Trained as killers in American colonies abroad

July 9

GUEST: Stuart Schrader, research scientist in sociology at Johns Hopkins University, Associate Director of the Program in Racism, Immigration and Citizenship, and author of Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing, talks about the racist connections between foreign and domestic policy when it comes to law enforcement.

Badges Without Borders

I know many reformers are hesitant to go beyond immediate problems. They have good, liberal instincts, but worry about diluting their causes by looking at other societies or countries. Finding the common threads between the racist police in Baltimore and the racist IDF soldiers in the West Bank is simply off the table.

Of course, both probably received the same training. The Baltimore police even traveled to Israel to study tactics, in a country where racist brutality is reserved for the underclass of Palestinians. Are there further connections between racist cops and US foreign policy? Our country has invaded and occupied any number of countries since the World War II. Did we learn a racist viciousness killing Koreans in the 1950s, or Vietnamese in the 1960s? We certainly killed enough to learn all the tricks of subjugation and repression. The young men and women who were lucky enough to come home often enrolled in police departments, to turn their service experiences into careers. The same is true for our endless wars in the Middle East. Shooting "ragtops" in Iraq and Afghanistan is as good training as they could get in punishing people of color in the US.

So is reform the answer? Or is the question broader than that? What does American militarism in the rest of the world do to our own country's standards of social justice? Trained as killers in American colonies abroad, and sent to Israel for additional skills, what other type of policing are these new recruits capable of providing to US citizens who happen to be Black.

Our leaders and our mainstream media will never connect these dots for us. We have to work it out for ourselves, with the help of writers like Stuart Schrader.  

Those who know

July 2

GUESTS: Emily Yamasaki and Nga Bul, members of Radical Women, the National Comrades of Color Caucus, and the Freedom Socialist Party, talk about the psychology of oppression and the NYC Campaign for an Elected Civilian Review Board.

Radical Women - U.S. on Facebook

We had a nuts and bolts review of what reforms can be made in our criminal justice system. At times, we explored the "bourgeois" women's organizations that are mostly white and mostly focused on electing more Democrats to office. Newer movements have a different color as well as a different socioeconomic makeup. These groups fault both parties as favoring the rich, white capitalists over the majority of the American people.

Both Emily and Nga stressed that The Freedom Socialist Party looked at capitalism as the underlying issue, and not a symptom of a country with the wrong party in control. That's fine to believe if you are white and middle class. The police won't shoot you in the streets. You will get a good education and a good job without worrying about having a criminal record. Neoliberal fixes don't really fix anything. The racism will persist below the surface, and whites will remain unaware of the injustices of their own society. 

A system that puts greed ahead of what is best for the majority of people is bound to turn out this way. We have a moment, according to Emily and Nga, when almost everyone in our society can figure out the theft of the very few and the suffering of the very many. 

Elected civilian review boards for the police are necessary to correct some egregious wrongs. But a system built on exploitation will always be racist and unjust. And the people hired to do policing will always serve the richest property owners, before turning attention to the rest of us. 

I really enjoyed doing this interview. Both Emily and Nga are radical women of color, and their analysis of our system goes far beyond anything that the New York Times is capable of providing. It is time for the rest of us to stop reading the corporate press and listen to those who know. 

To the editor:

Police violence is probably the most obvious state-sanctioned,  “in your face” violence -particularly if your face is black or brown.     Defunding the police is a good  beginning - but just scratches the surface.    Martin Luther King reminded us that  the largest purveyor  of violence in the world is the US military.   Military violence causes unspeakable suffering  for all living creatures - human and otherwise.  Irag, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Congo, Kashmir, and Palestine.  It’s the violence of guns,  bombs, napalm, land mines,  tanks,  jet fighters,  Cruise missiles, submarines, battle ships,  Apache helicopters,   and  ultimately nuclear bombs which cause  horrifying  death, suffering, sickness, and starvation  for millions around the globe.  It  also causes devastating   environmental  contamination from substances like depleted uranium and  agent orange in Vietnam. 

So yes , let’s  start with defunding racist police violence.  But we must  move on to address the real threats to  life on this planet.  Let’s  defund our military  (ideally, ALL militaries).   And while we’re at it, let’s  defund all the violent enterprises -  like   mining,  logging, and oil drilling.  Defund all activities that hurt mother earth,  we humans,  and all the helpless and voiceless creatures on this planet. 

Our  tax dollars for military  spending are bankrupting us financially and  morally.   It’s why  we can’t afford  universal free health care,  good housing, decent public transportation,  and free education.  Maybe if  Americans had  programs  like these we wouldn’t need to live in a police state. Defunding our military and instituting programs to help and support people  -   that would truly make America great. 

