Connect with us

Week in Review: Occupy Wall Street Goes Global, Congress Kills American Jobs Act, Ugandan Lesbian Awarded Human Rights Prize

Published

on

 NYC police aggressively arrest Occupy Wall Street activists, while the movement goes global with actions in Berlin, London, Rome & Tokyo; American jobs bill dies in Congress and a Ugandan lesbian activist honored by human rights prize. 

International

New York City Police Get Aggressive with Occupy Activists; Movement Goes Global, Expanding to More Than 80 Countries

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyziG5bUuBE&version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0]

The New York Police Department (NYPD) cracked down on the Occupy Wall Street activists this weekend, posturing early Friday morning by initially assembling at the mouth of Zucotti Park, dressed in full anti-riot gear intending to drive activists from the park, although its owners informed Mayor Bloomberg late Thursday evening that they were withdrawing their original request to “clean” the park.  But Mayor Mike forgot to tell the NYPD, who apparently lost their cool, as Occupy activists had expanded into Washington Park Square during the week. Ultimately, the Zucotti Park residents did not move. After a decision by the Occupy movement protestors to occupy Times Square on Saturday, the NYPD became aggressive, using barricades to pen people in, preventing them from moving block to block and used horse patrols who charged protesters. Police also locked in and eventually arrested activists and some innocent bystanders who had entered bank lobbies to withdraw money for the purpose of closing their accounts.

United for Global Change

Declaring a global action on Saturday titled United for Global Change with a custom prepared Twitter hash tag, peaceful actions ensued in Berlin, London and Tokyo–the one exception was Rome, where a group of anarchists who were participating– fire bombed cars and pillaged stores, causing extensive damage.  Even laid back Canada got in on the action, with several actions from Ontario to the British Columbia engaged. According to the “Occupy Together” website, 951 cities, located in 82 countries, have participated thus far since the movement began in New York City on Sept. 17.

 

Ugandan Lesbian Awarded Martin Ennals Human Rights Defender Prize

Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, a Ugandan lesbian activist, who has lived in fear for years, moving house to house, to avoid attacks for being a gay person and founder of Freedom and Roam Uganda, an advocacy group for lesbians, was awarded the Martin Ennals Human Rights Defender Prize on Oct. 13. Nabagesera is the first gay human rights advocate to receive the award, considered only second to the Nobel Peace Prize in prestige. She was presented the award by the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

G-20 Orders Europe to Get its House in Order; Slovakia Votes Against Bailout and the EU Sets Deadline to Address Monetary Crisis 

In the lead-up to the G-20 meeting this weekend in France, Slovakia the last EU country to vote on a bail out for the Euro zone banking authority, was the first Euro zone country whose government collapsed as it voted down the referendum, before it finally passed the proposal two days later. The bailout fund is set to be 344 billion euros (about $472 billion) to resolve a sovereign debt crisis. The price of passage gives the Social Democrats an early election date. The G-20 advised for the bailout to continue, despite demonstrations throughout the European continent on Saturday and asserted that the EU summit later this month would be decisive in resolving the ongoing crisis.  The Euro zone banking crisis remains a crisis at full boil in Greece, which has yet to reach solvency, along with Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain.  EU officials have given themselves an Oct. 23 deadline to resolve the crisis.

UK Ties Foreign Aid to LGBT Rights

Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom’s Tory-led government, announced this past week that his government would leverage its foreign assistance to bilateral partners based upon their LGBT human rights records.  This foreign policy move is seen by some as much a domestic move to cut back on foreign assistance spending, but to bridge its spending aims to a growing popular issue at home that Cameron continues to pursue, most recently announcing his unqualified support for legalized gay marriage in the UK to the consternation of many of his own Conservative party members and church leaders.  This move was supported by lawmakers in Nepal, as well as gay activists in Nepal, as reported by the New Civil Rights Movement.

Polish Voters Elect First Trans Member of Parliament

Anna Grodzka a trans woman political activist was elected to Poland’s parliament this past week as a member of the Palikot Movement, which swept into office with a progressive liberal slate of candidates that garnered the third-most elected lawmakers in parliament, which is seen as a “change election” by Polish political watchers.  Grodzka is the first trans person to be elected to Poland’s parliament and will serve in the Sejm, the Lower House.  Grodzka is the founder and president of Trans-Fuzja, a non-profit advocacy group on behalf of trans persons.

 

National

 United States Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit Blocks and Upholds Alabama Immigration law

On Friday, the Federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked two key provisions of the Alabama Immigration law in HICA v Bentley that are according to the Southern Poverty Law Center:  the provision that chills children’s access to school by requiring school officials to verify the immigration status of children and their parents; and the provision that criminalizes failure to register with the federal government and carry one’s “papers” at all times.

