thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-27--What Are Trump and His Goons Up To?

What Are Trump and His Goons Up To?

hat ’ s the question I asked policing and privacy expert Tracy Rosenberg , Executive Director of Media Alliance , and coordinator of Oakland Privacy .
_________________________ Ann Garrison : What do you think Trump and his goons might be up to in Portland and the cities with `` liberal Democratic mayors '' that he 's threatening to invade next ?
Is this much more than politics , an attempt to win the election with law and order extremes ?
Tracy Rosenberg : Certainly , first and foremost , it is a political stunt to capture the law and order @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coastal cities and inland voters .
But it ’ s also more sinister than that .
The use of federal forces is designed to weaken local accountability by freezing out local government that constituents can reach .
Portland 's mayor might not even have opposed some `` help '' from the feds , but he was n't asked .
In other words , this was n't mutual aid .
This was indeed an invasion .
AG : Who are these federal goons under Trump 's command ?
What branch of the enforcement apparatus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are US Marshals involved .
TR : An alphabet soup of federal agencies have been employed to crack down on police brutality protests , including the National Guard , the US Marshals , and the Secret Service ( the National Guard being the only one of these organizations whose mission even arguably includes civil unrest ) .
But the highly publicized Portland kidnappings or detentions , depending on which you want to call them , were carried out by Customs and Border Patrol , specifically the Border Patrol tactical squad which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he intends to mobilize the Homeland Security Investigations ( HSI ) divisions of ICE , notably to the city of Chicago .
HSI is the wing of ICE that handles criminal actions involving immigrants , as differentiated from Enforcement and Removal ( ERO ) , '' the wing of ICE that handles deportations .
Both the ICE divisions and the Border Patrol are part of the Department of Homeland Security .
AG : And what 's their legal authority , assuming they have any ?
What gives them the right to drive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ armed like paratroopers , without badges or anything else identifying them and the enforcement agency they work for ?
What gives them the right to snatch people off the streets , then hold them without charge ?
TR : Those are , of course , the questions .
Legal authority derives from two sources : firstly , the organizational mission and jurisdiction and , secondly , the Constitution and the power it provides to the executive branch .
The mission of the US Marshals is to protect the judiciary , judges and witnesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Secret Service is to defend the President , his/her family and upper level government officials from personal harm .
The mission of the Border Patrol is to police the international borders , both land and air .
The mission of ICE is to enforce immigration laws away from border areas .
You see where I ’ m going .
Chasing protesters around cities in response to graffiti on federal buildings is not the mission of any of these agencies or federal officers .
Trump claims that , in the state of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ redefine the mission of these agencies as he pleases , but that is a highly questionable assertion .
When it comes to the Constitution , assemblies to petition the government for redress of grievances , aka protest , is an absolute right of the people .
Where that gets blurred is when criminal activity of some kind gets mixed in with the assemblies , and government has spent much of the past forty years greatly expanding the penal code with more and more new crimes .
But even when protests include particular actions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or property damage , or even physical violence , the due process protections in the 4th , 5th and 6th Amendments do not magically disappear .
Unidentified personnel can not simply snatch people off the street and take them into custody without a charge—at least not legally—but we know that BORTAC just did that in Portland .
AG : Can cities and states assert authority over them ?
TR : Federalism , i.e.
, the rights of states , has a long history in American jurisprudence and is largely upheld in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Third Amendment was to prevent the new federal government from attacking the states with military personnel .
That framework largely does n't extend to cities and other local municipalities , so the invocation of federalism to send the Trump troops away would likely have to come from the governors of states .
Oregon 's governor has already made statements to that effect .
Trump 's claim has been that federal buildings are federal property and indeed they are , but that authority would not extend beyond those specific buildings without the consent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it normally does n't .
The authors of the Constitution did hedge a bit , saying that authority would not extend beyond federal buildings “ in times of peace , ” which opens up the question of whether the feds are pursuing an undeclared `` war '' against Democratic-led cities or against Black Lives Matter , or against `` antifa '' or whatever .
“ The invocation of federalism to send the Trump troops away would likely have to come from the governors of states.
” As we know , US presidents are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in foreign countries .
We may be looking at an expansion of those tactics and as a messaging point , the metaphorical defining of the population of some liberal cities as `` foreign '' or `` un-American '' and therefore exempted from constitutional protections that protect `` real Americans . ''
Dehumanizing immigrants , Black people , Muslims , and those who stand with them can be taken to this logical extreme .
At least in Trump 's head and those of his sycophants .
AG : The ACLU and other rights groups @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this .
What do you think their chances of success are , especially given the way Trump has packed the federal courts ?
TR : Their chances on the West Coast are quite good .
The 9th Circuit remains the most reliably liberal circuit court in the country and has issued a long string of rebukes to the Trump administration .
In other circuit courts , the outcome is less certain , although federalism , aka states rights , has a long bipartisan tradition .
Of course , the 9th Circuit is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it is difficult to predict what the Supreme Court would do if presented with an emergency request to overrule the 9th Circuit .
However , the courts move slow and there is an election in three and a half months .
So I expect the intent here is messaging as I outlined above .
Trump becomes the protector of the `` ordinary white Americans '' against their enemies , the foreigners and the race traitors who side with them .
AG : Nancy Pelosi and all sorts of other pious Democrats who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pentagon surplus and protect them from prosecution for Constitutional violations have been wringing their hands about Trump 's overreach , and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley , D-MA , has introduced the Ending Qualified Immunity Act , but I ca n't imagine that political pressure will persuade the Republican Senate to roll either back .
What impact do you think the November election might have ?
TR : Mark Pocan introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to roll back the 1033 military surplus program , but it was roundly defeated today—July 21st—in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 323-93 vote .
So it is right to say that much of their hand-wringing is exactly that .
Local government is more inclined to take things seriously because they are more accessible to constituents and more easily voted out .
Ro Khanna , Pramila Jayapal , and Bernie Sanders , among others , have introduced a number of federal law enforcement bills that are promising in substance , but most do n't have much chance of becoming law .
The centrist Democrats are looking for symbolic acts that both express seeming solidarity but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much .
The November election probably will be a blue wave .
This likely means federal agencies will not attack blue cities out in the open ; the language will be that we value everyone regardless of race , religion or creed , and you are all welcome to pursue life , liberty and profit .
( Without much help . )
In other words , the neoliberal equation .
It will be better than Trump , and safer for protesters and marginalized communities , but that does n't make it good .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ shifts will reform that equation and , if so , how ?
I do n't think we know the answer yet .
I always try to be hopeful .
AG : As more and more prominent leaders and activists articulate demands well beyond the end of police brutality , including the abolition of prisons and the end of US wars , we seem to be seeing a national revolt against what 's come to be known as the carceral state , even as academics , lawyers , and social critics continue trying to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 'd like to say about that ?
TR : Sure .
I think what we 've seen grow is a broad understanding , outside of left circles and academia , that there is a carceral state .
In other words , the language that policing itself is irretrievably flawed and possibly unsalvageable is no longer a fringe idea but one that has broken into the mainstream .
This is one thing that social media and cellphones have accomplished .
A picture , as they say , is worth a thousand words , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I do n't think this mainstream awareness has quite translated into mainstream support for any particular policy agenda yet , but the first step is always , `` Oh my God , we have to do something , '' and we have reached that point .
The argument that police should not be dealing with mental health crises may be the most widely accepted policy point right now .
AG : The carceral state , if we agree that it includes military might , exists to uphold systems of racial , gender @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and to enforce grotesque wealth and income inequality and exploitation , both domestically and internationally .
I have n't seen the movements against the two merge , but I imagine I 'm missing something .
Any thoughts about that ?
TR : They are merging , but when movements merge , they necessarily lose a bit of their focus .
The police should stop killing Black people for no reason is the clear demand of the Black Lives Matter movement .
When that becomes the police should stop killing Black people for no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health insurance , and capitalism should die , then things necessarily become more complicated .
What ties things together is exploitation , corruption and a caste system tied to both race and class .
But it is hard to envision a completely different organizational system for society and that is what you crash into because it is all connected .
So movements need a short-term policy agenda within the current system that reduces harms in meaningful ways and a long-term dream for society based on people thriving , not largely caught in an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fighting about which part of the web is the worst part . )
That said , the deployment of federal agents as secret police , scary as it is , is a sign that the movement , however fractured it may be , is scaring the most authoritarian elements in the federal government .
Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area .
In 2014 , she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Patreon .
She can be reached at ann-at-anngarrison.com .
Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report 's Facebook page at http : //facebook.com/blackagendareport Or , you can comment by emailing us at comments @ blackagendareport.com

T hat’s the question I asked policing and privacy expert Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director of Media Alliance, and coordinator of Oakland Privacy.
_________________________
Ann Garrison: What do you think Trump and his goons might be up to in Portland and the cities with "liberal Democratic mayors" that he's threatening to invade next? Is this much more than politics, an attempt to win the election with law and order extremes?
