking it’s not necessary to confront the toxic rot that continues to spread in the country and world.
So many think the president will deal with it–it’s his job–and sooner or later something will have to be done so why should I take responsibility and ownership of the problems and form a bond with members of my community and begin to create meaningful and lasting change.
As Grace Lee Boggs might say, why should I undergo an evolution through revolution in my community? Why should I struggle? What for? Why for? And, how will I benefit and can I win?
The questions. The questions. The questions. The justifying away. The justifying away. While people die all over the world, thousands, millions and in fact billions dying as a result of US policies that the American people have an obligation to stand up and oppose.
The world is facing a worst case scenario that no word cloud, no soundbites, no television news pundit, and no political campaign will be able to address without threatening the very interests that allow him or her to produce incessant word clouds, vacuous soundbites, meaningless commentary, slick rhetorical speeches that woo and pacify supporters, etc.
With all that needs to be challenged, is it any wonder that I’ve over-extended myself? I have failed the US Social forum twice–once when I was called upon to write a short article on the march to Cobo Hall and when when I volunteered to help film a People’s Movement Assembly called, “Plant Occupations and Other Strategies for Organizing and Defending Workers Rights.” Now, when labor wonders why more people aren’t in tune with their struggle to have decent workers’ rights for all, they can point to me as one reason there isn’t video to promote their cause.
Is it any wonder that I stay up late studying this program and feel like I am testing myself, like if I pick the wrong workshops to go to or the wrong PMAs or go to the wrong building, I will make someone upset or be in the wrong place at the wrong time?
That question doesn’t have an answer because, as media makers in the People’s Media Center know (whether they work for a press or media organization or not), there is no enjoying of workshops, there is no casual walk in the breaks to just mingle with people, there’s little time to socialize, there’s even less time to eat, and don’t even think of going to the bathroom just yet because if you do you’re going to miss Danny Glover or a spontaneous act of civil disobedience/direct action.
To the media makers and especially the US Social Forum organizers who are working together to make sure all of this is properly documented for further consumption and enjoyment by individuals after this massive convergence is over, you are the ones who will ensure organizers involved in struggle will continue to feel empowered and validated after this Forum is over. You are the ones who will make certain that thousands more in the US who didn’t want to give attention to this event and the people involved click and scroll and peruse material that must at least be skimmed through by millions of people.
The party is still underway. I wish I could have just hopped on the #ussfendlesswar or #ussfmedia or #ussfboggs track but I have been monitoring the blogosphere and the so-called progressive media. They are behaving like the herd that they often are–shifting attention to comment on whatever the corporate media or politicians provide them opportunity to comment on (McChrystal, Gulf and BP, Supreme Court, midterm elections, etc) rather than being the independent media agenda-setters they should be and tuning into this golden opportunity to build relationships with community and further ignite struggles and movements all over the country and the world.
I’m off to line up more interviews, shoot more video, send more tweets, and put the US Social Forum and the many organizations and movements on the map. And don’t worry. It may sound like a chore but I really enjoy what I am doing (however that enjoyment is most likely not the same enjoyment you have been experiencing).
Kevin Gosztola 
Flickr Photo by aflcio
The US Social Forum (USSF), a convergence of activists, organizers, and engaged citizens from around the country, is underway in Detroit. Numerous organizations have registered to put on workshops throughout the forum. Many leaders from worker advocate organizations will be present with the hopes of networking and mobilizing movements to improve the lives and increase the rights of workers all over this nation.
Ted Smukler, public policy director for Interfaith Workers for Justice (IWJ), will be participating in the USSF part of a workshop called, “Wage Theft: What is It and What Can We Do About It?” Smukler and IWJ will be participating because this event will be “the largest gathering of progressive activists” this year and it will be a great opportunity to network and learn about other issues and organizations in the country.
Interfaith Workers for Justice is a national organization that organizes and mobilizes “the religious community in this country to support the struggles of low-wage workers.” It’s a network of worker centers and religion labor groups. IWJ is involved “in public policy campaigns, the direct organizing of workers, and programs to educate the next generations of religious leaders on issues of low-wage workers” and has 60 affiliate organizations in the country.
The organization runs a program called Seminary Summer, “where seminarians spend time working for labor unions on campaigns.” They also conduct “a program along with the AFL-CIO and some of the Change to Win people called Labor in the Pulpits where [they] bring issues of workers over Labor Day weekend to churches and mosques and synagogues.”
Smukler explained wage theft saying, “Wage theft refers to when employers illegally steal wages that workers have won. Most common is not payment of overtime, shaving hours or not paying time-and-a-half overtime, which is required by the law.”
He added, “It also includes not paying minimum wage, the federal minimum wage or the state minimum wage, stealing tips from employees at restaurants, not giving the last paycheck, not paying for all hours work and some times not paying workers at all, which frequently happens to day laborers or people in the more casual labor market.”
According to Smukler, a recent study of 4,500 low-wage workers in the three largest cities in the country (Chicago, LA, NY) indicated that this was becoming a bigger issue. The study found that in a typical week 15% of these workers’ earnings were being stolen.
Smukler further explained, “The workers who have their wages stolen are not unionized workers. Unions care about this are concerned about this [but] mainly, it’s an organizing issue for unorganized workers. A lot of the momentum on this issue are coming from worker centers, which are sort of this small drop-in centers for low-wage workers in niches of the economy that unions generally are not in like geographical areas or they work at place where maybe there are only ten workers working.”
