Bob Morris @ Jul 23rd 2006 00:06 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
Prosecutors on Friday charged the deputy city clerk of Maywood [CA] with soliciting the murder of an outspoken councilman who has spearheaded the city’s efforts to improve treatment of illegal immigrants.
Bob Morris @ Jul 12th 2006 00:11 - Category: Immigrant rights, Podcasts Tags: LAPD brutality;
Opening statements by Jim Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild.
The NLG and ANSWER LA will file multiple lawsuits and complaints against LAPD for their outrageous conduct during the anti-Minutemen protest on Saturday, including their unprovoked beating of demonstrators - even after they’d been clubbed and were lying on the sidewalk - and for not allowing ANSWER to have a constitutionally-protected protest on the sidewalk.
Some history. The NLG sued LAPD for their conduct during the 2000 Democratic National Convention police riot and were instrumental in forcing a consent decree upon LAPD as well as financial damages.
Muna Coobtee of ANSWER LA details the sequence of events at the protest.
Statements from three who were beaten without cause; they are Christen Westberry, Jose Villa, and Natividad Carerra. Westbury and Villa were viciously clubbed while lying on the sidewalk, as documented in the video.
Then came statements of support and outrage from:
Angelina Corona, Executive Director Hermandad Mexicana Nacional
Juan Jose Gutiérrez, Latino Movement USA
Richard Becker, West Coast Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition
Ending with discussion and questions.
mp3 (34:49,11.6 mb)
[tags]LAPD, police brutality[/tags]
Bob Morris @ Jul 10th 2006 09:35 - Category: Immigrant rights Tags: LAPD brutality;
LAPD clubs peaceful immigrant rights protestors in Hollywood
Plus: call for video, photos & witnesses
This Tuesday, July 11, 10 am
National Lawyers Guild Office at the Peace Center
8124 W Third St, Los Angeles (Corner of Crescent Heights and Third)
ANSWER LA and the National Lawyers Guild are planning to file a lawsuit against LAPD for their despicable actions, beating passers-by, continuing to club people who were lying on the sidewalk (after being beaten for no reason.) I’ve watched multiple videos of what happened. This was unprovoked brutality from the thugs of LAPD. But then, this is the same violent police force that beat Rodney King.
From the ANSWER LA homepage
Shocking video footage will also be shown of anti-Minutemen protestors being brutally beaten by LAPD officers without provocation. The video shows a deliberate, violent attack on peaceful protestors exercising their First Amendment rights. Please come to the press conference to show solidarity with the immigrant rights movement and people who were brutalized by the police attack. Take a stand for civil rights and free speech.
ANSWER is also putting out a call to all progressive people who attended Saturday’s anti-Minutemen protest for video footage, photos and eyewitness reports of police brutality.
From the ANSWER LA eyewitness account
After nearly two hours of peaceful protest, dozens of LAPD police in full riot gear instigated a wave of unprovoked violence on the progressive crowd. They pushed protestors, jabbed them with batons and wrestled several people to the ground while beating them brutally without any cause or concern. Several ANSWER activists were brutalized and one was arrested because his friend was attempting to take photographs of riot police slamming a bystander against the back of a truck and hitting him with a baton. Top police brass later tried to justify their violence by saying protestors provoked the beatings by “crossing police lines” - an outright lie.
A Spanish-language media reporter from KPFK radio was shoved to the pavement, smacked hard and arrested for attempting to document the repression. The cops were attacking so wildly that even an elderly woman getting of a Metro bus was clubbed for being too close to the protest.
As I mentioned yesterday, LAPD does nothing to stop counter-protestors from entering ANSWER LA anti-war marches, and LAPD sure lets them walk on the sidewalks and follow the march. Yet they blocked the sidewalks so we couldn’t follow the Minutemen march. (We went down another street instead!) Clearly, LAPD has a double set of standards. But then they’re notorious for being ultra-right wing, racist, and violent.
The police arrested around six people without cause while the fascist Minutemen chanted “L-A-P-D,” cheering them on. It was a naked display of police and fascist collaboration. The outraged anti-immigrant crowd stood their ground and defended their demonstration while chanting “Cops and the Klan go hand in hand!”
The National Lawyers Guild has successfully sued LAPD a number of times. This time will be no different.