Tracy Rosenberg: Certainly, first and foremost, it is a political stunt to capture the law and order crowd and press on divides between the coastal cities and inland voters. But it’s also more sinister than that. The use of federal forces is designed to weaken local accountability by freezing out local government that constituents can reach. Portland's mayor might not even have opposed some "help" from the feds, but he wasn't asked. In other words, this wasn't mutual aid. This was indeed an invasion.
AG: Who are these federal goons under Trump's command? What branch of the enforcement apparatus are they drawn from? Some say there are US Marshals involved.
TR: An alphabet soup of federal agencies have been employed to crack down on police brutality protests, including the National Guard, the US Marshals, and the Secret Service (the National Guard being the only one of these organizations whose mission even arguably includes civil unrest). But the highly publicized Portland kidnappings or detentions, depending on which you want to call them, were carried out by Customs and Border Patrol, specifically the Border Patrol tactical squad which is called BORTAC . Trump has recently tweeted that he intends to mobilize the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) divisions of ICE, notably to the city of Chicago. HSI is the wing of ICE that handles criminal actions involving immigrants, as differentiated from Enforcement and Removal (ERO)," the wing of ICE that handles deportations. Both the ICE divisions and the Border Patrol are part of the Department of Homeland Security.
AG: And what's their legal authority, assuming they have any? What gives them the right to drive around in unmarked cars, dressed and armed like paratroopers, without badges or anything else identifying them and the enforcement agency they work for? What gives them the right to snatch people off the streets, then hold them without charge?
TR: Those are, of course, the questions. Legal authority derives from two sources: firstly, the organizational mission and jurisdiction and, secondly, the Constitution and the power it provides to the executive branch.
The mission of the US Marshals is to protect the judiciary, judges and witnesses and to pursue fugitives.
The mission of the Secret Service is to defend the President, his/her family and upper level government officials from personal harm.
The mission of the Border Patrol is to police the international borders, both land and air.
The mission of ICE is to enforce immigration laws away from border areas.
You see where I’m going. Chasing protesters around cities in response to graffiti on federal buildings is not the mission of any of these agencies or federal officers. Trump claims that, in the state of emergency he has declared, he can redefine the mission of these agencies as he pleases, but that is a highly questionable assertion.
When it comes to the Constitution, assemblies to petition the government for redress of grievances, aka protest, is an absolute right of the people. Where that gets blurred is when criminal activity of some kind gets mixed in with the assemblies, and government has spent much of the past forty years greatly expanding the penal code with more and more new crimes.
But even when protests include particular actions defined as criminal: vandalism, trespassing, or property damage, or even physical violence, the due process protections in the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments do not magically disappear. Unidentified personnel cannot simply snatch people off the street and take them into custody without a charge—at least not legally—but we know that BORTAC just did that in Portland.
AG: Can cities and states assert authority over them?
TR: Federalism, i.e., the rights of states, has a long history in American jurisprudence and is largely upheld in the courts. Certainly, the intention of the Third Amendment was to prevent the new federal government from attacking the states with military personnel. That framework largely doesn't extend to cities and other local municipalities, so the invocation of federalism to send the Trump troops away would likely have to come from the governors of states.
Oregon's governor has already made statements to that effect. Trump's claim has been that federal buildings are federal property and indeed they are, but that authority would not extend beyond those specific buildings without the consent of the states. Or at least it normally doesn't. The authors of the Constitution did hedge a bit, saying that authority would not extend beyond federal buildings “in times of peace,” which opens up the question of whether the feds are pursuing an undeclared "war" against Democratic-led cities or against Black Lives Matter, or against "antifa" or whatever.
“The invocation of federalism to send the Trump troops away would likely have to come from the governors of states.”
As we know, US presidents are in the habit of waging undeclared wars in foreign countries. We may be looking at an expansion of those tactics and as a messaging point, the metaphorical defining of the population of some liberal cities as "foreign" or "un-American" and therefore exempted from constitutional protections that protect "real Americans." Dehumanizing immigrants, Black people, Muslims, and those who stand with them can be taken to this logical extreme. At least in Trump's head and those of his sycophants.
AG: The ACLU and other rights groups in Portland have sued Trump to stop this. What do you think their chances of success are, especially given the way Trump has packed the federal courts?
TR: Their chances on the West Coast are quite good. The 9th Circuit remains the most reliably liberal circuit court in the country and has issued a long string of rebukes to the Trump administration. In other circuit courts, the outcome is less certain, although federalism, aka states rights, has a long bipartisan tradition. Of course, the 9th Circuit is not the final level of the courts, and it is difficult to predict what the Supreme Court would do if presented with an emergency request to overrule the 9th Circuit. However, the courts move slow and there is an election in three and a half months. So I expect the intent here is messaging as I outlined above. Trump becomes the protector of the "ordinary white Americans" against their enemies, the foreigners and the race traitors who side with them.
AG: Nancy Pelosi and all sorts of other pious Democrats who've voted to militarize the police with Pentagon surplus and protect them from prosecution for Constitutional violations have been wringing their hands about Trump's overreach, and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, D-MA, has introduced the Ending Qualified Immunity Act , but I can't imagine that political pressure will persuade the Republican Senate to roll either back. What impact do you think the November election might have?
TR: Mark Pocan introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to roll back the 1033 military surplus program, but it was roundly defeated today—July 21st—in the Democratic House by something like a 323-93 vote. So it is right to say that much of their hand-wringing is exactly that.
Local government is more inclined to take things seriously because they are more accessible to constituents and more easily voted out. Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, and Bernie Sanders, among others, have introduced a number of federal law enforcement bills that are promising in substance, but most don't have much chance of becoming law. The centrist Democrats are looking for symbolic acts that both express seeming solidarity but don't really change things all that much.
The November election probably will be a blue wave. This likely means federal agencies will not attack blue cities out in the open; the language will be that we value everyone regardless of race, religion or creed, and you are all welcome to pursue life, liberty and profit. (Without much help.) In other words, the neoliberal equation.
It will be better than Trump, and safer for protesters and marginalized communities, but that doesn't make it good. The question is whether generational and demographic shifts will reform that equation and, if so, how? I don't think we know the answer yet. I always try to be hopeful.
AG: As more and more prominent leaders and activists articulate demands well beyond the end of police brutality, including the abolition of prisons and the end of US wars, we seem to be seeing a national revolt against what's come to be known as the carceral state , even as academics, lawyers, and social critics continue trying to define it. Is there anything you'd like to say about that?
TR: Sure. I think what we've seen grow is a broad understanding, outside of left circles and academia, that there is a carceral state. In other words, the language that policing itself is irretrievably flawed and possibly unsalvageable is no longer a fringe idea but one that has broken into the mainstream. This is one thing that social media and cellphones have accomplished. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words, and a thousand videos can change the agenda. I don't think this mainstream awareness has quite translated into mainstream support for any particular policy agenda yet, but the first step is always, "Oh my God, we have to do something," and we have reached that point. The argument that police should not be dealing with mental health crises may be the most widely accepted policy point right now.
AG: The carceral state, if we agree that it includes military might, exists to uphold systems of racial, gender, and other forms of oppression, and to enforce grotesque wealth and income inequality and exploitation, both domestically and internationally. I haven't seen the movements against the two merge, but I imagine I'm missing something. Any thoughts about that?
TR: They are merging, but when movements merge, they necessarily lose a bit of their focus. The police should stop killing Black people for no reason is the clear demand of the Black Lives Matter movement. When that becomes the police should stop killing Black people for no reason, and we should all have health insurance, and capitalism should die, then things necessarily become more complicated.
What ties things together is exploitation, corruption and a caste system tied to both race and class. But it is hard to envision a completely different organizational system for society and that is what you crash into because it is all connected. So movements need a short-term policy agenda within the current system that reduces harms in meaningful ways and a long-term dream for society based on people thriving, not largely caught in an interlocking web of oppressions. (And fighting about which part of the web is the worst part.)
That said, the deployment of federal agents as secret police, scary as it is, is a sign that the movement, however fractured it may be, is scaring the most authoritarian elements in the federal government.
Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. Please help to support her work on Patreon . She can be reached at ann-at-anngarrison.com.
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Killing Democracy in America

The Military-Industrial Complex as a Cytokine Storm The phrase “ thinking about the unthinkable ” has always been associated with the unthinkable cataclysm of a nuclear war , and rightly so .
Lately , though , I ’ ve been pondering another kind of unthinkable scenario , nearly as nightmarish ( at least for a democracy ) as a thermonuclear Armageddon , but one that ’ s been rolling out in far slower motion : that America ’ s war on terror never ends because it ’ s far more convenient for America ’ s leaders to keep it going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tears apart anything we ever imagined as democracy .
I fear that it either can ’ t or won ’ t end because , as Martin Luther King , Jr. , pointed out in 1967 during the Vietnam War , the United States remains the world ’ s greatest purveyor of violence — and nothing in this century , the one he didn ’ t live to see , has faintly proved him wrong .