Misclassifying workers as independent contractors, Smukler described, is one way fairly unknown way that workers are cheated out of wages:
“FedEx, all their drives are called independent contractors. They are not salaried or wage employees so they don’t have any of the protections that employees have in terms of the hours, and overtime and what not. They have no benefits. It doesn’t pass any of the tests of what a real independent contractor is. I think an independent contractor is supposed to be a businessman selling their services.”
Through ten worker centers, IWJ has been pushing a city/state ordinance campaign to combat wage theft.
Smukler described the coded language that might be heard to prevent action on the issue of wage theft:
“We think community-based organizations, worker advocates, ought to be providing resources to do wage theft-prevention kind of projects and Republicans would call that helping ACORN and would talk about helping illegal aliens.
Nobody is going to get up and say workers should not take home what they are legally owed. They’ll talk about if you increase enforcement efforts it puts an undue burden on small business.”
Smukler said, with the new leadership of the US Department of Labor, IWJ is looking to form improved partnerships, but in recent years, the Dept. of Labor has not had the “stamping capacity” to enforce wage and hour laws.
“Before Obama was elected, there was basically 1 cop on the beat for every 73,000 workers that are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act,” said Smukler. “That would be like the city of Detroit with 10 cops. You can imagine what kind of crime wave there would be and this is the crime wave that nobody talks about.”
Smukler’s organization has done extensive work on this issue and IWJ is ready to take on entire industries where wage theft runs rampant–restaurant, retail, small manufacturing, landscaping, garment manufacturing, and poultry industries in the southern U.S.
Kevin Gosztola 
Photo by everett taasevigen
For many activists and organizers for social justice, the media aspect of organizing has typically meant having a good list of press contacts and aiming to get your action or story into a major local or national news outlet so that your group or organization can achieve its goals. It has typically meant conducting a press conference and expecting the media to show up and hear what has to be said.
How many have considered the prospect of being their own media and conducting their own investigative journalism to bolster their group or organization’s efforts to meet their objectives or create real and lasting change?
Jordan Flaherty, a community organizer and journalist based in New Orleans who is the editor of Left Turn magazine, will be attending and participating in the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit next week. He and other journalists will be coming together to put on a workshop called, “Grassroots Media and Movements for Justice,” and share their insight into how investigative journalism can benefit social movements.
“I’m really interested in how movements for social justice come together and I think it’s really important that we find ways in which we can find unity in our movements for social justice,” says Flaherty.
He elaborates on this idea, “If you look back at the history of this country, here in New Orlerans, where I live, there are a lot of civil rights movement organizers and they talk about during their civil rights movement there was basically just three main organizations everyone on the left in the U.S. was a part of. [They were] part of SNCC, part of CORE, part of SDS and you know this non-profit industrial complex came out and many people said that led to dissolution of our movement.”
Flaherty suggests that “single-issue campaigns” disconnected people. What he hopes will happen with the Forum is that “different movements and different community organizations [will now] come together and build a united movement against the common threats of the world whether that’s militarization or corporatization or people before profits not profits before people.”
Flaherty was the first journalist to bring the Jena 6 struggle to a national audience. He wrote a story for The Indypendent, a newspaper run by Indymedia out of New York. That newspaper and then two African-American newspapers, Louisiana Weekly and Louisiana Data News Weekly, covered the story. It was the work of non-corporate, independent news media that kept this story alive.
“All of us who are concerned about social justice should really realize it was our work, whether we’re media makers or activists or just people that help spread the work, it was our work that freed those six high school students and really burst a movement together,” says Flaherty. “This was a really historic moment. Fifty thousand people from around the country marched in Jena. This is the first time that I ever remember a march like this happening not because it was called by some national organization but it because it was called by the families at the heart of this struggle–the Jena 6 family members who organized for months without training or recognition from national media organizations.”
The Jena 6 struggle happened when six students were facing life in prison for a school fight. The combination of activism and journalism that supported them at the grassroots level helped acquit them and now all six are in college.
Flaherty also followed the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina closely. He recounts briefly why it was so valuable to movements for justice to have investigative journalism in the aftermath:
“The corporate media did not want to tell the story of a lot of what happened in the days and weeks and months after Katrina. The clearest example is a criminal justice issue where we look at the police department and [in] the days after Katrina they were given carte blanche to do what they wanted. You have the Danziger Bridge case where Ronald Madison, a mentally handicapped young man, was shot by an officer, another office ran up and kicked him until he was dead. You have Henry Glover, the West Bank of New Orleans. Again, days after Katrina he was shot by one officer and then taken basically kidnapped by other officers. The next people saw his body he’d been burnt up. So, they basically killed him and then burned his body. And nobody wanted to cover that story.”
Flaherty continues, “For months grassroots activists were organizing around it, were documenting the stories of witnesses. And eventually some grassroots activists got the story to Rebecca Solnit” who got the story picked up by ProPublica. The Nation magazine picked it up. And, Flaherty adds, years later, in 2008, Attorney General Eric Holder was willing to look at the cases and acknowledge that this injustice was really happening in the aftermath.
