Demonstrators continue to protest the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police officer on June 03, 2020 in New York City. The white police officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with second-degree murder and further charges are pending for the three other officers who participated in the arrest. Floyd’s death, the most recent in a series of deaths of black Americans at the hands of the police, has set off days and nights of protests across the country. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Amid a wave of
sustained protest in cities across the U.S. and the globe against police
brutality and racial injustice, author and activist Naomi Klein on Thursday
reminded those experiencing President Donald Trump’s America that it is
precisely during times when the government is pushing hardest to discourage
dissent that massive displays of public opposition are needed most.
While Trump this week
has dispatched with calls for calm and unity in favor of “law and order” machismo and threats of
deploying U.S. soldiers, more police, and federal agents to put down
demonstrations spurred by last week’s killing of George Floyd by police in
Minneapolis, Klein in a Twitter post reprised a warning she first issued at the
outset of the president’s term: “When they say we don’t have the right to
protest, that is the moment to flood the streets.”
“One moment when
it is incredibly important to resist, is in that moment when they are trying to
scare you,” Klein said during the 2017 event in Chicago. “In that
moment, when they are telling you to stay home, that is when you go out. When
they are saying stay home—go out.”
Individuals and
communities nationwide have demonstrated their inherent understanding of
Klein’s guidance. Even after Trump had Lafayette Square outside the White House
violently cleared of nonviolent protesters on Monday and threatened to send
U.S. soldiers to patrol other U.S. city streets this week, the daily and
nightly demonstrations, as Common Dreams previously reported, have only grown in strength and size
as the week progressed.
Klein told the
audience in 2017 that “we won’t know when it will happen,” but that
when it does people should “flood the streets” en masse. “That
matters more than anything,” she said to applause. “When they try to
take away the right to protest, flood the streets, ok? Get ready.”
The event was related
to Klein’s new book that year, titled “No Is Not Enough,” which offered an initial framework for understanding
Trump’s rise to power as well as a blueprint for how best to resist his obvious
racist and fascist tendencies.
Published on Thursday, June 04, 2020 by Common Dreams. Their work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Closeup of page from a draft of Eisenhower’s farewell address, January 17, 1961. In the public domain.
Politics is about the “distribution” of power;
Power is the capacity to effect “change” through control and domination of power sources and distribution;
“Asymmetric” distributions of power risk abuses of individual, group, and nation rights, privilege, and choice;
“Governance” constitutes a structure, organization, and process for monitoring, distributing, and sustaining power;
Vertical “governance” structures and processes are subject to abuse via hierarchical concentrations of power;
Societal population sectors with disproportionate wealth, privilege, and position can establish power “hegemony” (i.e., excessive self-serving influences);
“Hegemonic” power sanctions use of “force” both to maintain control, dominance, and influence, and to preserve the status quo favoring power bases;
“Force” options used by those in power include violence, war, “total” war, assassination, false flags, propaganda, deceit, character defamation, and assassination;
“Absolute” power may be invested in a dictator, secret government, established government-military-corporate-media-educational complex, and/or cabals of undemocratic sources;
“Absolute” power corrupts “absolutely;”
All forms of power corruption result in asymmetric distribution of rights, privileges, and opportunities;
Power corruption is evident in cronyism, bribery, favoritism, secrecy, advantage, force, nepotism, tribalism, and excessive wealth accumulation;
“Absolute” power does not yield readily to public criticism, disapproval, or condemnation;
Legal, ethical, constitutional, and moral codes of power distribution are often “biased” in favor of those in power, resulting in “injustice;”
Power “injustice” abuses result in reactive and compensatory uses of “force” by victims of “injustice,” including protests, rebellion, violence, and “allegations” and “accusations” of “terrorism.”
“Non-violence” protests are the best choice among victims seeking redress from power abuses. If this non-violence fails to effect change, other forms of violent redress may be pursued by those dissatisfied by continued victimhood.
“Injustice,” associated with power asymmetries, can be changed and neutralized by transparency, accountability, and equality among power sources;
Inherited power sources are among the most egregious power abuses. These familial sources of power often continue generations of offense, and should be subject to public legal, ethical, and moral scrutiny and appraisal;
Understanding and acceptance of assumptions about politics, power, and perils of power are essential requirements for citizenship;
Liberation education, theology, psychology, and philosophy assertions and proposals, expressed eloquently in the work of pioneers, including Paulo Friere, Ignacio Martin-Baro, and Martin Luther King, Jr., contesting the sanctioning of power by corrupt national and international sources.