Considered another way , Washington should be classified as the planet ’ s most committed arsonist , regularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ globally from Libya to Iraq , Somalia to Afghanistan , Syria to — dare I say it — in some quite imaginable future Iran , even as our leaders invariably boast of having the world ’ s greatest firefighters ( also known as the U.S. military ) .
Scenarios of perpetual war haunt my thoughts .
For a healthy democracy , there should be few things more unthinkable than never-ending conflict , that steady drip-drip of death and destruction that drives militarism , reinforces authoritarianism , and facilitates disaster capitalism .
In 1795 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of that sort would presage the slow death of freedom and representative government .
His prediction seems all too relevant in a world in which , year after year , this country continues to engage in needless wars that have nothing to do with national defense .
You Wage War Long , You Wage It Wrong To cite one example of needless war from the last century , consider America ’ s horrendous years of fighting in Vietnam and a critical lesson drawn firsthand from that conflict by reporter Jonathan Schell .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I learned about the capacity of the human mind to build a model of experience that screens out even very dramatic and obvious realities.
” As a young journalist covering the war , Schell saw that the U.S. was losing , even as its military was destroying startlingly large areas of South Vietnam in the name of saving it from communism .
Yet America ’ s leaders , the “ best and brightest ” of the era , almost to a man refused to see that all of what passed for realism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to that war , was nothing short of a first-class lie .
Why ?
Because believing is seeing and they desperately wanted to believe that they were the good guys , as well as the most powerful guys on the planet .
America was winning , it practically went without saying , because it had to be .
They were infected by their own version of an all-American victory culture , blinded by a sense of this country ’ s obvious destiny : to be the most exceptional and exceptionally triumphant nation on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was far more difficult for grunts on the ground to deny the reality of what was happening — that they were fighting and dying in a senseless war .
As a result , especially after the shock of the enemy ’ s Tet Offensive early in 1968 , escalating protests within the military ( and among veterans at home ) together with massive antiwar demonstrations finally helped put the brakes on that war .
Not before , however , more than 58,000 American troops died , along with millions of Vietnamese , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end , the war in Indochina was arguably too costly , messy , and futile to continue .
But never underestimate the military-industrial complex , especially when it comes to editing or denying reality , while being eternally over-funded for that very reality .
It ’ s a trait the complex has shared with politicians of both parties .
Don ’ t forget , for instance , the way President Ronald Reagan reedited that disastrous conflict into a “ noble cause ” in the 1980s .
And give him credit !
That was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American public that had already lived through such a war .
By the way , tell me something about that Reaganesque moment doesn ’ t sound vaguely familiar almost four decades later when our very own “ wartime president ” long ago declared victory in the “ war ” on Covid-19 , even as the death toll from that virus approaches 150,000 in the homeland .
In the meantime , the military-industrial complex has mastered the long con of the no-win forever war in a genuinely impressive fashion .
Consider the war in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its third decade without an end in sight .
Even when President Trump makes noises about withdrawing troops from that country , Congress approves an amendment to another massive , record-setting military budget with broad bipartisan support that effectively obstructs any efforts to do so ( while the Pentagon continues to bargain Trump down on the subject ) .
The Vietnam War , which was destroying the U.S. military , finally ended in an ignominious withdrawal .
Almost two decades later , after the 2001 invasion , the war in Afghanistan can now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ era — fought in a “ limited ” fashion , at least from the point of view of Congress , the Pentagon , and most Americans ( who ignore it ) , even if not the Afghans .
The number of American troops being killed is , at this point , acceptably low , almost imperceptible in fact ( even if not to Americans who have lost loved ones over there ) .
More and more , the U.S. military is relying on air power , unmanned drones , mercenaries , local militias @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Minimizing American casualties is an effective way of minimizing negative media coverage here ; so , too , are efforts by the Trump administration to classify nearly everything related to that war while denying or downplaying “ collateral damage ” — that is , dead civilians — from it .
Their efforts boil down to a harsh truth : America just plain lies about its forever wars , so that it can keep on killing in lands far from home .
When we as Americans refuse to take in the destruction we cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ belief system of the ruling class that what ’ s still bizarrely called “ defense ” is a “ must have ” and that we collectively must spend significantly more than a trillion dollars a year on the Pentagon , the Department of Homeland Security , and a sprawling network of intelligence agencies , all justified as necessary defenders of America ’ s freedom .
Rarely does the public put much thought into the dangers inherent in a sprawling “ defense ” network that increasingly invades and dominates our lives .
Meanwhile , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , at least in terms of U.S. troops killed and wounded in action , can essentially be prolonged indefinitely , even when they never result in anything faintly like victory or fulfill any faintly useful American goal .
The Afghan War remains the case in point .
“ Progress ” is a concept that only ever fits the enemy — the Taliban continues to gain ground — yet , in these years , figures like retired general and former CIA director David Petraeus have continued to call for a “ generational ” commitment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to U.S. support for South Korea .
Who says the Pentagon leadership learned nothing from Vietnam ?
They learned how to wage open-ended wars basically forever , which has proved useful indeed when it comes to justifying and sustaining epic military budgets and the political authority that goes with them .
But here ’ s the thing : in a democracy , if you wage war long , you wage it wrong .
Athens and the historian Thucydides learned this the hard way in the struggle against Sparta more than two millennia ago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such an obvious lesson ?
To read more of this dispatch , please click here .

While the mainstream media focuses on alleged threats from without, the most insidious dangers are those from within America, as I argue in my latest article for TomDispatch.com Here’s an excerpt.
The Military-Industrial Complex as a Cytokine Storm
The phrase “thinking about the unthinkable” has always been associated with the unthinkable cataclysm of a nuclear war, and rightly so. Lately, though, I’ve been pondering another kind of unthinkable scenario, nearly as nightmarish (at least for a democracy) as a thermonuclear Armageddon, but one that’s been rolling out in far slower motion: that America’s war on terror never ends because it’s far more convenient for America’s leaders to keep it going — until, that is, it tears apart anything we ever imagined as democracy.
I fear that it either can’t or won’t end because, as Martin Luther King, Jr., pointed out in 1967 during the Vietnam War, the United States remains the world’s greatest purveyor of violence — and nothing in this century, the one he didn’t live to see, has faintly proved him wrong. Considered another way, Washington should be classified as the planet’s most committed arsonist, regularly setting or fanning the flames of fires globally from Libya to Iraq, Somalia to Afghanistan, Syria to — dare I say it — in some quite imaginable future Iran, even as our leaders invariably boast of having the world’s greatest firefighters (also known as the U.S. military).
Scenarios of perpetual war haunt my thoughts. For a healthy democracy, there should be few things more unthinkable than never-ending conflict, that steady drip-drip of death and destruction that drives militarism, reinforces authoritarianism, and facilitates disaster capitalism. In 1795, James Madison warned Americans that war of that sort would presage the slow death of freedom and representative government. His prediction seems all too relevant in a world in which, year after year, this country continues to engage in needless wars that have nothing to do with national defense.
You Wage War Long, You Wage It Wrong
To cite one example of needless war from the last century, consider America’s horrendous years of fighting in Vietnam and a critical lesson drawn firsthand from that conflict by reporter Jonathan Schell. “In Vietnam,” he noted, “I learned about the capacity of the human mind to build a model of experience that screens out even very dramatic and obvious realities.” As a young journalist covering the war, Schell saw that the U.S. was losing, even as its military was destroying startlingly large areas of South Vietnam in the name of saving it from communism. Yet America’s leaders, the “best and brightest” of the era, almost to a man refused to see that all of what passed for realism in their world, when it came to that war, was nothing short of a first-class lie.
Why? Because believing is seeing and they desperately wanted to believe that they were the good guys, as well as the most powerful guys on the planet. America was winning, it practically went without saying, because it had to be. They were infected by their own version of an all-American victory culture, blinded by a sense of this country’s obvious destiny: to be the most exceptional and exceptionally triumphant nation on this planet.
As it happened, it was far more difficult for grunts on the ground to deny the reality of what was happening — that they were fighting and dying in a senseless war. As a result, especially after the shock of the enemy’s Tet Offensive early in 1968, escalating protests within the military (and among veterans at home) together with massive antiwar demonstrations finally helped put the brakes on that war. Not before, however, more than 58,000 American troops died, along with millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians.
In the end, the war in Indochina was arguably too costly, messy, and futile to continue. But never underestimate the military-industrial complex, especially when it comes to editing or denying reality, while being eternally over-funded for that very reality. It’s a trait the complex has shared with politicians of both parties. Don’t forget, for instance, the way President Ronald Reagan reedited that disastrous conflict into a “noble cause” in the 1980s. And give him credit! That was no small thing to sell to an American public that had already lived through such a war. By the way, tell me something about that Reaganesque moment doesn’t sound vaguely familiar almost four decades later when our very own “wartime president” long ago declared victory in the “war” on Covid-19, even as the death toll from that virus approaches 150,000 in the homeland.