Flaherty finds “the loss of investigative journalism” in society shameful. Through Left Turn magazine and collaboration on blogs like the Louisiana Justice blog, a blog that covers criminal justice, workers’ rights and other issues, he works to keep investigative journalism alive locally in New Orleans and nationally as well.
Overall, Flaherty wants others to understand that independent non-corporate media should be a part of any social justice organizing. What activists and journalists did together to free the Jena 6 shows why it should be a part of organizing. It’s through that collaboration that more victories can be achieved.
Kevin Gosztola 
Next week, people from groups and organizations in movements from all over the country are going to be participating in the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) in Detroit. USSF organizers say the convergence will create a space where movements can come together and learn from one another. Much of this learning process will take place through various workshops that will be offered throughout the USSF.
Patrick Reinsborough is the co-founder of smartMeme, a movement support organization and strategy and training project that helps community groups, networks, and alliances focus on how they will handle framing, messaging and storytelling so that their organization can create change and shift the existing terms of the debate to favor their mission and goals.
“One of the greatest obstacles to change in the United States is the existing terms of debate,” says Reinsborough. “In many ways our imagination of what’s possible and the way we could be organizing in our society has been artificially limited and restricted by the assumptions and narratives that shape the dominant culture.”
Reinsborough will be doing a workshop at the USSF and also will be participating in a People’s Movement Assembly (PMA).
smartMeme believes as an organization that “the best way to make positive social change is through organized social movements” and that social movements have been “the engine of progress in the United States and other countries around the world.”
Social movements are why slavery was ended, why women have the right to vote, why workers enjoy a weekend and 8-hour work day and they are why and how future social and political victories are going to be won for people in this country. And, that’s why the USSF is so important to Reinsborough and the people at smartMeme.
“We see the USSF as an incredibly important moment within social movement organizing in the U.S. For people from all sorts of communities, all sorts of different movements to come together and share what’s happening in their communities and perhaps more importantly share their vision of how we can make the United States a better country a more democratic, more just, more ecologically sane country,” says Reinsborough.
The project began in 2002 after the founding members of smartMeme noticed how society was changing as a result of 9/11. They saw the Bush Administration using propaganda to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the rolling back of civil liberties and decided to challenge the dominant narrative coming out of Washington, D.C.
Reinsborough says that quite often the narrative in this country only suits the powerful, like the government corporations or entrenched special interests in this country who “have millions of dollars” to frame the debate and fight battles with corporate public relations and advertising.
“Oftentimes, the people who are most impacted by an issue don’t have the same type of voice,” says Reinsborough. “So, what smartMeme does is help people be better storytellers so [people] can change the terms of the debate and make positive social change.”
This can be seen happening in relation to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The fisherman and workers are not only incapable of getting the truth out about BP in the media but BP has been effectively working to prevent those involved in the cleanup efforts and those who live on the coast from sharing their perspective on the disaster. They’ve put a limit on access to the beaches and wetlands so pictures, videos and testimony does not detract from the official story line they would like the media to follow.
The movement support organization also takes on the corporate control of media, the centralization of media and the 24-hour news cycle that often impacts the way society debates issues and responds to major disasters or events.
Reinsborough provides an example, “Take something like global warming, which represents probably the need for the greatest transformation in human civilization that has ever occurred There’s really nothing like it in the history as a species—the need to shift the entire planet off of fossil fuels and create a renewable sustainable energy structure for the planet. That’s a complex issue.”
And, in the media, it often “gets boiled down into manipulative soundbites” or memes “by the oil industry.”
Memes are the “genes of culture” like rituals where you shake someone’s hand or now in the 21st Century soundbites or ideas that spread in our culture. Reinsborough and others follow the memes being churned about by media organizations and then unpack those and go beyond certain memes to change the story and really get people to understand what is at stake if these memes continue to be accepted in society.
What smartMeme does is crucial to movements because outside forces will always be pushing down and turning campaigns into struggles. It’s important for people like Reinsborough to be there to bring their understanding of media communications to the table and help organizations challenge the framing of their issue or movement.
As Reinsborough and others at smartMeme tell leaders and organizers, “If people don’t tell their own story, a story will be told about them.”
Kevin Gosztola 
Nearly sixty days after an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig killed eleven workers, injured seventeen others and created an oil gusher that has been spewing black clouds of oil ever since, President Obama delivered an Oval Office address with the hope of stemming the flow of anger among Americans.
President Obama explained that this is “already the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.” Seemingly forgetting the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he added, “Unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it is not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years.”
The term continued to be “spill” despite the fact that it should now be accurately referred to as a “leak.” It isn’t a spill; if a coffee cup falls over and coffee spills, it doesn’t continue to produce coffee for hours and hours after it spills. If a coffee cup could do that, there’d be no reason for people to buy over-priced cups of coffee from Starbucks.
And, actually, “leak” is too timid. This is not a “leak” or “spill.” This is a “gusher.” It’s a hemorrhage. The planet is hemorrhaging and those at the top who are running the cleanup effort have no idea how to make the planet clot so the hemorrhaging will stop.
President Obama essentially broke the address up into three parts: the cleanup effort, the recovery and restoration of the Coast, and steps being taken to make sure another disaster like this never happens again.