[tags]police brutality, LAPD, Minutemen[/tags]
Bob Morris @ Jul 9th 2006 00:29 - Category: Immigrant rights Tags: LAPD brutality;
The role of the police is often to protect and defend the extreme right. Yesterday in Hollywood demonstrated that clearly.
The Minutemen, the racist anti-immigrant group, marched in Hollywood on Saturday. ANSWER LA called a counter-demo across the street from them on the sidewalk. As usual, there were more of us than them.
LAPD went out of their way to be deliberately nasty to us, the counter-demonstrators. If a counter-demonstrator stepped into the street, accidentally or not, they got their head cracked. Yet LAPD repeatedly let Minutemen get in the middle of the street and scream at or video us. No head cracks for them. Just a gentle escort back.
As the Minutemen started their march, we followed them on the sidewalk. LAPD then blocked the sidewalk, preventing us from continuing! Yet during every ANSWER LA march in Hollywood, LAPD has done nothing to prevent counter-demonstrators from trying to invade our march - which meant we had to keep them out (and did.) But they sure did an exemplary job of keeping counter-demonstrators away from their buddies in the extreme right.
Isn’t walking on the sidewalks legal? I guess not in Hollywood if you’re protesting the racist right. So, after being blocked by LAPD, we marched down another street, headed them off at the pass, and were there when the Minutemen passed by. LAPD then declared us an illegal assembly. We marched back, did a mini-rally and waited for the Minutemen to return. After they did, LAPD began making threatening moves against us (never, ever against their pals, the Minutemen, of course) so we told LAPD we would march out en masse and did so. When police act like thugs, leave in a group, this protects everyone.
Several heads were cracked by LAPD, for apparently minor actions, if indeed they had any justification at all. At least one person went to the hospital. There were a couple of arrests.
The contrast is obvious. LAPD in Hollywood does nothing to stop counter-demonstrators when there’s an anti-war march. But let the lunatic fringe right march in Hollyood and LAPD will crack skulls to stop the counter-protestors.
[tags]Minutemen, anti-Minutemen, police brutality[/tags]
Bob Morris @ Jul 7th 2006 00:15 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
This Saturday, July 8, 4 pm
Gather at corner of Hollywood & Argyle, LA
(Metro Red Line stop Hollywood & Vine)
Or meet at the A.N.S.W.E.R. Office at 3 pm, 1 block away from the protest.
From ANSWER LA
On Saturday, July 8, all progressives are encouraged to join pro-immigrant organizations, including the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, at a counter demonstration against the racist, anti-immigrant Minuteman Project and other neo-fascist groups. Minutemen members and supporters will be marching through Hollywood that day in a so-called “United States of America March.” They claim to be celebrating the people of the United States, including “legal immigrants,” but their underlying racism against all immigrants is unmistakable. Help us expose them as the racists they really are.
Now is the time for everyone to stand up for full equality, legalization and amnesty for undocumented workers. No to racism and the Minutemen! No to a guest worker program! The struggle for justice has no borders!
Every time the Minutemen crawl out from under their rock in Los Angeles, we’ve been there with numbers far greater than theirs. Lets do it again on Saturday.
Bob Morris @ Jun 25th 2006 00:21 - Category: Immigrant rights, Podcasts ;
Juan Jose Gutierrez of Latino Movement USA details the birth and growth of the immigrant rights movement starting in 1968, continuing through the amnesty (signed by Reagan!) in 1986, to the huge, historic marches of March 25 and May 1 of this year.
Gutierrez was a major organizer of the massive anti-Prop 187 march in California in 1994, and played a leading role in organizing for March 25 and May 1. He discusses the history, the various groups involved, and where the movement is going, with a perspective and knowledge that comes from 38 years of organizing.
Recorded at an ANSWER LA Forum, 6/23/06
MP3 (54:28 min, 18.2 MB)
[tags]Juan Jose Gutierrez[/tags]
Bob Morris @ Jun 21st 2006 06:06 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
In a defeat for President Bush, Republican congressional leaders said Tuesday that broad immigration legislation is all but doomed for the year, a victim of election-year concerns in the House and conservatives’ implacable opposition to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.
Horse puckey. Bush didn’t want the bill to pass this year. Given his abysmal poll numbers, he and the Republicans are desperate to get out the vote, and that most especially includes the racist right. So they’ll be scapegoating immigrants, launching ever-more immigration raids, demonizing as they go. Stomach-turning, aren’t they?