In the meantime, the military-industrial complex has mastered the long con of the no-win forever war in a genuinely impressive fashion. Consider the war in Afghanistan. In 2021 it will enter its third decade without an end in sight. Even when President Trump makes noises about withdrawing troops from that country, Congress approves an amendment to another massive, record-setting military budget with broad bipartisan support that effectively obstructs any efforts to do so (while the Pentagon continues to bargain Trump down on the subject).
The Vietnam War, which was destroying the U.S. military, finally ended in an ignominious withdrawal. Almost two decades later, after the 2001 invasion, the war in Afghanistan can now be — the dream of the Vietnam era — fought in a “limited” fashion, at least from the point of view of Congress, the Pentagon, and most Americans (who ignore it), even if not the Afghans. The number of American troops being killed is, at this point, acceptably low, almost imperceptible in fact (even if not to Americans who have lost loved ones over there).
More and more, the U.S. military is relying on air power, unmanned drones, mercenaries, local militias, paramilitaries, and private contractors. Minimizing American casualties is an effective way of minimizing negative media coverage here; so, too, are efforts by the Trump administration to classify nearly everything related to that war while denying or downplaying “collateral damage” — that is, dead civilians — from it.
Their efforts boil down to a harsh truth: America just plain lies about its forever wars, so that it can keep on killing in lands far from home.
When we as Americans refuse to take in the destruction we cause, we come to passively accept the belief system of the ruling class that what’s still bizarrely called “defense” is a “must have” and that we collectively must spend significantly more than a trillion dollars a year on the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and a sprawling network of intelligence agencies, all justified as necessary defenders of America’s freedom. Rarely does the public put much thought into the dangers inherent in a sprawling “defense” network that increasingly invades and dominates our lives.
Meanwhile, it’s clear that low-cost wars, at least in terms of U.S. troops killed and wounded in action, can essentially be prolonged indefinitely, even when they never result in anything faintly like victory or fulfill any faintly useful American goal. The Afghan War remains the case in point. “Progress” is a concept that only ever fits the enemy — the Taliban continues to gain ground — yet, in these years, figures like retired general and former CIA director David Petraeus have continued to call for a “generational” commitment of troops and resources there, akin to U.S. support for South Korea.
Who says the Pentagon leadership learned nothing from Vietnam? They learned how to wage open-ended wars basically forever, which has proved useful indeed when it comes to justifying and sustaining epic military budgets and the political authority that goes with them. But here’s the thing: in a democracy, if you wage war long, you wage it wrong. Athens and the historian Thucydides learned this the hard way in the struggle against Sparta more than two millennia ago. Why do we insist on forgetting such an obvious lesson?
To read more of this dispatch, please click here.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-27--Two Sides of the Same Coin: VenezolanosConBiden and MAGAzuela

Biden ’ s campaign says that sanctions against the Bolivarian nation will continue and intensify .
The Biden campaign held an online event on Wednesday , July 8 pitched as the former Vice President ’ s “ vision for Venezuela and Venezuelans in the U.S. ” Spoiler alert : his vision for Venezuela barely differs from President Trump .
This event , which didn ’ t merit an appearance from Biden himself , was aimed at getting Venezuelan-Americans to volunteer for “ Uncle Joe ” , as Representative Darren Soto ( D-Fl ) called him .
It was an hour @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and influence , and it demonstrated that when it comes to Venezuela , policies of regime change , sanctions and a refusal to engage in dialogue unite VenezolanosConBiden ( the group hosting the event ) with MAGAzuela ( the term for Trump-supporting Venezuelans ) .
There are only two policy differences in the Biden and Trump approaches to Venezuela .
One is about TPS , or temporary protected status , which is an immigration policy that allows people from ten specific countries affected by disasters to live and work in the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while Trump allies have blocked it in the Senate and Trump himself ended the program and has refused to issue it for Venezuelans .
According to one of Biden ’ s surrogates , there are 150 thousand Venezuelans in the U.S. who are either undocumented or are here on expired visas .
The other difference is the border wall , which is now being built in part using Venezuelan funds .
The Trump administration has diverted US $ 601 million in assets stolen from the Venezuelan people to build the wall on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ held in the Treasury Department ’ s “ forfeiture fund ” , which is typically used to finance law enforcement operations .
It is part of the estimated US $ 24 billion that the U.S. and its allies have frozen and looted from Venezuela in their regime change efforts .
Juan Guaido , the self-proclaimed interim president , has yet to comment on how the Trump administration is using these Venezuelan funds , but his “ ambassador ” , Carlos Vecchio , admitted to working with the Justice Department to “ establish a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” of how much of the seized Venezuelan funds will go to the U.S .
According to Guaido and his associates , it is “ normal ” for the Trump administration to take a cut .
TPS and the wall are the only two points on which Biden and Trump differ .
Biden ’ s surrogates claim he will grant TPS to Venezuelans on Day One of his administration and Biden says he will stop financing the wall .
These differences are minimal though , especially considering that Biden will continue the policies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flee in the first place and he has given every indication that more funds will be frozen .
Biden ’ s vision is more of the same magical thinking that the Trump administration has engaged in for years .
His campaign says the sanctions will continue and actually intensify .
A Biden administration would seek “ a huge increase in aid ” , not just for Venezuela but for Colombia and other countries with Venezuelan migrants .
They would build an “ international coalition ” to rebuild Venezuela .
They would persecute key @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of where they are in the world .
According to Juan Gonzalez , former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Obama and current advisor to Biden on Latin America , they will give the government of President Nicolas Maduro one option : elections observed by a respected ( and unnamed ) multilateral institution and he must leave office .
Biden ’ s surrogates warn that Venezuela is a national security issue for the U.S. , that the country has been infiltrated by terrorist groups and everything must be done to end Russian , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ responded to a question about the impact of sanctions by blaming the “ humanitarian crisis ” on Chavismo .
They say Biden will not negotiate with Maduro .
The Biden campaign attacked Trump for suggesting he would meet with Maduro , forcing Trump to backtrack on the offer , and has been running ads in Miami accusing Trump of being soft on Maduro .
Biden ’ s policies are the same policies and exact rhetoric used by the Trump administration .
Since 2017 , the U.S. has imposed sanctions that have cost 100,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ losses of US $ 130 billion .
But according to Biden supporter Rep. Soto , “ there hasn ’ t been enough of a crackdown ” on the Maduro government .
Trump has spent three years building an approximately 60-country anti-Maduro coalition and Secretary of State Pompeo has traveled the world seeking more aid allegedly for Venezuela , but that ends up in countries with Venezuelan migrants .
They have sanctioned foreign companies doing business with Venezuela and sought to arrest Venezuelan businessmen overseas .
On the issue of military intervention , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a military option were empty and insisted other options must be explored and all other avenues of pressure exhausted ( except , of course , dialogue ) before considering military action .
They did not say whether U.S. intervention should be “ on the table ” , and framed the discussion around the U.S. public ’ s alleged aversion to another war rather than on the catastrophic consequences this would have for the Venezuelan people , let alone the illegality of any sort of military intervention .
It is no secret that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ objective , and Trump ’ s tactic of pandering to right-wing Latin extremists in Florida has led the Democrats to do the same .
The Biden campaign strategy is clear : mimic the administration ’ s Venezuela policy while offering TPS to draw votes away from Trump .
The surrogates also repeatedly insisted that Biden is not a socialist – apparently a common misconception among the MAGAzuela crowd .
It should be no surprise that this is all about Florida and the 2020 election .
Trump not only won the state in 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a Senate seat in 2018 , albeit by small margins .
Republican governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Rick Scott both accused their opponents of being Socialists who are soft on Venezuela .
The Biden camp is doing its utmost to prevent those types of attacks from sticking against their candidate .
There is no reason to believe that Biden will change course on Venezuela if elected .
There are too many votes in Florida at stake , as well as donations to be had from wealthy Venezuelan ex-pats , who at this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so very well .
A Biden presidency , just like another four more years of Trump , looks to be disastrous for the Venezuelan people .

The Biden campaign held an online event on Wednesday, July 8 pitched as the former Vice President’s “vision for Venezuela and Venezuelans in the U.S.” Spoiler alert: his vision for Venezuela barely differs from President Trump.
This event, which didn’t merit an appearance from Biden himself, was aimed at getting Venezuelan-Americans to volunteer for “Uncle Joe”, as Representative Darren Soto (D-Fl) called him.
It was an hour and a half of shilling for votes and influence, and it demonstrated that when it comes to Venezuela, policies of regime change, sanctions and a refusal to engage in dialogue unite VenezolanosConBiden (the group hosting the event) with MAGAzuela (the term for Trump-supporting Venezuelans).