Outlined by President Obama was the fact that “millions of gallons of oil have already been removed from the water through burning, skimming, and other collection methods” and that “over five and a half million feet of boom has been laid across the water to block and absorb the approaching oil. “ Obama also explained that the federal government has “approved the construction of new barrier islands in Louisiana to try and stop the oil before it reaches the shore” and is also “working with Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida to implement creative approaches to their unique coastlines.”
President Obama claimed, “if something isn’t working, we want to hear about it” and “if there are problems in the operation, we will fix them.” There was no mention of the fact that fancy paper towels are being used in the cleanup effort–that cleanup technology seems to be very simple and inadequate. (Perhaps, if relief wells fail, BP and all those involved in the cleanup efforts will try to shove a ginormous tampon into the floor of the ocean to stop the flow.)
There was also no mention of the Corexit dispersant being used, which Pro Publica reports has been removed from a list of products approved for use on oil spills in the U.K and is “more toxic and less effective on south Louisiana crude than other EPA-approved dispersants.”
Obama’s talk of focusing on recovery and restoration becomes even more hollow when you consider further information on the use of Corexit to disperse the oil:
What’s more, the EPA and the Coast Guard are allowing BP to use these dispersants underwater near the ruptured well. They’ve called it a “novel approach [31]” that will ultimately use less dispersant than if the chemicals were applied on the surface. The undersea application, however, is not the recommended [32] application [33] procedure laid out in the EPA’s information on Corexit.
The EPA has acknowledged that dispersants entail “an environmental trade-off [34],” and that their long-term effects on the environment are unknown. It has promised to continue monitoring their use, and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency is working with BP [35] to get less toxic dispersants to the site as soon as possible.
On behalf of the fisherman whose way of living have been completely under attack as a result of this disaster, Obama said, “Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company’s recklessness. And this fund will not be controlled by BP. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent, third party.”
However, this meeting is only scheduled to last 20 minutes. That is hardly enough time to properly address the situation and use the bully pulpit of the presidency to force BP to spend less time trying to save their image and more time trying to save the ecosystem in the Gulf.
If President Obama’s only going to spend 20 minutes, then he should just call Tony Hayward and “ask” him his question about a third-party account and the cleanup. He should just friend BP on YouTube and then engage in a chat in the comments thread of one of BP’s videos that, as Jon Stewart said last week, treats Americans like they are victims of domestic abuse.
Also, as Chris Matthews pointed out just after the address, no specifics were laid out on how this account to be “administered by an independent, third party” will be organized and properly handled:
“…[Obama] never mentioned what power he has as chief executive of this country to make [BP] understand they need to put this escrow account in third party hands. Is he gonna litigate? Is he gonna file an amicus brief with a class action suit, wait seven years for this to happen or is he really gonna demand it happens? He said, “I can ask them to do this.” I’m amazed he just says he has that power…”
That President Obama thinks the American people will believe he has this situation under control when he intends to still ask BP and not make demands of them is confounding. The government should be past asking. It should be discussing accountability and consequences for the massive cover-up that has taken place in the Gulf, which has contributed to an increase in the devastation in the Gulf.
But, there was no mention of jail time for those responsible and no mention either of a more feasible option, debarment, a move that could “bar BP from receiving government contracts” and “cost the company billions and end its drilling in federally controlled oil fields.”
President Obama casually explained that he was assured everything would be fine, that limited offshore drilling “would be absolutely safe” and “the proper technology would be in place and the necessary precautions would be taken.” Who or what agency told him this and why does it seem that what they had to say was taken at face value? Given the reservations environmentalists, scientists, and engineers have had about drilling, why doesn’t it seem those people were talking to the president when he made a decision to open up limited offshore drilling?
Shakeups at Mineral Management Services (MMS) were detailed as if to show that regulatory agencies will now handle and regulate corporations like BP properly. But, given the way the EPA has handled the Corexit dispersant and the reports that the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) may not be properly updating their standards on the levels of chemical exposure that cleanup workers are allowed to be exposed to, should we really believe oversight is going to hold oil corporations accountable from this point on?
Absolutely no portion of the speech addressed the reality that BP is stemming the flow of information in the Gulf and the reality that “journalists in the gulf are now dealing with a hybrid informational apparatus that does not reflect government’s legally mandated bias toward openness and transparency.”
If President Obama really wanted to address the way the disaster is being handled, he would have asked why BP has been permitted to invest and expend valuable time, money and resources on public relations and use the National Guard to help protect the corporation’s image and increasingly bleak future instead of putting a hundred percent of BP’s available manpower, equipment, and assets into cleanup operations. If he really wanted to give an address that was not simply void of specifics and instead filled with platitudes and great speechifying, President Obama would have said his administration will condemn any further attempts by BP to block scientists’ access to information and take up air time disinforming and misinforming the public on the extent of the damage in the Gulf.
Keith Olbermann characterized the situation correctly, “We needed to hear the president articulating the anger of this nation at this fiasco, at this ongoing and unstoppable fiasco in the Gulf.”
Something needed to be given to lift Americans’ spirits, to make Americans believe that this could be the critical juncture where American government not only makes the transition to pushing for a clean, renewable energy future in this country but also a future where corporations are not just simply allowed to reign supreme and go unchecked.
In the end, all Obama could give Americans was a prayer, a short anecdote about shrimpers who are joined by community during shrimping season for a “Blessing of the Fleet” that involves clergy from many different religions praying for the safety and success of the men and women who will be going out to sea.
