I am 80 years old and having spent six years (1966-71) on the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Dr Kings Organization) in Chicago and I would like to offer a small suggestion. I marched beside Dr. King on numerous occasions and I never was arrested, or beaten up by the skinheads that always lined the way of march. It was sometimes violent, and I will never forget the afternoon while marching in Gage Park where I barely missed a brick that hit Dr. King. Within moments we were surrounded by about 200 Black, uniformed Chicago Police Riot Squad officers, billy-clubs swinging, busting young Nazi and Klan heads. This was the first opportunity that these African American policemen were able to beat on white people as their original intended purpose was to arrest and control Black folks caught looting during expected riots. Our rescue was effective as to my knowledge none of the marchers were seriously injured. As we left the park we found that many of the vehicles that we had arrived in had been burned or seriously vandalized. My job that day was not to get arrested as I was to blend into the background with the other working press photographers and to document what might happen to use as evidence in court if arrests were made of our volunteer non-violent marchers. I never found out whether our rescuers were ordered to intercede in our behalf by official police leadership or if it was a spontaneous reaction in response to their training that probably had created mixed emotions but tolerated due to the need of keeping their jobs. One newspaper the following day posted Police Riot large, front and center, on their front page. I will never know if what happened on that day contributed to Dr. Kings assassination but I am convinced that those people in the Empires leadership were troubled with Dr. Kings opposition to the Vietnam War and even more so to the potential threat of the Poor Peoples Campaign. It was organizing Americans across cultural, racial, age, intellectual and economic groups that could very well have changed the path of the empire into a very different place than what we live in today. I have said all this just to introduce my suggestion and it involves organizing resistance sanely against the militarized police activity that is increasing every day. Martyrdom in the past has worked to change public opinion and to help organize people , but I think that we cannot use the tactics of our Empire to defeat it as that time has passed as we are now living in a more polarized world. Instead we must organize around the principles and the non-violent tactics that worked in the 1950s and 1960s. Everyone needs to be aware of the details of the law regarding all of us still living on the Empires Plantation, and then organize together with local Peoples groups to plan peaceful and respectable tactics of opposition that is mutually acceptable. Cell phones and digital cameras are vital not only for communicating but for documenting what is happening on the scene that can be instantly broadcast around our world. I expect support to come from foreign countries and their young people who are better informed from a better perspective than the average U.S. kid who is too distracted by Bullshit to even know what reality is going on around themselves. You dont call a Cop a MFer and expect to get anything but an escalation that will lead to something far more dangerous than what is apparent. Being UTI behind the wheel is another losing proposition. Communication links can be developed online that can bring popular instant response to critical hot spots when it is deemed appropriate. These are just a few ideas and I think that we can develop strategy as we go to put the Empire on notice that You are being Watched. For an interesting model I suggest that everyone checkout Femen here on Facebook and see what these young brave women are doing about changing our world, one person, one day at a time. Namaste !
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 09:09:34 +0000
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