There are only two policy differences in the Biden and Trump approaches to Venezuela. One is about TPS, or temporary protected status, which is an immigration policy that allows people from ten specific countries affected by disasters to live and work in the United States. Biden supports TPS for Venezuelans, while Trump allies have blocked it in the Senate and Trump himself ended the program and has refused to issue it for Venezuelans.
According to one of Biden’s surrogates, there are 150 thousand Venezuelans in the U.S. who are either undocumented or are here on expired visas.
The other difference is the border wall, which is now being built in part using Venezuelan funds. The Trump administration has diverted US$601 million in assets stolen from the Venezuelan people to build the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
This money was previously held in the Treasury Department’s “forfeiture fund”, which is typically used to finance law enforcement operations. It is part of the estimated US$24 billion that the U.S. and its allies have frozen and looted from Venezuela in their regime change efforts.
Juan Guaido, the self-proclaimed interim president, has yet to comment on how the Trump administration is using these Venezuelan funds, but his “ambassador”, Carlos Vecchio, admitted to working with the Justice Department to “establish a formal agreement … to define the percentage” of how much of the seized Venezuelan funds will go to the U.S. According to Guaido and his associates, it is “normal” for the Trump administration to take a cut.
TPS and the wall are the only two points on which Biden and Trump differ. Biden’s surrogates claim he will grant TPS to Venezuelans on Day One of his administration and Biden says he will stop financing the wall. These differences are minimal though, especially considering that Biden will continue the policies that have led millions of Venezuelans to flee in the first place and he has given every indication that more funds will be frozen.
Biden’s vision is more of the same magical thinking that the Trump administration has engaged in for years. His campaign says the sanctions will continue and actually intensify.
A Biden administration would seek “a huge increase in aid”, not just for Venezuela but for Colombia and other countries with Venezuelan migrants. They would build an “international coalition” to rebuild Venezuela.
They would persecute key supporters of the Venezuelan government, regardless of where they are in the world. According to Juan Gonzalez, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Obama and current advisor to Biden on Latin America, they will give the government of President Nicolas Maduro one option: elections observed by a respected (and unnamed) multilateral institution and he must leave office.
Biden’s surrogates warn that Venezuela is a national security issue for the U.S., that the country has been infiltrated by terrorist groups and everything must be done to end Russian, Chinese, and Cuban influence.
They responded to a question about the impact of sanctions by blaming the “humanitarian crisis” on Chavismo. They say Biden will not negotiate with Maduro. The Biden campaign attacked Trump for suggesting he would meet with Maduro, forcing Trump to backtrack on the offer, and has been running ads in Miami accusing Trump of being soft on Maduro.
Biden’s policies are the same policies and exact rhetoric used by the Trump administration. Since 2017, the U.S. has imposed sanctions that have cost 100,000 Venezuelans their lives and led to economic losses of US$130 billion. But according to Biden supporter Rep. Soto, “there hasn’t been enough of a crackdown” on the Maduro government.
Trump has spent three years building an approximately 60-country anti-Maduro coalition and Secretary of State Pompeo has traveled the world seeking more aid allegedly for Venezuela, but that ends up in countries with Venezuelan migrants. They have sanctioned foreign companies doing business with Venezuela and sought to arrest Venezuelan businessmen overseas.
On the issue of military intervention, the Biden surrogates claimed Trump’s threats of a military option were empty and insisted other options must be explored and all other avenues of pressure exhausted (except, of course, dialogue) before considering military action.
They did not say whether U.S. intervention should be “on the table”, and framed the discussion around the U.S. public’s alleged aversion to another war rather than on the catastrophic consequences this would have for the Venezuelan people, let alone the illegality of any sort of military intervention.
It is no secret that regime change in Venezuela is a bipartisan objective, and Trump’s tactic of pandering to right-wing Latin extremists in Florida has led the Democrats to do the same. The Biden campaign strategy is clear: mimic the administration’s Venezuela policy while offering TPS to draw votes away from Trump. The surrogates also repeatedly insisted that Biden is not a socialist – apparently a common misconception among the MAGAzuela crowd.
It should be no surprise that this is all about Florida and the 2020 election. Trump not only won the state in 2016, but his allies took the governorship and a Senate seat in 2018, albeit by small margins.
Republican governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Rick Scott both accused their opponents of being Socialists who are soft on Venezuela. The Biden camp is doing its utmost to prevent those types of attacks from sticking against their candidate.
There is no reason to believe that Biden will change course on Venezuela if elected. There are too many votes in Florida at stake, as well as donations to be had from wealthy Venezuelan ex-pats, who at this point are playing both sides and doing so very well.
A Biden presidency, just like another four more years of Trump, looks to be disastrous for the Venezuelan people.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-27--Black Left Views on American Elections Matter

etfa Freeman is an organizer for Pan-African Community Action and the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace .
He is also a radio talk-show host of the popular D.C.-based Voices with Vision and an active supporter of the Cuban and Bolivarian revolutions .
In an exclusive online interview for teleSur from Washington D.C. , Freeman asserted that the principal message he has for readers is : “ The Black left perspective is that our struggle is for power.
” In response to a question regarding illusions about the Democratic Party as an alternative to the Trump/Republicans , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Black working class in the U.S. to realize justice through presidential elections is by waging a relentless struggle to build a formidable alternative party to both capitalist , imperialist , Republican and Democratic parties.
” He is of course referring to a party that includes all races .
Everything Against the Two-Party System .
Everything… The “ lesser evil ” narrative is overbearingly and pervasively poisonous in U.S. politics .
It inevitably leads to a vicious and continuous ideological war , not restricted to presidential election cycles .
Freeman continues : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and for all reject the false notion of a lesser evil between the candidates of those two parties .
Both of them embrace and sustain genocidal policies against people of African descent domestically and internationally .
Unlike Trump , the record of anti-Black policies that Joe Biden [ as a Senator in Congress since 1972 ] has supported goes back to 1975 : as a racist supporter of segregation and in 1994 co-authoring a ‘ crime ’ bill ’ that helped to proliferate the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the value of military equipment transferred to domestic police departments increased by 2,400 % , and has been used primarily against Black and Brown communities.
” The “ Lesser of Two Evils ” ?
Some straight Talk… When asked to elaborate further on the “ lesser of two evils ” pressure , his response consisted of a stinging indictment of the U.S. political system : “ I always say that an unspoken prerequisite for being president of the U.S. is being able to bomb babies in another country and pretend that there are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while several have been languishing in prison since the 70s.
” Does his reference to “ bombing babies ” include the war Obama initiated in 2015 against Yemen ?
Or was it only the tip of the iceberg that was revealed when a U.S.-manufactured bomb killed 40 Yemeni infants ?
Who can forget the horrific scenes of the bipartisan American war against Vietnam when the world witnessed women and babies lying in ditches after being massacred in Mai Lai by Marines ?
Freeman may use shock tactics sometimes , but is it not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up the smug acceptance of the two-party system and its corollary , “ the lesser of two evils ” ?
Mainstream media and both corporate parties never mention the more than 50 political prisoners in the U.S .
The majority of them are Black and Indigenous , some were involved in the Black Panther Party , Native movements and other revolutionary movements in the 1960s and 70s , and more recently as a result of the demonstrations after the police murder of the Black youth Mike Brown in Ferguson , Missouri ( 2014 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rock ( 2016 ) by Indigenous and their allies .
In fact , they are the survivors of the state ’ s assassination program carried out against their leaders .
If there is one people in the world who can fully appreciate the refusal of the American left to overlook these political prisoners , who are festering and still resisting in the cruel and violent jungle of the U.S. prison system , it is the Cuban people .
The entire Cuban nation , with the full support of countries such as Venezuela , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cuban Five be abandoned .
Since the modern-day lynching of George Floyd in May , one of the most important visions arising out of the current rebellion is the following : the struggle in the U.S. against the racist state can not be separated from its imperialist wars abroad , as Freeman graphically mentioned above .
The most persecuted and oppressed population in the U.S. , African Americans , are currently in the very forefront of selflessly insisting that there can be no peace in the U.S. unless there is peace for other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of U.S. aggression .
Was it not Martín Luther King Jr. , in speeches given just before his assassination , who linked the domestic situation with the U.S. war against Vietnam ?
War , militarism , racism and MLK ’ s concerns about generalized across-the-board poverty are carefully censured from the current debate being fostered by the ongoing revolt .
The U.S. elite cynically retains only MLK ’ s “ I have a dream ” speech , thus conveniently white-washing his legacy and soothing the conscience of liberals by providing them with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Malcolm X is cited by liberals very vaguely as if his thinking and action were some romantic notion of days gone by .
However , his legacy carries on the in the minds and hearts of millions of Americans of all races .
Malcolm X spelled it out long ago : '' The white conservatives are n't friends of the Negro , but they at least do n't try to hide it .
They are like wolves ; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white liberals are foxes , who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling .
The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives ; they lure the Negro , and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf , he flees into the open jaws of the ‘ smiling ’ fox .
One is the wolf , the other is a fox .
No matter what , they ’ ll both eat you.