Obama’s message at the end of his speech was not only will God “remove all obstacles and dangers” but He will “be with us always” and “even in the midst of the storm.”
If this was what we Americans are to hang our hopes on, we can reasonably expect that this disaster will continue until way past Christmas. We can count on BP to still be trying to halt the flow of oil when boys and girls are looking forward to Santa Clause coming to town.
This disaster is not in need of a clergyman or a preacher. It’s not in need of a benevolent, kind and understanding man. It’s not in need of a collegiate and professorial person or someone who was quite the corporate candidate for president in 2008.
This disaster needs a champion of people sovereignty over corporate sovereignty. And, when Obama becomes that champion —someone closer to the trust-busting President Teddy Roosevelt than President Grover Cleveland, who was president when the Supreme Court granted personhood to corporations.
Kevin Gosztola 
Flickr Photo by jvoves
Karlos Guana Schmieder, whose mother, Jeanne Gauna, was the founder and long term co-director of the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) in Albuquerque, is the communications director for the Center for Media Justice (CMJ) and “works with alliances to create communications strategies that really uplift and highlight their goals as an alliance.”
Schmieder has been creating strategies with the Detention Watch Network, which is an immigrant rights alliance that focuses specifically on immigrant detention. He also has been working with a juvenile justice network called Community Justice Network for Youth (CJNY), a juvenile justice groups that Schmieder said is working to lower racial disparities in the criminal justice system across the U.S.
On Friday afternoon, during the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, the CMJ and other collaborating organizations–the Progressive Communicators Network, Smar Meme, and the Praxis Project–will come together for a four hour People’s Movement Assembly designed to develop a media justice agenda for the country.
“[The Center for Media Justice] thinks the social forum presents a unique opportunity and the right convergence of people to integrate an idea of collaborative, creative storytelling into a movement building strategy for social movements,” said Schnieder. “At the same time we think there’s going to be the right leaders there for us to define a media justice policy framework that will help us to be able to use that storytelling in a real way.”
Schmieder added that the assembly event between communications leaders will take a good look at how to make media policy a “real social justice issue” that includes how to ensure everyone in this country has “access to the Internet, access to the media, and access to many different platforms to really tell a new story about social movements in the U.S.”
CMJ holds the honor of being part of the Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-NET), one of three alliances that came together as a result of the first USSF in Atlanta in 2007.
All the organizations involved are keen on the reality that they work with groups, organizations or movements that have had “destructive stories” attached to them. They really want to help leaders of groups and organizations understand how to address and handle a destructive story so that it does not continue to be detrimental to movement building.
For example, Schmieder said from all sides of the political spectrum immigrant rights groups are addressing the destructive idea that immigrants are a problem and facing the reality that much of the nation has forgotten America is a nation of migrants. The assembly event will be an opportunity for organizers to understand that, although they have been pushed to the “margins of public debate,” they do not have to remain in those margins and can become relevant to people of this nation through the crafting of a good story.
“I think people instinctively know that storytelling and the stories of people who are most impacted by regressive social policies are really what’s gonna change the way people think about those issues,” said Schmieder. “And when people really get to that and that it’s more than just a quick message–that you really have to build a story over time–people feel the power of that.”
U.S. Social Forum organizers expect nearly 15,000 individuals and over 1,300 organizations to attend and participate in this major cultural, social and political event in Detroit from June 22-26th. Individuals and organizations will spend the week strengthening not only the movement for real and lasting change in America but also the movement for real and lasting change in the world.
Kevin Gosztola 
For the past month and a half, progressive bloggers from all over the country have been competing for a select amount of Democracy for America scholarships to the Netroots Nation Conference in Las Vegas from July 22-25.
Netroots Nation is now in its fifth year and has provided opportunities for progressive voices to come together to exchange ideas and learn to be more effective with technology in public debate on issues. The conference has served as “an incubator” for “ideas that challenge the status quo and ultimately affect change in the public sphere.” It has brought bloggers from all over the nation together to network, learn, and engage in discussions on how bloggers can best influence the political process in America.
Democracy for America is possibly the largest progressive political action community in America, which works to change America and the Democratic Party from the bottom-up. They have graciously worked to send around 40 progressive activists to Netroots Nation for the past few years.
Some of the progressive bloggers who have won so far include: Charlotte Hill, a passionate and prominent anti-genocide activist from California who focuses on the positives to inspire change, Matt Osborne, an Alabaman native and veteran who has been proudly “ridiculing the ridiculous and afflicting the comfortable since the age of fifteen”, Lee Sakellarides, who helps fight the “fierce Republican stronghold” in Indiana with her liveblog every Sunday right here on Daily Kos entitled “Press the Face”, Corrine Chacon, a Chicana writer born into politics who wants to bring the online activism of Netroots Nation back to Texas to inspire change, Affad Shaikh, a Pakistani raised in Los Angeles who enjoys surfing and the outdoors when he’s not writing on his blog, “This American Muslim”, Miriam Zoila Perez, founder of Radical Doula.com and editor at Feministing.com who focuses on women’s and LGBTQ issues, etc.
I have spent the last month working to build support for my scholarship application so that I might be awarded a chance to attend the conference. I have been following some of these bloggers who have been competing to win and made plans to meet up with a few of them when I get to the Netroots Nation conference. But, right now, it’s not guaranteed that I win a spot to the conference.