The school provisions take effect immediately.  The Court did not block provisions dealing with immigration status checks during traffic stops. It also allowed to remain in effect the sections that bar illegal immigrants from entering contracts or engaging in business transactions with government.

The Alabama law took effect two weeks ago, compelling people to leave the state immediately.  The coalition of groups bringing the challenge to the law, include the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU, the National Immigration Law Center and the ACLU of Alabama, the Asian Law Caucus, the National Day Laborers’ Organizing Network, AAJC, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.  The U.S. Department of Justice has also challenged the law.

Obama Jobs Bill Blocked in the Senate; Rev. Al Sharpton Hosts Jobs Rally on the Mall

To no one’s surprise, Eric Cantor, the House Republican Majority Leader declared President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act legislation dead on arrival in early October, but just this week, the Senate, controlled by the Democrats, was unable to muster the 60 votes needed to cloture proof a vehicle that would provide $444 billion for the president’s number one election issue–jobs for the American worker.  The bill went down 50-49, not even close, although Harry Reid changed his vote to “no” before the vote was recorded and preserved his right to bring the bill back for a vote.

Not to be deterred, Obama has hit the road, exhorting voters to help him generate support for the bill by calling their members of Congress.  In Washington yesterday, Rev. Al Sharpton, the newly successful MSNBC host and the president of the National Action Network, gathered his forces on the National Mall, joined by several national unions that also included Planned Parenthood, and staged a rally for jobs and justice, announcing he would be organizing marches in 25 states, offering to “generate some wind behind the president’s back” to get the jobs bill moving in Congress. In anticipation of the celebration held earlier today to inaugurate the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Sharpton called the crowd together, saying the “dreamer may have been killed, but the dream remains.”  Following his speech, rally participants were encouraged to join Sharpton to walk the mall together in solidarity.

In Memoriam

Frank Kameny, an American LGBT civil rights lion, died of natural causes on Oct. 11, National Coming Out Day.   He was 86-years-old. Kameny coined “Gay is Good,” arguably the first positive message about homosexuals delivered to the American public.  A public memorial service is expected to be held in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 15th, the 50th anniversary of the Mattachine Society.

 

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘Fascist to the Core’: Trump’s Top General Slams Ex-President as ‘Most Dangerous Person’

Published

on

General Mark Milley, one of then-President Donald Trump’s top generals who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the Republican presidential nominee is “fascist to the core” and there is no one in America who has ever posed more of a threat to the nation.

Milley, appointed by Trump in 2019, served as the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Armed Forces until his retirement last year. His remarks appear in Watergate journalist Bob Woodward’s latest book, “War,” The Independent reports.

After the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Gen. Milley requested a meeting with incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland, “to urge him to investigate domestic violent extremism and far-right militia movements.”

“According to Woodward, a senior Department of Justice lawyer said at the time that Milley’s sit-down with Garland might have been the first-ever meeting between a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the country’s top civilian law enforcement official. He writes that the general asked for the meeting because he was ‘deeply convinced’ that Trump remained ‘a danger to the country’ even though he had been forced from office after Biden’s election win.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s X Engaged in a ‘Pattern of Election Interference’ to Help Trump: Reports

Later, in March of 2023, Milley spoke directly to Woodward, telling him that “no one has ever been as dangerous to this country” as the former president.

Milley had talked to Woodward about Trump for a previous book, “Peril,” but apparently his concerns had grown stronger since then.

“Do you realize, do you see what this man is?” Milley asked the veteran journalist. “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.”

“A fascist to the core,” the General declared.

The Guardian adds that Milley “fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power.”

“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently “warned former colleagues,” Woodward writes. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”

Former top Trump adviser Steve Bannon, according to Woodward, has vowed to hold Milley “accountable.”

READ MORE: Trump Campaign an ‘Influence Operation’ Says Former State Dept. Official — Experts Agree

In 2021, Woodward’s book “Peril” revealed Milley acted to ensure Trump could not misuse the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

“Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley took steps to prevent then-President Donald Trump from misusing the country’s nuclear arsenal during the last month of his presidency, according to a new book by The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa obtained by NBC News,” the news organization had reported.

The book “recounted a phone conversation Milley had with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol, which Pelosi blamed on an ‘unhinged’ Trump. Pelosi said in January that she spoke to Milley about ‘preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.'”

“‘I can guarantee you, you can take it to the bank, that there’ll be, that the nuclear triggers are secure and we’re not going to do — we’re not going to allow anything crazy, illegal, immoral or unethical to happen,’ Milley told her, according to a transcript of the call obtained by the authors.”

“The president alone can order the use of nuclear weapons. But he doesn’t make the decision alone. One person can order it, several people have to launch it.”