If trust in governance is lost or abandoned because of power abuses, governance purpose, meaning, and “integrity” are subject to remediation;
Integrity must be a guiding arbiter of individuals, groups, or nations involved in the distribution of power;
Those elected to positions of power, based upon expressed political platforms and personal values, must be held to their expressions or should be compelled to resign on the basis of deceit, betrayal, and immoral election abuses;
Terrorism, by and among terrorist individuals, groups, and/or nations, must be contextualized within a framework of mal-distribution and abuses of power.
I offer these 24 assumptions regarding politics, power, and peril to promote both public-forum and education-setting discussion and debate. World populations have now consciousness of the consequences of power asymmetries, especially preservation of entrenched financial interests through endless wars and military occupations by cabalistic Western powers. Cui Bono?
Throughout our world, civil, national, and international strife and struggle abound. Lies, deceit, and propaganda flood our minds, seeking acquiescence, submission, and control. At stake are anachronistic actions and ideologies of colonization, imperialism, and empire.
Tragically, these century-old disgraceful remnants remain and thrive amid government-corporate-military-media-education complexes. This anachronistic complex must be considered a “fascistic” concentration of power, seeking to homogenize populations for control, domination, and exploitation.
Institutions (i.e., religion, education, government, commerce, and media) created to support and preserve equality, justice, and opportunity, are now sources of human and natural peril. We stand and fall at the cusp of the world’s destruction, seemingly oblivious to tragic unfolding events, and helpless in our efforts to address them.
There are a score of hot wars occurring (e.g., Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Congo, Sudan, Nigeria, Israel-Palestine), dozens of failed states (e.g., USA, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, Pakistan), numerous examples of starvation, famine, and poverty (e.g., Somalia, Congo, Sudan, USA, Ethiopia, Libya).
Concerns for these situations have been spoken and written before, in both flawed and aspired documents seeking to improve the human condition. Perhaps we all need reminding of the Declaration of Independence, USA Constitution, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Gettysburg Address, Magna Carta, Sermon on the Mount, and all eloquent and inspiring words offered by gifted and courageous seekers of peace and justice.
What happened? Idealism lost! Connections denied! Solidarity mocked! History forgotten!
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
May 11, 2017
____________________________________________
Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Emeritus Professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu. He is known internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 21 books and more than 300 articles, tech reports, and popular commentaries. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 15 May 2017. Reprinted with author’s permission.
Baltimore Women’s March Gathering Rally, January 2018.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Author: Elvert Barnes from Baltimore, Maryland, USA
If we learn of yet another murder of a person of color by police and do nothing about it, we are partly responsible for the next murder.
If we refuse to recognize the costs to everyone of the centuries of oppression, denied opportunity, income inequality, enforced poverty, and deliberately-induced hatred experienced by some of us, we are endangering the future of all our nation’s children.
If we blame peaceful protesters for the violence perpetrated by right-wing infiltrators in their midst, we are supporting the infiltrators and encouraging their violence.
If we support “law and order” over peace and social justice, we are promoting fascism at the expense of democracy.
If we “talk a good ballgame” regarding the evils of racism, but do nothing to end it, we are facilitating the next injustice.
If we take the knee once to show support for resistance to racism but do nothing more, we need to look harder for ways to make a real difference.
If we label protesters “terrorists” and let the government treat them accordingly, we are not only undermining First Amendment rights for everyone, but also empowering govenment terrorism against anyone (of any color) seen as a threat to the wielders of power.
So what can we do?
We can, for example, arm ourselves with facts-e.g., click here
We can also learn and share what white people can do to deal with the racism plaguing this continent since the first gun-toting white Europeans arrived here:
[Here’s just one example from that list: “Google whether your local police department currently outfits all on-duty police officers with a body-worn camera and requires that the body-worn camera be turned on immediately when officers respond to a police call. If they don’t, write to your city or town government representative and police chief to advocate for it.” ] Check out the others.