Bob Morris @ Jun 8th 2006 08:58 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
Via Perspective in Scotland, who comments on these dimbulb right wingers, “Might want to run a spellcheck on your placards, dumbass.” They want everyone to speak English yet have problems with basic spelling themselves?
Bob Morris @ Jun 5th 2006 00:20 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
The civil rights movement did not tone itself down to accommodate the racists. On the contraryâ€â€it grew in scope and militancy. The continued struggles of the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee, the Deacons for Defense, and the emerging Black liberation movement cleared the way for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act that ended legal apartheid in the U.S. South and opened the door for affirmative action and other social gains.
It is a lesson for today’s immigrant rights movement.
When a movement emerges seemingly out of nowhere, with millions in the streets, there will of course be a counter-reaction. But that counter-reaction has been tiny in numbers and influence as compared to the mass immigrant rights protests of the past few months. We have the numbers. Let’s keep organizing and mobilizing. The civil rights movement did not win because it accepted half-measures or token gestures nor did it back down from the KKK and white racism. Instead, it kept pushing until it was victorious.
Bob Morris @ May 29th 2006 00:40 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
Senate Republicans were divided Thursday voting on the immigration bill — 23 voted for and 32 voted against it.
Until now, the GOP has been united between the corporate wing and the social conservatives, said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist. Now, Republicans are divided between the group that wants the cheap labor and those overwhelmed by the rising tide of immigrants, he said.
Lefties: Let’s turn this new Republican divide into the Grand Canyon.
Here’s another stress fracture to exploit -
Constitutional clash could lead to resignations
As Congress and the Bush administration argued publicly last week over the extraordinary raid of a congressman’s office, a high-stakes dispute simmered behind the scenes — top Justice Department officials indicated they’d resign if ordered to turn over documents seized in the search.
The wheels are falling off the once well-organized and disciplined Republican machine. Let’s help the process along. Not that Democrats are much better, hey, they’ve enthusiastically backed the wars and destruction of constitutional rights too. However the more body blows the crumbling neocon machine receives, the better. Their inevitable and soon-to-come collapse will be a victory for the people.
Bob Morris @ May 26th 2006 00:40 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
The Senate immigration bill which passed yesterday needs to be reconciled with the noxious Sensenbrenner bill which has already passed in the House. The troglodytes there will do their utmost to destroy the Senate version. This fight will be nasty, but really, it’s a choice between a onerous, restrictive Senate bill and a racist, mean-spirited House version.
The Senate version mandates a three-tiered system, sending back some immigrants immediately, and some after they’ve performed their 3-6 years of indentured servitude, excuse me, I meant to say “employment.”
The House bill makes it a felony to help any undocumented worker, that’s right, it would be a felony. That means a nun who runs a soup kitchen where undocumented are fed could go to prison. There’s lots more zenophobia and racism in the bill too.
Both bills mandate building a security fence for hundreds of miles at the U.S./Mexico border, no doubt as a symbol of freedom for the world to see.
Both bills are bad. No bill at all is better than either of them.
Bob Morris @ May 25th 2006 09:16 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
FireDogLake crossposts from David Neiwart of Orcinus who documents in great detail the links between the Minutemen and the white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.
Neither is it a big surprise that the leading anti-immigrant enterprise, the Minutemen, is constantly being infiltrated by neo-Nazis, or that so many of their spinoff groups are riddled throughout with extremists and racists, some going so far as to ally themselves with neo-Nazis.
Also from Orcinus, check the Nazi flag at a Minutemen demo in Laguna Beach.
What’s going on, of course, is that the Minutemen provide an ideal opportunity for white racists to “mainstream” their agenda, using the relatively benign “average citizens” that Lou Dobbs exclusively observes in their ranks as just so much cover.
I disagree with this a bit. The racist Right IS the core of the Minutemen and of neo-Nazis. They aren’t sneaking into it, they are its base and its core organizers.
Read all these articles, Orcinus has a huge amount of detail and links. Ditto for FireDogLake. This is blogging at its best.