” Fidel Castro knew who to meet during his visit to New York in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
However , let us leave the last word to a “ neutral ” expert on American politics : the non-black but well-known Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone .
“ If these protests end it won ’ t be because tyrants in the Republican Party like Donald Trump succeed in making the case for beating them into silence with the U.S. military .
It will be because liberal manipulators succeeded in co-opting and stagnating its momentum .
”

N
etfa Freeman is an organizer for Pan-African Community Action and the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace. He is also a radio talk-show host of the popular D.C.-based Voices with Vision and an active supporter of the Cuban and Bolivarian revolutions. In an exclusive online interview for teleSur from Washington D.C., Freeman asserted that the principal message he has for readers is: “The Black left perspective is that our struggle is for power.” In response to a question regarding illusions about the Democratic Party as an alternative to the Trump/Republicans, he stated:
"The only way for the Black working class in the U.S. to realize justice through presidential elections is by waging a relentless struggle to build a formidable alternative party to both capitalist, imperialist, Republican and Democratic parties.”
He is of course referring to a party that includes all races.
Everything Against the Two-Party System. Everything…
The “lesser evil” narrative is overbearingly and pervasively poisonous in U.S. politics. It inevitably leads to a vicious and continuous ideological war, not restricted to presidential election cycles. Freeman continues:
“Black people in the U.S. must once and for all reject the false notion of a lesser evil between the candidates of those two parties. Both of them embrace and sustain genocidal policies against people of African descent domestically and internationally. Unlike Trump, the record of anti-Black policies that Joe Biden [as a Senator in Congress since 1972] has supported goes back to 1975: as a racist supporter of segregation and in 1994 co-authoring a ‘crime’ bill’ that helped to proliferate the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people. While Biden was Vice President under Obama, the value of military equipment transferred to domestic police departments increased by 2,400%,and has been used primarily against Black and Brown communities.”
The “Lesser of Two Evils”? Some straight Talk…
When asked to elaborate further on the “lesser of two evils” pressure, his response consisted of a stinging indictment of the U.S. political system:
“I always say that an unspoken prerequisite for being president of the U.S. is being able to bomb babies in another country and pretend that there are no political prisoners in the U.S., while several have been languishing in prison since the 70s.”
Does his reference to “bombing babies” include the war Obama initiated in 2015 against Yemen? Or was it only the tip of the iceberg that was revealed when a U.S.-manufactured bomb killed 40 Yemeni infants? Who can forget the horrific scenes of the bipartisan American war against Vietnam when the world witnessed women and babies lying in ditches after being massacred in Mai Lai by Marines? Freeman may use shock tactics sometimes, but is it not valid to use such methods to shake up the smug acceptance of the two-party system and its corollary, “the lesser of two evils”?
Mainstream media and both corporate parties never mention the more than 50 political prisoners in the U.S. The majority of them are Black and Indigenous, some were involved in the Black Panther Party, Native movements and other revolutionary movements in the 1960s and 70s, and more recently as a result of the demonstrations after the police murder of the Black youth Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri (2014) and the stand off in Standing Rock (2016) by Indigenous and their allies. In fact, they are the survivors of the state’s assassination program carried out against their leaders. If there is one people in the world who can fully appreciate the refusal of the American left to overlook these political prisoners, who are festering and still resisting in the cruel and violent jungle of the U.S. prison system, it is the Cuban people. The entire Cuban nation, with the full support of countries such as Venezuela, refused to accept as inevitable that the Cuban Five be abandoned.
Since the modern-day lynching of George Floyd in May, one of the most important visions arising out of the current rebellion is the following: the struggle in the U.S. against the racist state cannot be separated from its imperialist wars abroad, as Freeman graphically mentioned above. The most persecuted and oppressed population in the U.S., African Americans, are currently in the very forefront of selflessly insisting that there can be no peace in the U.S. unless there is peace for other peoples in the world that are victims of U.S. aggression.
Malcolm X on the 2020 Presidential Elections
Was it not Martín Luther King Jr., in speeches given just before his assassination, who linked the domestic situation with the U.S. war against Vietnam? War, militarism, racism and MLK’s concerns about generalized across-the-board poverty are carefully censured from the current debate being fostered by the ongoing revolt. The U.S. elite cynically retains only MLK’s “I have a dream” speech, thus conveniently white-washing his legacy and soothing the conscience of liberals by providing them with a buzz word for cooptation.
Similarly, Malcolm X is cited by liberals very vaguely as if his thinking and action were some romantic notion of days gone by. However, his legacy carries on the in the minds and hearts of millions of Americans of all races. Malcolm X spelled it out long ago:
"The white conservatives aren't friends of the Negro, but they at least don't try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the ‘smiling’ fox. One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.”
Fidel Castro knew who to meet during his visit to New York in 1960: he met with Malcolm X.
However, let us leave the last word to a “neutral” expert on American politics: the non-black but well-known Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone.
“If these protests end it won’t be because tyrants in the Republican Party like Donald Trump succeed in making the case for beating them into silence with the U.S. military. It will be because liberal manipulators succeeded in co-opting and stagnating its momentum.”
True?


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-27--Reviving the False Narrative on Police

Reviving the False Narrative on Police

After just 10 minutes , passersby in New York City began vandalizing the car .
First they stripped it for parts .
Then the random destruction began .
Windows were smashed .
The car was destroyed .
But in Palo Alto , the other car remained untouched for more than a week .
Finally , Zimbardo did something unusual : He took a sledgehammer and gave the California car a smash .
After that , passersby quickly ripped it apart , just as they 'd done in New York .
This field study was a simple demonstration of how something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a target for vandals .
But it eventually morphed into something far more than that .
It became the basis for one of the most influential theories of crime and policing in America : `` broken windows . ''
Thirteen years after the Zimbardo study , criminologists George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson wrote an article for The Atlantic .
They were fascinated by what had happened to Zimbardo 's abandoned cars and thought the findings could be applied on a larger scale , to entire communities .
`` The idea [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it does n't matter what the neighborhood is , things can begin to get out of control , '' Kelling tells Hidden Brain .
In the article , Kelling and Wilson suggested that a broken window or other visible signs of disorder or decay — think loitering , graffiti , prostitution or drug use — can send the signal that a neighborhood is uncared for .
So , they thought , if police departments addressed those problems , maybe the bigger crimes would n't happen .
`` Once you begin to deal with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ begin to empower those neighborhoods , '' says Kelling .
`` People claim their public spaces , and the store owners extend their concerns to what happened on the streets .
Communities get strengthened once order is restored or maintained , and it is that dynamic that helps to prevent crime . ''
Kelling and Wilson proposed that police departments change their focus .
Instead of channeling most resources into solving major crimes , they should instead try to clean up the streets and maintain order — such as keeping people from smoking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subway fare beaters .
The argument came at an opportune time , says Columbia University law professor Bernard Harcourt .
`` This was a period of high crime , and high incarceration , and it seemed there was no way out of that dynamic .
It seemed as if there was no way out of just filling prisons to address the crime problem . ''
An Idea Moves From The Ivory Tower To The Streets As policymakers were scrambling for answers , a new mayor in New York City came to power offering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1993 , promising to reduce crime and clean up the streets .
Very quickly , he adopted broken windows as his mantra .
It was one of those rare ideas that appealed to both sides of the aisle .
Conservatives liked the policy because it meant restoring order .
Liberals liked it , Harcourt says , because it seemed like an enlightened way to prevent crime : `` It seemed like a magical solution .
It allowed everybody to find a way in their own mind to get rid of the panhandler @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the prostitute , the drugs , the litter , and it allowed liberals to do that while still feeling self-righteous and good about themselves . ''
Giuliani and his new police commissioner , William Bratton , focused first on cleaning up the subway system , where 250,000 people a day were n't paying their fare .
They sent hundreds of police officers into the subways to crack down on turnstile jumpers and vandals .
Very quickly , they found confirmation for their theory .
Going after petty crime led the police to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Not all fare beaters were criminals , but a lot of criminals were fare beaters .
It turns out serious criminals are pretty busy .
They commit minor offenses as well as major offenses . ''
The policy was quickly scaled up from the subway to the entire city of New York .
Police ramped up misdemeanor arrests for things like smoking marijuana in public , spraying graffiti and selling loose cigarettes .
And almost instantly , they were able to trumpet their success .
Crime was falling .
The murder rate plummeted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The media loved the story , and Giuliani cruised to re-election in 1997 .
George Kelling and a colleague did follow-up research on broken windows policingand found what they believed was clear evidence of its success .
In neighborhoods where there was a sharp increase in misdemeanor arrests — suggesting broken windows policing was in force — there was also a sharp decline in crime .
By 2001 , broken windows had become one of Giuliani 's greatest accomplishments .
In his farewell address , he emphasized the beautiful and simple idea behind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theory replaced the idea that we were too busy to pay attention to street-level prostitution , too busy to pay attention to panhandling , too busy to pay attention to graffiti , '' he said .