I need your support and I am prepared to win it even if you do not know who I am.
The board awarding scholarships would like “to give them out to individuals with compelling stories, who are active online and offline, and who will thrive from their Netroots Nation experience.”
Here’s my story in a few sentences: I was born and raised in the red state of Indiana, a state consistently making cuts to education and promoting a dangerous business agenda as the solution to financial problems and problems caused by state government. I escaped for four years to Chicago to attend Columbia College where I studied Film/Video for four years. During those four years, I picked up skills in documentary filmmaking and also became very involved in the “Netroots” as a “trusted author” for OpEdNews.com.
I recently graduated and now I am an ardent believer in the power of creating community through blogging and social media. I understand what incorporating blogging can do for filmmaking and for efforts to create real and lasting change in this country.
I now live in Chicago where I continue to build on the work I have done offline in the past four years–work that includes: co-organizing a major media conference in Chicago, covering the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, producing a documentary on Obama’s invitation to deliver the commencement speech at Notre Dame University, and now, organizing with the Media Democracy Think Tank in Chicago to promote the need for a more democratic media in Chicago, Illinois and the United States.
If you would like to support me, please click here. (There’s no money involved.)
The response has been overwhelming and incredibly surprising. The people who have voiced their support for me so far have not only done that but have also left comments explaining why they support my bid to win a DFA scholarship to Netroots Nation. They have also shared the link to my application through Facebook many times when I ave asked (and even sometimes when I have not asked).
So, here it goes. One last final pitch. I’d like to attend, network with bloggers, and take what I do to the next level.
I’m young, ambitious, passionate and just getting started. Please, won’t you support me as I work with others in this nation to grow, revitalize, and maintain a truly progressive Netroots in this nation?
Kevin Gosztola 
The Ocean Project, which consists of over one thousand aquariums, zoos, museums and conservation organizations, has designated June 8th “World Oceans Day.” This day, which earned official recognition from the United Nations General Assembly as the result of a resolution passed in December 2008, is a new celebrated day, and, as oil continues to gush at perhaps 100,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico (which connects to the Atlantic Ocean), this day carries even more significance.
Ocean conservation is essential to the future of our planet. In fact, the UN recently reported on estimates from a report indicating the world could face fishless oceans in 40 years, a notion that should frighten all the people of the world into becoming stewards of the Earth.
The Ocean Project says people should celebrate World Oceans Day because the world’s oceans “generate most of the oxygen we breathe, help feed us, regulate our climate, clean the water we drink, offer us a pharmacopoeia of medicines, and provide limitless inspiration.
Those behind the day have the best of intentions when it comes to World Oceans Day. They would like people all over the world to change the perspective of others who do not understand what oceans have to offer, to discover how daily actions affect oceans and how we are all interconnected, to change our ways and act as caretakers for the ocean, and/or to participate in activities and celebrate the oceans of the world.
One would like to think the most obvious threat to oceans would be on the table for discussion: the continued practice of offshore oil drilling in deep and shallow areas of the ocean. The Gulf oil disaster caused by BP, Transocean and Halliburton should compel us to justify the risks being created, which contribute to further pollution of the world’s oceans.
Unfortunately, World’s Oceans Day is likely to be marked insincerely. The news is President Obama is going to re-open waters to shallow oil production. Before any investigative commission provides a report on moving forward after this disaster, the Obama Administration is bowing to the oil lobby and doing it on the World Oceans Day; one could liken this move to cutting aid to African countries stricken with AIDS on World AIDS Day.
President Obama appears to think repeating angry toothless rhetoric about BP’s CEO Tony Hayward over and over again–rhetoric which creates the perception that he does not like that Hayward continues to control BP and how cleanup efforts continue in the Gulf–will get America through this crisis that may last until Christmas and be enough to convince Americans major changes to the regulation of oil companies are going to be made. It seems President Obama is doing this for show and not because this is all the federal government can do.
The Pew Oceans Commission understands that the oceans are in crisis. They find the BP oil disaster intersects with campaigns to secure protections for bluefin tuna, end overfishing in the Southeast, protect life in the Arctic, conserve sharks, address global warming and develop a clean energy policy. It also brings to the forefront the need for a national ocean policy.
The Commission describes why a national ocean policy is necessary:
The increasing industrialization of our oceans threatens the fragile health of marine ecosystems. If poorly planned or managed, drilling for oil and natural gas in federal waters, developing aquaculture and building wind, wave and tidal energy facilities all have the potential to damage America’s marine environment. Currently, several federal agencies manage industrial activities in our oceans under a number of statutes, and there is little coordination or consideration of the cumulative impacts their decisions have on the health and productivity of marine ecosystems and coastal communities.
Among its cardinal recommendations, the Pew Oceans Commission called for establishing an enforceable national policy to protect, maintain and restore the health of marine ecosystems. This will not only support economically and culturally valuable fisheries, but also provide countless recreational opportunities for the public and protect critically important ecological services, such as air and water purification. The commission also recommended changing the organizational structure and laws governing our oceans to make their protection and productivity a priority, and it urged better coordination and management of the full spectrum of activities affecting marine resources. Finally, it proposed establishing a permanent source of funding for ocean and coastal conservation and management. [emphasis added]
Not only do Americans need to recognize the folly of expanding oil drilling in American oceans without a clear policy to protect the oceans and properly regulate oil rigs, but Americans need to recognize the threat global warming poses to the oceans (and face up to the reality that increased oil production contributes to global warming).