Bob Morris @ May 23rd 2006 00:37 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
I doubt Congress will come to any agreement on immigrant rights before the November elections. The soon-to-be-passed Senate bill will have to be resolved with the nasty Sensenbrenner bill from the House, and this will be contentious in the extreme.
(Hey, what is it with Wisconsin, home of both Joe McCarthy and now Sensenbrenner? Their next door neighbor Minnesota has a long socialist history too while Wisconsin appears to hatch right wing extremists. Update: There’s always been seriously progressive politicians there too, as has been pointed out in the comments. My apologies, Wisconsin!)
My take, Republicans don’t want an immigration bill to pass until after the election. That way they can mobilize the hardcore Right to vote. The Democrats will bravely do nothing and duck the issue as much as possible while mouthing platitudes, but you knew that already!
That’s why hoping the Democrats will somehow do the right thing is, well, delusionary. They’ll do the right thing when forced to by the people. Not before.
Bob Morris @ May 22nd 2006 07:16 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
Here’s an image from the latest Head Zup cellphone video, they specialize in video you can watch on your cell, 3-5 seconds long. You can also watch them on your PC.
Bob Morris @ May 22nd 2006 00:06 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
Bush is losing Hispanics’ support, polls show
Bob Morris @ May 21st 2006 15:45 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
The Minutemen managed a feeble march today in downtown L.A. on the same route taken by the historic immigrant rights marches of March 25 and May 1. Those marches drew several hundred thousand each, maybe a million. The Minutemen could only bring 100 or so, which speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Plus, there were more of us counter-protesters than they were of them.
They pretend to be a mass movement yet their pathetic turnout eloquently demonstrates they are not.
We of ANSWER L.A. followed them the entire march with our shopping cart sound system. It has speakers on poles, runs off a car battery, and can really crank out the volume. I was pushing it. Several people in other groups said to me, you ANSWER people really know how to organize for an event like this.
When they got to the rally spot, we set up across the street, and succeeded in distracting them to the point they couldn’t have their rally.
The Minutemen, despite their recent attempt at cleaning up their image, are racist to the core, allied with extreme right elements, and need to be challenged whenever they crawl out from under their rock. Every time they’ve tried something in southern California, there’s been more of us than them, and today was no exception.
Bob Morris @ May 20th 2006 00:12 - Category: Immigrant rights, Torture ;
CIA officials have corroborated reports that extraordinary renditions - transfers of prisoners from one country to another bypassing due judicial rule - have taken place on European soil with the blessing of EU governments.
We really need to cut through the doublespeak. “Extraordinary rendition” is kidnapping. The prisoners are being taken someplace else, like Uzbekistan, to be tortured. That’s the reality behind their sleazy, deceptive, carefully sanitized words.
That the CIA is ratting themselves out by implicating other governments just demonstrates their amorality. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking CIA is somehow fighting the good fight against the neocons. Look at their bloodstained history instead.
Bob Morris @ May 19th 2006 00:32 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
U.S. Mexico border near San Diego, Thursday
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents began following a black SUV after a citizen reported seeing the vehicle pick up suspected illegal immigrants near the U.S. side of the border, police said.
As traffic backed up near the border, the vehicle stopped on the shoulder. When agents approached, the suspect began to drive off, said police Lt. Kevin Rooney. Two agents then opened fire.
According to the article, the driver clearly was not threatening any lives. So why was he killed?
From CounterPunch
“This is the calm before the storm; they’re going to make it tough,” Professor Armando Navarro had told LA’s La Opinion. “They’re talking about raids, deportations. In every barrio we have to organize migrant defense committees, and get ready for civil disobedience.”
Bob Morris @ May 19th 2006 00:24 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
Sunday, May 21, 11 am
Gather at Olympic and Broadway, LA
From ANSWER LA
This Sunday, join pro-immigrant organizations, including the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, at a counter demonstration against the racist, anti-immigrant Minuteman Project. Minutemen members and supporters will be marching through downtown Los Angeles that day in a so-called “Civil Rights” march. The Minuteman Project is an organization that opposes immigrants and undocumented workers. Dubbing their hateful action a march for “Civil Rights” is an outright lie. Their true aim is to prevent immigrants from gaining the Civil Rights they deserve.
This is the same march route as the historic immigrant rights marches of March 25 and May1, both of which drew multiple hundreds of thousands. Doubtless the Minutemen will only draw a miniscule fraction of that. Still, it’s important to be there as counter-protestors to help unmask these Klan-like bigots so people see who they actually are.
