Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 07.25.08

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    07.25.08

1. Stop cop rule   7.25 9am
2. Palestine       7.25 4:15pm
3. Critical Mass   7.25 5pm
4. Copwatch action 7.25 7pm
5. Permaculture/f  7.25 7pm
6. Moyers/torture  7.25 9pm
7. CSNY anti-war/f 7.25

8. Tom Burghardt - America's cyborg warriors

--------1 of 8--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Stop cop rule 7.25 9am

Friday, July 25, 9:00 a.m.
Minneapolis City Hall, 350 South 5th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415.
 A broad coalition of Twin Cities-based activists will be holding its
own public hearing at a rally outside City Hall on Friday morning before
the City Council meeting.

City Council Approves Back-Room Deal to Strip Away Crucial Protections
for Demonstrators
Broad Coalition of Twin Cities-based Activists to Hold Public Hearing
Council Denied Them

MINNEAPOLIS ­ At a meeting of the Minneapolis City Council?s Public Safety
and Regulatory Services Committee on July 16, the committee unanimously
passed an amended resolution that strips away important protections for
free speech. The committee passed this amended resolution without a public
hearing and the City Council is set to pass it Friday morning, also
without a public hearing, thus denying the public the opportunity to
participate in the democratic process. With the upcoming Republican
National Convention on most activists? minds, there was broad opposition
to the resolution but they were not allowed to voice their opinions.

The amended resolution removes the prior ban on the use of rubber bullets
and other projectiles­police are free to use them whenever they feel it is
?reasonable? to do so. It also allows police to confiscate, destroy, or
tamper with cameras if they could be used as evidence. These new powers
put demonstrators, legal observers, the public at large, and the media at
great risk of harm and repression. By passing this amended resolution
without public input, the City Council has demonstrated its contempt for
the democratic process, its lack of concern for the safety of its
constituents, and its willingness to trample their rights. At the rally
Friday morning, the public will have the opportunity to voice opposition
to the Council?s outrageous resolution and undemocratic practices.

This public hearing/rally is being organized by a broad coalition of Twin
Cities-based activists who oppose the Minneapolis City Council giving the
Minneapolis Police Department /carte blanche/ to intimidate and brutalize
protestors who are exercising their constitutional rights.  The activists
in this coalition are members of a variety of organizations that promote
different causes and practice different tactics, thus attesting to the
sweeping nature of the Council?s actions and the broad-based opposition to
this travesty for civil rights.

CONTACT: Jude Ortiz (612) 655-6904


--------2 of 8--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Palestine 7.25 4:15pm

Friday, 7/25, 4:15 to 5:30 pm, vigil to end US military/political support
of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, corner Summit and Snelling, St
Paul.


--------3 of 8--------

From: PRO826 [at] aol.com
Subject: Critical Mass 7.25 5pm

Critical Mass lineup Loring Park 5pm.  Bike riders get riding at 6pm


--------4 of 8--------

From: Michelle Gross <mgresist [at] visi.com>
Subject: Copwatch action 7.25 7pm

CUAPB VP BEATEN AND ARRESTED DURING COPWATCH NIGHT
STAND UP! FIGHT BACK!
Special Copwatch Action
Friday, July 25
7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Corner of 1st Avenue and 10th Street, Minneapolis

For the past several months, CUAPB has been documenting the use of low
level offense ordinances such as lurking, loitering, trespass and public
urination ordinances against homeless people near shelters.  Darryl
Robinson, vice president of CUAPB, heads up the project and has spent many
hours outside of Harbor Lights, Mary Jo's Place and other areas capturing
bad acts by the MPD on film.  In the course of his work, he has been
harassed repeatedly by police and recently received a trespassing citation
himself.

About 10:45 p.m. last night, Minneapolis police attacked Darryl, beating
and arresting him for "obstructing the sidewalk."  During the attack, they
slammed him in the head and face and repeatedly choked him to the point of
unconsciousness.  While handcuffed, he was thrown face first into the
paddy wagon and taken to the Hennepin County jail.  Luckily, another
copwatcher was out with Darryl and was able to get word to us quickly.  A
large contingent from CUAPB converged on the jail.  Before we arrived, one
of the guards attempted to mess with Darryl at the jail but jail staff
soon backed off and he was processed out quickly and released to us.
Darry's injuries were documented and he was taken straight to the
hospital.  He sustained head, neck and jaw trauma along with other
injuries.  Hospital staff initially planned to admit him due to the extent
of his injuries but he was eventually allowed to go home from the
emergency room early this morning.

Now that the city council has given the MPD a blank check, police think
they can get rid of their problems by just intimidating, harassing and
even beating and falsely charging activists who dare question them.  THIS
CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO STAND!  We need to be right back out at that same
corner where police tried to silence the community.