Sadly, there has been a decrease in the number of Americans who find global warming to be a concern. Media coverage and political discussion of “climate change” (the political re-branding of global warming) has led people to doubt the science behind global warming despite the fact that there is very, very little debate (if any) among scientists on whether global warming is taking place or not.
Sixty-seven percent responded in a Gallup poll in March of this year that they do not think global warming will pose a serious threat to them or their way of life in their lifetime while thirty-two percent said yes it would pose a threat and affect them at some point in their lifetime. The poll also found that more and more Americans think natural causes are responsible for the change in the Earth’s temperature, not human activity.
Oil and energy lobbyists whose utmost concerns are profit and short-term gains have conspired against science and worked tirelessly to sow doubt in the minds of Americans through public relations campaigns, “astroturf” citizens’ groups, and fake research studies that skew data to favor their free market agenda. The American Enterprise Institute, which receives a substantial amount of money from ExxonMobil, planned “Energy Citizen Rallies” in 2009 to attack “climate change” legislation in Congress.
People like Art Robinson, who is running for Congress on the GOP ticket, also increase the likelihood that the planet’s oceans will become total dead zones. Robinson claimed in an issue of a newsletter he edited in 2004 called Access to Energy:
“Wastes dumped into the deep ocean will soon reach the bottom, where they are less hazardous than nearly any other place on Earth. Most materials will remain there: marine organisms are rare in the deep ocean, food chains are long, and few materials will be carried back to mankind. And that is what waste disposal is all about…”
“…The oil companies’ reckless greed, we are told, has devastated the oceans with their oil spills. Baloney…”
“…As for oil spills in the open and deep ocean, they amount to far less than natural seeps and river runoff, and any unbiased oceanographer will confirm that they are a boon to marine life, inflicting damage mainly on the oil and shipping companies. For crude oil is a natural, organic, biodegradable product of the earth’s ancient plant and animal life, and it is this type of hydrocarbon that marine life in the open and deep ocean is starved for…”
“…The environment, then, has no better protector than its owner, and no worse enemy than a system where everything belongs to “the people.” Species are endangered when they belong to everybody and nobody; and nothing short of the profit motive will protect them.”
If the future of the world’s oceans are not endangered by arrogant numbskulls preaching the Gospel of the Free Markets like Robinson, then they are significantly at risk by people like Dick Armey who preach the Gospel of Christian Fanaticism (and manufacture Tea Party rallies through ventures like FreedomWorks).
Appearing as a witness at a Republican bicameral hearing on climate change legislation on Capitol Hill in July of 2009, Armey testified:
DICK ARMEY: What I’m suggesting is we have a sort of an eco-evangelical hysteria going on and it leads me to almost wonder if we are becoming a nation of environmental hypochondriacs that are willing to use the power of the state to impose enormous restrictions on the rights and the comforts of, and incomes of individuals who serve essentially a paranoia, a phobia, that has very little fact evidence in fact. Now these are observations that are popular to make because right now its almost taken as an article of faith that this crisis is real. Let me say I take it as an article of faith if the lord God almighty made the heavens and the Earth, and he made them to his satisfaction and it is quite pretentious of we little weaklings here on earth to think that, that we are going to destroy God’s creation. [...]
SEN. ORRIN HATCH: Mr. Armey it’s great to have you here. Great to see you again and we appreciate all you’ve done throughout the years and your work on Capitol Hill. Great job. [emphasis added by Think Progress]
What’s worse? Armey’s comments or the fact that this country has senators like Orrin Hatch who praise people for making pathologically insane comments like these in hearings that should be based in science?
The goals of World Oceans Day are paramount. However, this country doesn’t understand the value of the environment. Many may suggest that humans have a duty to protect and preserve the environment but far too many think God or the Almighty Dollar will save the environment and are blind to the reality that Mother Nature is under siege from fanaticism and free market desires.
One can hope more Americans will find the moral fortitude and courage to take on those that spread disinformation to pollute science, which demonstrates global warming is a threat to our oceans. One can hope more Americans will directly call out this country’s inability to have a future focus, which forgets short-term profit and favors the long-term protection of the environment for future generations of Americans.
Unfortunately, anger and frustration seem to be better responses than hope. Hope often makes people passive. As it becomes obvious the world’s oceans need the help of thousands if not millions of citizens now more than ever, the oceans need physical and meaningful action, not hope.
Kevin Gosztola 
Flickr Photo by plasmastik
I wasn’t one of the Americans who watched a parade of military and civilian officers on Memorial Day one week ago just hours after Israeli commandoes attacked the Freedom Flotilla. I did not go to a march and celebrate the past histories of American wars and the soldiers who had fought in them, but let’s suppose for one moment that I had.
A good amount of Americans probably had this experience as they celebrated the men and women who have served in the U.S. armed forces and paid tribute to those who have fought for America. They probably celebrated the right they believe America has to use military force to protect itself (and maybe even the right to use force without having to be questioned by international bodies or coalitions like the United Nations, etc). And, so, let’s suppose that I was part of a celebration of American warriors who had served in past wars one week ago, and that I had been presented with this story of Israeli warriors commandeering a ship, which was supposed to be a part of a peaceful humanitarian convoy delivering aid to Gaza.