Bob Morris @ May 18th 2006 00:32 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
“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.”
- poem on the Statue of Liberty
Bob Morris @ May 17th 2006 00:25 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
He was forced to give the talk, wasn’t he? He had to specifically say he didn’t favor amnesty. This is because millions of people have been in the streets these past few months marching for immigrant rights.
The neocons thought the Sensenbrenner Bill was a slam-dunk. They got it smashed in their faces instead. Now they and the pretend opposition of the Democratic Party favors a “guest worker” program which will create three tiers of immigrants, all with no rights, all subject to be sent back at any time. Oh yeah, that’ll sure be workable. Fair and equitable too. Some of you, we’ll send back immediately, others can work for a predetermined number of years, then be sent back. All under strict monitoring. These will be pliable, scared employees who won’t dare, say, join a union.
At least corporate America gets one thing. Without immigrants, the economy will slam to a halt. However their solution is a new set of laws that will codify the exploitation of immigrants.
Those marching in the streets aren’t chanting “we want a guest worker program”, they’re chanting “amnistia.” The people are way ahead of the ‘leaders’ on immigration rights. The leaders are baffled and scared by this, the hugest outpouring of protest in decades. The marches have already been bigger than anything in the civil rights and Vietnam War eras, and the movement is only two months old.
A past client of mine lives in Nova Scotia, Canada. He has a bank account in a U.S. bank in Maine. I asked, so what’s the border security like? He laughed, it’s a country road, there is no security. So why isn’t Dubya militarizing the border there? The racist implications are obvious.
Dubya sure likes to militarize, doesn’t he? That’s his solution to everything. Send in the troops. Git tough. But their bullshit macho approach hasn’t worked in Afghanistan and Iraq, has it? In fact, it’s backfired.
And it will backfire at the Mexico border too.
Bob Morris @ May 16th 2006 00:25 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
Goodness, the Minutemen have undergone quite a media makeover, haven’t they? Gone is the overt racism and extreme right wing public stance. Now their statements are carefully polished and manicured. Why on first glance you might think they actually cared about the health and welfare of those crossing over into the US.
Well of course they don’t. Dig a little and it’s clear they are just another in a long and sick line of U.S. nativist organizations that loathe and fear anyone different from them.
Their fresh-scrubbed new persona is just that, a persona. The neocons know they could get hosed in the November elections. Thus, they need to get the hard Right foaming at the mouth about something so they’ll vote in November. Immigrant Rights (and gays) will be their targets. The Minuteman could prove useful here, but not as who they really are - hence this cleansing spritzer to make them appear reasonable and normal.
The Democrats have deluded themselves into thinking the November elections will be a big victory for them so all they need to do is nothing and let the Republicans skewer themselves. Given such a brain-dead ’strategy’, Democrats may skewer themselves instead.
People said the KKK in their heyday was just a bunch of trash from the countryside. Not really. They had friends and supporters in powerful places. Ditto for the Minutemen. That’s why they must be opposed whenever and wherever they appear.
Bob Morris @ May 15th 2006 08:43 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
The demonstrations, walk-outs, boycotts, marches, work-stoppages, and protests of the past few weeks are more than just an inspiring example of resistance to reactionary government legislation; they may signal the birth of a new left. In response to the ominous portend of an immigration bill so extreme that it alienated the Catholic church, millions of people have participated in recent weeks in the beginnings of a mass movement for immigrant rights. Far from just a flash in the pan, this movement will have long-reaching effects on the balance of class and political forces in the US.
Bush’s plan to militarize the border is a reaction, and no doubt a failing one, to the massive immigrant rights marches. That’s the power this movement has.
Bob Morris @ May 14th 2006 19:03 - Category: Immigrant rights ;
Bush posts troops at Mexican border to appease Right
36,000 troops on the border? Bush says ‘temporary.” Yeah, right.
My take: Bush and Rove don’t want an agreement on immigration rights until at least after the election (if at all.) Why? Because they want the hard Right in a frenzy over the issue and thus mobilized to vote in November.
Given the usual Democratic spinelessness and inability to take a stand, this might actually work. The Dems think all they have to do to win in November is do nothing. They are wrong.
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