`` Well , you ca n't be too busy to pay attention to those things , because those are the things that underlie the problems of crime that you have in your society . ''
Right from the start , there were signs something was wrong with the beautiful narrative .
`` Crime was starting to go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Giuliani election and prior to the implementation of broken windows policing , '' says Harcourt , the Columbia law professor .
`` And of course what we witnessed from that period , basically from about 1991 , was that the crime in the country starts going down , and it 's a remarkable drop in violent crime in this country .
Now , what 's so remarkable about it is how widespread it was . ''
Harcourt points out that crime dropped not only in New York , but in many other cities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in place .
In fact , crime even fell in parts of the country where police departments were mired in corruption scandals and largely viewed as dysfunctional , such as Los Angeles .
`` Los Angeles is really interesting because Los Angeles was wracked with terrible policing problems during the whole time , and crime drops as much in Los Angeles as it does in New York , '' says Harcourt .
There were lots of theories to explain the nationwide decline in crime .
Some said it was the growing economy or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Some criminologists credited harsher sentencing guidelines .
In 2006 , Harcourt found the evidence supporting the broken windows theory might be flawed .
He reviewed the study Kelling had conducted in 2001 , and found the areas that saw the largest number of misdemeanor arrests also had the biggest drops in violent crime .
Harcourt says the earlier study failed to consider what 's called a `` reversion to the mean . ''
`` It 's something that a lot of investment bankers and investors know about because it 's well-known and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harcourt .
`` Basically , the idea is if something goes up a lot , it tends to go down a lot . ''
A graph in Kelling 's 2001 paper is revealing .
It shows the crime rate falling dramatically in the early 1990s .
But this small view gives us a selective picture .
Right before this decline came a spike in crime .
And if you go further back , you see a series of spikes and declines .
And each time , the bigger a spike , the bigger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reverts to the mean .
Kelling acknowledges that broken windows may not have had a dramatic effect on crime .
But he thinks it still has value .
`` Even if broken windows did not have a substantial impact on crime , order is an end in itself in a cosmopolitan , diverse world , '' he says .
`` Strangers have to feel comfortable moving through communities for those communities to thrive .
Order is an end in itself , and it does n't need the justification of serious crime . ''
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but it 's worth noting that this was not the premise on which the broken windows theory was sold .
It was advertised as an innovative way to control violent crime , not just a way to get panhandlers and prostitutes off the streets .
Harcourt says there was another big problem with broken windows .
`` We immediately saw a sharp increase in complaints of police misconduct .
Starting in 1993 , what you 're going to see is a tremendous amount of disorder that erupts as a result of broken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with settlements of police misconduct cases skyrocketing , and of course with incidents , brutal incidents , all of a sudden happening at a faster and faster clip . ''
The problem intensified with a new practice that grew out of broken windows .
It was called `` stop and frisk , '' and was embraced in New York City after Mayor Michael Bloomberg won election in 2001 .
If broken windows meant arresting people for misdemeanors in hopes of preventing more serious crimes , `` stop and frisk '' said , why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not go ahead and stop , question and search anyone who looked suspicious ?
There were high-profile cases where misdemeanor arrests or stopping and questioning did lead to information that helped solve much more serious crimes , even homicides .
But there were many more cases where police stops turned up nothing .
In 2008 , police made nearly 250,000 stops in New York for what they called furtive movements .
Only one-fifteenth of 1 percent of those turned up a gun .
Even more problematic , in order to be able to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be able to define it .
Is it a trash bag covering a broken window ?
Teenagers on a street corner playing music too loudly ?
In Chicago , the researchers Robert Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush analyzed what makes people perceive social disorder .
They found that if two neighborhoods had exactly the same amount of graffiti and litter and loitering , people saw more disorder , more broken windows , in neighborhoods with more African-Americans .
George Kelling is not an advocate of stop and frisk .
In fact , all the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the possibility that giving police wide discretion could lead to abuse .
In his article , he and James Q. Wilson write : `` How do we ensure ... that the police do not become the agents of neighborhood bigotry ?
We can offer no wholly satisfactory answer to this important question . ''
In August of 2013 , a federal district court found that New York City 's stop and frisk policy was unconstitutional because of the way it singled out young black and Hispanic men .
Later that year , New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 20 years .
Bill DeBlasio celebrated the end of stop and frisk .
But he did not do away with broken windows .
In fact , he re-appointed Rudy Giuliani 's police commissioner , Bill Bratton .
And just seven months after taking over again as the head of the New York Police Department , Bratton 's broken windows policy came under fresh scrutiny .
The reason : the death of Eric Garner .
In July 2014 , a bystander caught on cellphone video the deadly clash between New York City police officers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a verbal confrontation , officers tackled Garner , while restraining him with a chokehold , a practice that is banned in New York City .
Garner died not long after he was brought down to the ground .
His death sparked massive protests , and his name is now synonymous with the distrust between police and African-American communities .
For George Kelling , this was not the end that he had hoped for .
As a researcher , he 's one of the few whose ideas have left the academy and spread like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media fell in love with his idea , they took it to places that he never intended and could not control .
`` When , during the 1990s , I would occasionally read in a newspaper something like a new chief comes in and says , ' I 'm going to implement broken windows tomorrow , ' I would listen to that with dismay because [ it 's ] a highly discretionary activity by police that needs extensive training , formal guidelines , constant monitoring and oversight .
So do I worry about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whole lot ... because it can be done very badly . ''
In fact , Kelling says , it might be time to move away from the idea .
`` It 's to the point now where I wonder if we should back away from the metaphor of broken windows .
We did n't know how powerful it was going to be .
It simplified , it was easy to communicate , a lot of people got it as a result of the metaphor .
It was attractive for a long time .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ wear out and become stale . ''
These days , the consensus among social scientists is that broken windows likely did have modest effects on crime .
But few believe it caused the 60 or 70 percent decline in violent crime for which it was once credited .
And yet despite all the evidence , the idea continues to be popular .
Bernard Harcourt says there is a reason for that : '' It 's a simple story that people can latch onto and that is a lot more pleasant to live with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact is that crime dropped in America dramatically from the 1990s , and that there are n't really good , clean nationwide explanations for it . ''
The story of broken windows is a story of our fascination with easy fixes and seductive theories .
Once an idea like that takes hold , it 's nearly impossible to get the genie back in the bottle .
The Hidden Brain Podcast is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Maggie Penman , Jennifer Schmidt and Renee Klahr .
Our supervising producer is Tara Boyle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Twitter @ hiddenbrain , and listen for Hidden Brain stories each week on your local public radio station .

Getty Images/Image Source
HIDDEN BRAIN Broken Windows In 1969, Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist from Stanford University, ran an interesting field study. He abandoned two cars in two very different places: one in a mostly poor, crime-ridden section of New York City, and the other in a fairly affluent neighborhood of Palo Alto, Calif. Both cars were left without license plates and parked with their hoods up.
After just 10 minutes, passersby in New York City began vandalizing the car. First they stripped it for parts. Then the random destruction began. Windows were smashed. The car was destroyed. But in Palo Alto, the other car remained untouched for more than a week.
Finally, Zimbardo did something unusual: He took a sledgehammer and gave the California car a smash. After that, passersby quickly ripped it apart, just as they'd done in New York.
This field study was a simple demonstration of how something that is clearly neglected can quickly become a target for vandals. But it eventually morphed into something far more than that. It became the basis for one of the most influential theories of crime and policing in America: "broken windows."
Thirteen years after the Zimbardo study, criminologists George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson wrote an article for The Atlantic. They were fascinated by what had happened to Zimbardo's abandoned cars and thought the findings could be applied on a larger scale, to entire communities.
"The idea [is] that once disorder begins, it doesn't matter what the neighborhood is, things can begin to get out of control," Kelling tells Hidden Brain.
In the article, Kelling and Wilson suggested that a broken window or other visible signs of disorder or decay — think loitering, graffiti, prostitution or drug use — can send the signal that a neighborhood is uncared for. So, they thought, if police departments addressed those problems, maybe the bigger crimes wouldn't happen.
"It's to the point now where I wonder if we should back away from the metaphor of broken windows. We didn't know how powerful it was going to be. It simplified, it was easy to communicate, a lot of people got it as a result of the metaphor. It was attractive for a long time. But as you know, metaphors can wear out and become stale."
"Once you begin to deal with the small problems in neighborhoods, you begin to empower those neighborhoods," says Kelling. "People claim their public spaces, and the store owners extend their concerns to what happened on the streets. Communities get strengthened once order is restored or maintained, and it is that dynamic that helps to prevent crime."
Kelling and Wilson proposed that police departments change their focus. Instead of channeling most resources into solving major crimes, they should instead try to clean up the streets and maintain order — such as keeping people from smoking pot in public and cracking down on subway fare beaters.
The argument came at an opportune time, says Columbia University law professor Bernard Harcourt.