READ MORE: ‘Dangerous’: Musk Laughing at Idea of ‘Puppet’ Kamala Harris Being Killed Sparks Fury

Continue Reading

News

Elon Musk’s X Engaged in a ‘Pattern of Election Interference’ to Help Trump: Reports

Published

on

Billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who purchased the social media platform Twitter and renamed it X, is “all in” on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, The New York Times reports. X has “reportedly worked with Donald Trump’s campaign to censor material that could be harmful to the former president’s White House chances as part of a pattern of election interference that is unprecedented in U.S. history,” according to The Daily Beast.

Musk, The Times reports, “seen over the weekend jumping for joy alongside former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa., is now talking to the Republican candidate multiple times a week.”

Video (below) shows Musk wore a black “Make America Great Again” cap with the words “Never Surrender” embroidered on the side and praising the ex-president’s actions during the attempted assassination.

The relationship between Musk and Trump “has proved significant in other ways. After a reporter’s publication of hacked Trump campaign information last month, the campaign connected with X to prevent the circulation of links to the material on the platform, according to two people with knowledge of the events. X eventually blocked links to the material and suspended the reporter’s account.”

READ MORE: Trump Campaign an ‘Influence Operation’ Says Former State Dept. Official — Experts Agree

The reporter, Ken Klippenstein, whose work often focuses on national security issues, published the document because “it’s of keen public interest in an election season.”

Klippenstein last month called his ban “political,” and wrote: “It’s been widely reported that my suspension from X (Twitter) is only temporary. Those reports are false. My ban from X, the company says, is permanent.”

The New York Times’ Aric Toler writes: “Trump’s campaign worked with Musk/Twitter to implement a blanket ban on sharing the link to the Vance dossier.” NBC News’ Kevin Collier adds, “Per NYT, X’s crackdown on Ken Klippenstein and the Iran-hacked Vance doc came after the Trump campaign reached out. Well within each party’s right, but this is the exact same thing Musk, Trump, and the right threw a yearslong fit about over Hunter Biden.”

Journalist Steve Mullis notes, “It’s crazy that this is a single paragraph in the NYT’s Elon Musk story. Given that there were congressional hearings accusing Biden and Democrats of doing this sort of thing, this should be its own huge story.”

Musk, The Times adds, “has effectively moved his base of operations to Pennsylvania, the place that he has recently told confidants he believes is the linchpin to Mr. Trump’s re-election,” and “relentlessly promoted Mr. Trump’s candidacy to his 201 million followers on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter that he bought for $44 billion and has used to spread conspiracy theories about the Democratic Party and to insult its candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.”

The Times’ article ends with this: “Online, Mr. Musk has painted a dark picture of what would happen if Mr. Trump lost, a circumstance that could hurt Mr. Musk personally. In an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, he acknowledged ‘trashing Kamala nonstop’ and being all in for Mr. Trump.”

“If Mr. Trump loses, he joked, ‘how long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?'”

Democratic strategist Matt McDermott writes, “Doesn’t seem to be enough appreciation for the fact that it’s entirely reasonable to assume that Elon Musk is going all in on Trump because he’s worried about a federal probe into corporate corruption + election interference and knows Trump will shut down an investigation.”

The Times notes that Musk “is personally steering the actions of a super PAC that he has funded with tens of millions of dollars to turn out the vote for Mr. Trump, not just in Pennsylvania but across the country. He has even proposed taking a campaign bus tour across Pennsylvania and knocking on doors himself, in part to see how his money is being used.”

READ MORE: ‘Dangerous’: Musk Laughing at Idea of ‘Puppet’ Kamala Harris Being Killed Sparks Fury

The Times does not include news from August related to Musk’s super PAC, America PAC.

Attorney Jay Kuo alleged on Substack, “Elon Musk’s PAC Is Harvesting Voter Data.”

“The America PAC is using fraudulent techniques to obtain highly personal information from voters in swing states,” Kuo wrote, pointing to a CNBC “explosive report on how Elon Musk’s America PAC is defrauding voters through online ads. As the report explained, Musk’s Trump-aligned PAC is running a scheme that pretends to register people to vote. But in many cases, the PAC simply collects higher personal information from users that it can later use to retarget them.”

According to The Washington Post, some of Musk’s foreign backers in his $44 billion purchase of Twitter include Billionaire investor Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud ($2 billion) and The Qatar Investment Authority ($375 million). Buzzfeed News in 2022 referred to them as “countries that have historically restricted freedom of speech.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

“What’s even more telling is that America PAC only collects this personal information from users residing in swing states, such as Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina. For anyone else, it actually does assist them with registering to vote,” Kuo wrote. “It’s possible that America PAC simply ‘messed up’ badly by forgetting to actually redirect users in swing states to voter registration sites after scraping their personal information. In so doing, however, it has made it abundantly clear that it treats swing state users very differently than non-swing state ones. In exposing its own operations this way, it has raised a more troubling question: Is Musk involved in improper data harvesting and planning to improperly influence the election, just like we saw in 2016?”