Eli Kassirer

Listener feedback on "Planet of the Humans"

I have loved all of Michael Moore's films so was eager to watch this one, as the point it claims to be making about unsustainability is right on. What i saw was filled with falsehoods about renewable energy straight from the fossil industry playbook. "Smirking" Ozzie Zehner who played a major role in the film, is the guy walking through a solar mirror plant claiming that more fossil fuels are burned to get the plant going than it produces! He also wrote a book called "Green Illusion". It would be interesting to see what ties he has to the fossil industry. There is a reason Breitbart has a new found love for Michael Moore! I wrote the following review. There are others on line far more articulate than mine, that you should take a look at. 

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"Planet of the Humans"  devotes way too much time to echoing outdated and downright false fossil industry tropes about renewable energy, and way too little to the larger point it claims to be making, that Western "civilization" is not sustainable, and techno fixes alone will not save it. System change is necessary. But by spending most of its energy attacking renewable energy and the environmental movement, it exacerbates the problem.

Flat out lies (such as the claim that solar and wind require as much or more fossil energy than they produce); and half truths early on in the film destroy it's credibility.. Outdated statistics and fossil industry talking points paint a negative view of solar and wind power. Electric vehicles are over 90% efficient vs. a max of about 25% for fossil vehicles; if powered by solar they are a no brainer. This is why no less than Pete Seeger drove an electric pickup truck. The array in Lansing Michigan is said to be 8% efficient. Most solar panels today are between 15 and 20 % efficient. It was said to power 10 homes. It has at least 50 times as many as the 10 panels that fully power my house. Germany is shown on one chart to get 1.5% of it's power from solar, and another shows a much higher proportion. Currently, Germany has to give away excess solar generation on the sunniest days. 

Vivid jarring images of mining and grinding up ancient Joshua trees etc. suggest that solar and wind power are more destructive than fossil fuels. Siting issues early on have largely been resolved. All mines need to clean up their act; singling out renewable energy is disingenuous at best. For every kilo of neodymium used for the magnet in a wind generator, untold barrels of oil remain in the ground, and the neodymium is reusable. Lithium mining for batteries is an issue which may be behind the recent fascist coup in Bolivia. But that lithium is highly recyclable. Solar and wind represent a minute fraction of the destruction of fossil fuels. The mirror based solar plants the film focuses on (no pun intended) have largely been supplanted by photovoltaic panels. PV works best on individual rooftops; no joshua trees need be cut. Images in the film suggest that solar panels use huge amounts of coal; in reality they are mainly made of highly refined silicon, i.e.sand or quartz. A PV panel typically recoups the energy used to manufacture it in about 6 -  12 months of use. And despite another false assertion in the film, that panels last 10 years, most panels are guaranteed to maintain at least 80% of output for 20 years. I recently gave away some panels made in the '70's that were still working just fine. Batteries last at least 10 years, not the "few years" in the film, and are constantly improving. Grid tied solar obviates the need for batteries, and supplants the fossil fuel and nuclear generation that currently power the grid. Years ago, fossil companies bought up solar companies for the purpose of greenwashing and keeping them off the market. Thanks to U.S. suppression of solar energy, China ran with it, and today produces most of the panels. In 2016 alone, China installed the equivalent of 34 nuclear power plants in solar PV. Does Koch industry make some panels? I never heard of them, but would boycott that brand if i did.

At an Earth day festival claiming to run on 100% renewable, the film shows a back up diesel generator for the solar panels. Unmentioned, but visible, tho blurry is a BIODIESEL label on the generator. Biodiesel is made from waste vegetable oil.

If, as the film asserts, major deforestation is occurring to fuel biomass generation, that is an issue, for sure. Any type of burning for electricity generation is at best about 30% efficient. Bill McKibbin supported a small Vermont college converting a fossil heating plant to woodchips. He and most other environmental activists repudiated large scale wood burning plants years ago. And no environmentalists support burning plastic waste or treated wood for electric power or any other purpose! The film trashes environmental leaders with lies. All our favorite environmental organizations like 350.org, Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club etc. are secretly in cahoots with billionaires intent on destroying the planet. Real billionaires and the likes of Breitbart are laughing all the way to the bank over this film. I wonder what Michael Moore's cut was.

The underlying point the film claims to be making is important. Our whole civilization is on a collision course with disaster. Renewable energy is one of the bright spots in the otherwise bleak picture of man's impact on the Earth, but alone is not sufficient. Burning rainforests for beef production, factory farms, destroying habitat for palm oil and ten thousand other assaults on Mother Earth need to be stopped. But to the extent folks not familiar with the contribution much cleaner energy can make are discouraged from moving away from fossil fuels, "Planet of the Humans" makes the situation even more dire. Thanks for less than nothing, Michael. I will view anything else you produce with a very jaundiced eye if at all.

Ed Haffmans