Like American warriors of past wars, I might presumably think that this act may have been poor judgment but ultimately Israeli warriors did what they had to do. And like past American quagmires like Vietnam or past atrocious invasions like Grenada or past secret military operations like Operation Ajax in Iran, which involved a democratically elected government being overthrown in 1953, I might have found this to be a part of doing what must be done so Israel can maintain its place in the world.
I probably would not have had much frame of reference for the activists that were on board. Knowing that they came from the Free Gaza Movement would only have confused me because I would not have known what Gaza needed to be freed from. I would probably have thought, “If Israel is protecting Gaza from terrorism, wouldn’t Gaza be safe?” So, this news of a blockade would be new to me because usually I had heard about Israel defending itself from Hamas or Hezbollah or other Islamists. (And that to me had always been justifiable.)
On a larger level, I might have applied my rationale for supporting the troops to the Israeli soldiers. I suppose it would depend on the struggles and threats that I believed Israel had faced and may continue to face. Since several countries that want to blow it off the face of the Earth surround it, supposedly, I would probably have thought Israel has a right to defend and protect its self like America does. I would have thought it even more important that they have the right because they are regularly being shot at with rockets that Hamas fires off because it does not want to recognize Israel’s right to exist (supposedly). Plus, Israel is an American ally.
I would probably not have understood exactly why a group of people so often operates in a manner supportive of rocket attacks. The atrocities against Israel would have taken place in a vacuum in much the same way that atrocities against America tend to take place in a vacuum. (And, how great is it that our media help us consume information on atrocities in a nutshell that excludes certain contexts that would blur lines between good and evil, right and wrong and reinforce this vacuum?)
Unless I knew where to go for an alternative viewpoint, I would have seen over and over again footage showing commandoes clearly facing premeditated assault as they dropped on to the ship. White circles that could have been drawn by John Madden singling out Israeli soldiers being brutalized and thrown off the ship would have jumped out in the one sole video that Israel was able to get media organizations all over the world to play. I would not have known there was a Turkish video of the incident showing a different side. And, why would I need that side if all I wanted to do is just know more information on how connected the activists had been to terrorism and how this never was really a peaceful humanitarian convoy seeking to deliver aid?
The activists trying to deliver the thousands of tons of goods to the Gaza Strip might have seemed respectable to me until they were found to possibly be connected to terrorists, which news channels I consumed consistently suggested or inferred. Of course, I would have wound up thinking Israel offered to let them go to port, take the aid and deliver the aid to the starving and hungry Palestinians who needed the aid. So, why, did the flotilla have to go through a blockade that was keeping Israel secure and deliver the aid them selves? Did they want credit? Maybe, Israel could have said this is from the Freedom Flotilla that wanted to break the blockade of Gaza.
It’s here that logic breaks down. Reason becomes lacking. Thought requires one to doubt the actions of Israel at least a little bit. Role playing and imagining the thought processes of others becomes difficult to continue onward.
Of course, Israel would not allow humanitarian aid in; that would admit there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a situation where 80% are now depending on external aid to survive. Yet, you can see that the story and justification of warriors commandeering a ship from the perspective of a citizen of American empire is easy to support and go along with.
This mentality to understand other people’s countries from a military perspective and not a humanitarian perspective is part of what allows the stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians to continue. This country has trained its citizens to sympathize with warriors for the nation, warriors trained by military and political interests to go in and take action that may or may not be lawful or unlawful, humane or inhumane. Politicians and foreign policymakers promote support for these questionable actions with commitments to public relations or propaganda campaigns after the actions have taken place. Do first and ask questions later. (And, why not? This country is number one, so I’m told.)
The country has trained Americans to believe in the justifications political leaders and foreign policymakers supply to us. Weaved into the narrative and mythology of this country, the impact of military action on civilians and soldiers abroad is of no significance, the legality of no significance, and the effect–the way in which actions radicalize a people to commit what this country regards now as “terrorism”–entirely disregarded.
Israel’s warriors will tell this war story, the ambush of the Freedom Flotilla, to their children, who they will be proud of when they serve in the Israeli military, just like America’s warriors have told stories of war to their children, who have now gone on to join the military for pure economic reasons. It will become part of Israel’s military history channel and their history books and placed within the context of a history rife with Israeli hubris just like wars have become glorified, recounted, and immortalized through American history television specials and history books and place within the context of a history rife with American hubris.
Many would like to impress upon others the fact that a population is experiencing what they call collective punishment as a result of Israel’s blockade and as a result of military actions that have intermittently taken place and killed Palestinians throughout the past few years. They are shocked when others do not grasp the reality that Israel is punishing a population and so they should be held accountable in addition to any terrorists from Hamas.
Those that don’t understand why a number of people do not place the starving Palestinians ahead of the military or political security of a country, however, can be excused for being confused. When one is taught to celebrate the military so often, taught to treat it like the well from which freedom springs forth, the humanitarian becomes hard to understand; in fact, it becomes assumed that the military could have simply done the humanitarian and people ask, “Why did the concerned activists not choose to just ask the military to deliver the aid instead of going and getting killed and wounded like they did?”