READ MORE: ‘Trafficking in Nazi Race Science’: Trump Blasted After ‘Vile Trifecta’ of Antisemitism

Continue Reading

OPINION

Trump Campaign an ‘Influence Operation’ Says Former State Dept. Official — Experts Agree

Published

on

A prominent former U.S. State Department official who worked to fight Russian disinformation has labeled the Trump presidential campaign an “influence operation,” with several experts echoing his assessment.

Richard Stengel, an NBC News/MSNBC analyst who spent seven years as TIME magazine managing editor and served as the chief executive of the National Constitution Center, on Thursday shared his evaluation.

“The Trump candidacy is not so much a political campaign as what intelligence services call an influence operation, a coordinated effort to use mis-and-disinformation to undermine democratic institutions and processes,” declared Stengel.

Stengel, who served as U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, is the author of the 2019 memoir, “Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It.”

READ MORE: ‘Trafficking in Nazi Race Science’: Trump Blasted After ‘Vile Trifecta’ of Antisemitism

Stengel’s comment received hundreds of thousands of views on social media, and garnered responses from experts.

“This is correct,” replied Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the well-known professor of history and an expert on fascism, authoritarians, propaganda, and democracy.

“True,” asserted Eric Chenoweth, Director of the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe, adding, “it is correlated with Russian influence operations.”

“The Trump effort has the support of his BFF Putin, who has paid agents in the US as social ‘influencers’ to help promote Russia’s pro-Trump narrative,” noted former U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo, Greg Delawie.

Indeed, early last month the U.S. Dept. of Justice announced it had seized “32 internet domains used in Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns,” which “used these domains, among others, to covertly spread Russian government propaganda with the aim of reducing international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests, and influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections, including the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election.”

Days later, MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones reported, “MAGA influencers are scrambling after the DOJ’s Russia indictment,” and mentioned “an unsealed affidavit … alleging a Kremlin-backed agency had nearly 600 U.S.-based influencers in its sights as it waged an online-based election manipulation operation in the United States.”

The Washington Spectator’s Dave Troy, an investigative journalist and tech entrepreneur who has written extensively on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin, responded to Stengel’s post: “Yes. And this would have been a very cool thing for the Obama administration to say in 2015-2016.”

Dr. Joanne Freeman, a professor of American history and of American studies, replied to Stengel’s post with a simple “YUP.”

Stengel’s pronouncement wasn’t so much a revelation as a reminder.

READ MORE: Trump Stands Silently for ‘God Bless the USA’ Then Trashes Detroit to Detroit Economic Club

Earlier this week, David Corn, Mother Jones’ Washington bureau chief and co-author of “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump,” penned an important piece titled: “Trump Is Running a Disinformation Campaign, Not a Political Campaign.”

“He’s not just lying. He’s creating an alternative reality,” Corn states. “His campaign is a full-fledged project to pervert how Americans view the nation and the world, an extensive propaganda campaign designed to fire up fears and intensify anxieties that Trump can then exploit to collect votes. And the political media world has yet to come to terms with the fact that Trump is heading a disinformation crusade more likely to be found in an authoritarian state than a vibrant democracy. This is unlike other presidential campaigns in modern American history—other than his own previous efforts.”

Even before Donald Trump left the White House in disgrace in January of 2021, experts were busy analyzing just how damaging his time on office then had been.

The day after the November 2020 election which Trump ultimately lost but falsely had declared victory, The Washington Post‘s Dan Balz wrote: “Trump has attacked democracy’s institutions, but never so blatantly as he did overnight.”

“For four years, President Trump has sought to undermine the institutions of a democratic society, but never so blatantly as in the early morning hours of Wednesday. His attempt to falsely claim victory and to subvert the election itself by calling for a halt to vote-counting represents the gravest of threats to the stability of the country,” Balz wrote. “A president who respected the Constitution would let things play out. But Trump has shown once again he cares not about the Constitution or the stability and well-being of the country or anything like that. He cares only about himself and retaining the powers he now holds. And so he cries “fraud” when there is no evidence whatsoever of any such thing.”

The Niskanen Center, a D.C. think tank, one week before the violent and deadly January 6, 2021 insurrection Trump allegedly incited, asked: “How Much Did Trump Undermine U.S. Democracy?

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Dem Mom Who Lost Son to Gun Violence Horrified to See Herself in Anti-Harris Ad

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.