"This was a period of high crime, and high incarceration, and it seemed there was no way out of that dynamic. It seemed as if there was no way out of just filling prisons to address the crime problem."
An Idea Moves From The Ivory Tower To The Streets
As policymakers were scrambling for answers, a new mayor in New York City came to power offering a solution.
Rudy Giuliani won election in 1993, promising to reduce crime and clean up the streets. Very quickly, he adopted broken windows as his mantra.
It was one of those rare ideas that appealed to both sides of the aisle.
Conservatives liked the policy because it meant restoring order. Liberals liked it, Harcourt says, because it seemed like an enlightened way to prevent crime: "It seemed like a magical solution. It allowed everybody to find a way in their own mind to get rid of the panhandler, the guy sleeping on the street, the prostitute, the drugs, the litter, and it allowed liberals to do that while still feeling self-righteous and good about themselves."
Giuliani and his new police commissioner, William Bratton, focused first on cleaning up the subway system, where 250,000 people a day weren't paying their fare. They sent hundreds of police officers into the subways to crack down on turnstile jumpers and vandals.
Very quickly, they found confirmation for their theory. Going after petty crime led the police to violent criminals, says Kelling: "Not all fare beaters were criminals, but a lot of criminals were fare beaters. It turns out serious criminals are pretty busy. They commit minor offenses as well as major offenses."
The policy was quickly scaled up from the subway to the entire city of New York.
Police ramped up misdemeanor arrests for things like smoking marijuana in public, spraying graffiti and selling loose cigarettes. And almost instantly, they were able to trumpet their success. Crime was falling. The murder rate plummeted. It seemed like a miracle.
The media loved the story, and Giuliani cruised to re-election in 1997.
George Kelling and a colleague did follow-up research on broken windows policingand found what they believed was clear evidence of its success. In neighborhoods where there was a sharp increase in misdemeanor arrests — suggesting broken windows policing was in force — there was also a sharp decline in crime.
By 2001, broken windows had become one of Giuliani's greatest accomplishments. In his farewell address, he emphasized the beautiful and simple idea behind the success.
"The broken windows theory replaced the idea that we were too busy to pay attention to street-level prostitution, too busy to pay attention to panhandling, too busy to pay attention to graffiti," he said. "Well, you can't be too busy to pay attention to those things, because those are the things that underlie the problems of crime that you have in your society."
Questions Begin To Emerge About Broken Windows
Right from the start, there were signs something was wrong with the beautiful narrative.
"Crime was starting to go down in New York prior to the Giuliani election and prior to the implementation of broken windows policing," says Harcourt, the Columbia law professor. "And of course what we witnessed from that period, basically from about 1991, was that the crime in the country starts going down, and it's a remarkable drop in violent crime in this country. Now, what's so remarkable about it is how widespread it was."
Harcourt points out that crime dropped not only in New York, but in many other cities where nothing like broken windows policing was in place. In fact, crime even fell in parts of the country where police departments were mired in corruption scandals and largely viewed as dysfunctional, such as Los Angeles.
"Los Angeles is really interesting because Los Angeles was wracked with terrible policing problems during the whole time, and crime drops as much in Los Angeles as it does in New York," says Harcourt.
There were lots of theories to explain the nationwide decline in crime. Some said it was the growing economy or the end of the crack cocaine epidemic. Some criminologists credited harsher sentencing guidelines.
In 2006, Harcourt found the evidence supporting the broken windows theory might be flawed. He reviewed the study Kelling had conducted in 2001, and found the areas that saw the largest number of misdemeanor arrests also had the biggest drops in violent crime.
Harcourt says the earlier study failed to consider what's called a "reversion to the mean."
"It's something that a lot of investment bankers and investors know about because it's well-known and in the stock market," says Harcourt. "Basically, the idea is if something goes up a lot, it tends to go down a lot."
A graph in Kelling's 2001 paper is revealing. It shows the crime rate falling dramatically in the early 1990s. But this small view gives us a selective picture. Right before this decline came a spike in crime. And if you go further back, you see a series of spikes and declines. And each time, the bigger a spike, the bigger the decline that follows, as crime reverts to the mean.
Kelling acknowledges that broken windows may not have had a dramatic effect on crime. But he thinks it still has value.
"Even if broken windows did not have a substantial impact on crime, order is an end in itself in a cosmopolitan, diverse world," he says. "Strangers have to feel comfortable moving through communities for those communities to thrive. Order is an end in itself, and it doesn't need the justification of serious crime."
Order might be an end in itself, but it's worth noting that this was not the premise on which the broken windows theory was sold. It was advertised as an innovative way to control violent crime, not just a way to get panhandlers and prostitutes off the streets.
'Broken Windows' Morphs Into 'Stop And Frisk'
Harcourt says there was another big problem with broken windows.
"We immediately saw a sharp increase in complaints of police misconduct. Starting in 1993, what you're going to see is a tremendous amount of disorder that erupts as a result of broken windows policing, with complaints skyrocketing, with settlements of police misconduct cases skyrocketing, and of course with incidents, brutal incidents, all of a sudden happening at a faster and faster clip."
The problem intensified with a new practice that grew out of broken windows. It was called "stop and frisk," and was embraced in New York City after Mayor Michael Bloomberg won election in 2001.
If broken windows meant arresting people for misdemeanors in hopes of preventing more serious crimes, "stop and frisk" said, why even wait for the misdemeanor? Why not go ahead and stop, question and search anyone who looked suspicious?
There were high-profile cases where misdemeanor arrests or stopping and questioning did lead to information that helped solve much more serious crimes, even homicides. But there were many more cases where police stops turned up nothing. In 2008, police made nearly 250,000 stops in New York for what they called furtive movements. Only one-fifteenth of 1 percent of those turned up a gun.
Even more problematic, in order to be able to go after disorder, you have to be able to define it. Is it a trash bag covering a broken window? Teenagers on a street corner playing music too loudly?
In Chicago, the researchers Robert Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush analyzed what makes people perceive social disorder. They found that if two neighborhoods had exactly the same amount of graffiti and litter and loitering, people saw more disorder, more broken windows, in neighborhoods with more African-Americans.
George Kelling is not an advocate of stop and frisk. In fact, all the way back in 1982, he foresaw the possibility that giving police wide discretion could lead to abuse. In his article, he and James Q. Wilson write: "How do we ensure ... that the police do not become the agents of neighborhood bigotry? We can offer no wholly satisfactory answer to this important question."
In August of 2013, a federal district court found that New York City's stop and frisk policy was unconstitutional because of the way it singled out young black and Hispanic men. Later that year, New York elected its first liberal mayor in 20 years. Bill DeBlasio celebrated the end of stop and frisk. But he did not do away with broken windows. In fact, he re-appointed Rudy Giuliani's police commissioner, Bill Bratton.
And just seven months after taking over again as the head of the New York Police Department, Bratton's broken windows policy came under fresh scrutiny. The reason: the death of Eric Garner.
In July 2014, a bystander caught on cellphone video the deadly clash between New York City police officers and Garner, an African-American. After a verbal confrontation, officers tackled Garner, while restraining him with a chokehold, a practice that is banned in New York City.
Garner died not long after he was brought down to the ground. His death sparked massive protests, and his name is now synonymous with the distrust between police and African-American communities.
For George Kelling, this was not the end that he had hoped for. As a researcher, he's one of the few whose ideas have left the academy and spread like wildfire.
But once politicians and the media fell in love with his idea, they took it to places that he never intended and could not control.
"When, during the 1990s, I would occasionally read in a newspaper something like a new chief comes in and says, 'I'm going to implement broken windows tomorrow,' I would listen to that with dismay because [it's] a highly discretionary activity by police that needs extensive training, formal guidelines, constant monitoring and oversight. So do I worry about the implementation about broken windows? A whole lot ... because it can be done very badly."
In fact, Kelling says, it might be time to move away from the idea.
"It's to the point now where I wonder if we should back away from the metaphor of broken windows. We didn't know how powerful it was going to be. It simplified, it was easy to communicate, a lot of people got it as a result of the metaphor. It was attractive for a long time. But as you know, metaphors can wear out and become stale."
These days, the consensus among social scientists is that broken windows likely did have modest effects on crime. But few believe it caused the 60 or 70 percent decline in violent crime for which it was once credited.
And yet despite all the evidence, the idea continues to be popular.
Bernard Harcourt says there is a reason for that:
"It's a simple story that people can latch onto and that is a lot more pleasant to live with than the complexities of life. The fact is that crime dropped in America dramatically from the 1990s, and that there aren't really good, clean nationwide explanations for it."
The story of broken windows is a story of our fascination with easy fixes and seductive theories. Once an idea like that takes hold, it's nearly impossible to get the genie back in the bottle.
The Hidden Brain Podcast is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Maggie Penman, Jennifer Schmidt and Renee Klahr. Our supervising producer is Tara Boyle. You can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain, and listen for Hidden Brain stories each week on your local public radio station.