Join us on Friday night for a shelter-based copwatch.  Bring a camera or a
pad of paper and pen to take notes.  Let it be known that the community
WILL go wherever we need to in order to hold Minneapolis police
accountable for their activities.  While you are out with us on Friday,
you can learn about other opportunities to help us with the important work
of documenting police action against homeless people.

Plan also to be in court with Darryl on August 4, 2008 at 8:30 a.m. at the
Hennepin County Government Center when he contests the false charges
placed on him for daring to document police misconduct.


--------5 of 8--------

From: Sean Gosiewski <iasa [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Permaculture/f 7.25 7pm

PERMACULTURE FILM FESTIVAL
July 25 7:00-9:00 pm

Come to St. Luke the evening of Friday, July 25, 7-9 PM for a Permaculture
Film Festival hosted by Dr. Guy Trombley, an applied environmental
anthropologist, permaculture instructor, designer and adventurer. You will
learn how others around the world have applied ecological thinking to some
of the planet's most challenging problems with land, plants, and water
conservation. Learn how the harmonious integration of landscape and people
(permaculture) can provide food, energy, shelter, and other needs in a
sustainable way.


--------6 of 8--------

From: t r u t h o u t <messenger [at] truthout.org>
Subject: Moyers/torture 7.25 9pm Ch2

Bill Moyers Journal | Congressional Torture Hearings
On Friday's Broadcast, "'Bill Moyers Journal' goes inside last week's
hearings on torture in Congress and gets perspective from journalist Jane
Mayer on the debate over whether the US sanctioned torture to prosecute
the war on terror."


--------7 of 8--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: CSNY anti-war/f 7.25

FRI.JULY 25-Thur.JULY 31 @ UPTOWN THEATRE, hennepin @ Lagoon, MINNEAPOLIS
CSNY: Deja Vu
Bottom Line: A melodious howl of protest against the Iraq War from one
of rock's greatest bands.
By Kirk Honeycutt

There should be a considerable audience for this film on both the
nostalgia and political fronts.

PARK CITY -- Ageless rock bands and musicians play a teasing game of
nostalgia with concert audiences, performing their golden oldies while
slipping in new songs and trying to recast themselves for younger
listeners. "CSNY: Deja Vu," a film record by Bernard Shakey (aka Neil
Young) of the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 2006 Freedom of Speech tour,
catches a band headed in the opposite direction. Always one of music's
most impassioned political activists, Young first put out his "Living
With War" album in reaction to the disastrous conflict in Iraq. He then
reformed the band -- again -- to perform those songs, plus a few dating
back to its anti-Vietnam period such as "Ohio" and "Find the Cost of
Freedom."

Young took along an "embedded" journalist, Mike Cerre, who has served as
a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq, to smoke out the reaction of
audience members and others to the music and its message in towns across
America. So this is anything but a concert film like "U2 3D," which
screened at the beginning of the Sundance Film Festival.

There should be a considerable audience for this film on both the
nostalgia and political fronts. Such is the band's popularity that the
film will play to folks who do not agree with its political content, as
evidenced by the young man who challenged Young at its premiere here,
telling him that as far as Iraq is concerned, "You don't know what
you're talking about."

That is a mild comment compared to what audience members, radio talk
show hosts and music critics have to say in the movie. Young gives Cerre
-- the two share writing credit -- the freedom to report on the tour,
seeking out those who praise and condemn CSNY for its activism. The film
generously quotes music critics who take dead aim at the sloppiness of
early performances -- band members agree some shows were bad -- and
others who take umbrage to an anti-war rally masquerading as a rock concert.
The most interesting reaction in the film comes in Atlanta, a
progressive city in a conservative region. Everyone seems to enjoy the
concert until the band strikes up Young's anthem "Let's Impeach the
President." Boos cascade over the stage, followed by cheers that drown
out the boos. The booers rush from the auditorium, where cameras catch
their vehement anger.

By contrast, Iraq vets embrace band members at smaller concerts.

The film catches a country in conflict with itself. The right to
disagree has been brought into dispute by this administration, which has
broadly hinted that any disagreement with its war is synonymous with
treason. That notion is strongly questioned in Cerre's talks with people
in the street.

If you breathe deeply enough, you might catch a whiff of self-promotion.
Young and his mates probably see this film as a means to establish their
legacy of commitment to political ideals and anti-war movements. But the
band has earned that right: No one intended to earn a dime on this tour
or with this movie. And the tour happened just as the country turned
against the war and the administration, as evidenced by the 2006
election during which Stills campaigned on behalf of several
congressional candidates, the majority of whom won. Young clearly hopes
to keep up the pressure with this movie.

The average age of the band's members is 62. They don't even bother to
disguise that fact. These men look like your grandfather, right up until
the downbeat. Then the magnificence of their playing sweeps away all
concepts of age.

Rock on.
CSNY: DEJA VU
CSNY: DEJA VU 2 UPTOWN THEATRE, on Hennepin @ Lagoon, uptown MINNEAPOLIS
Fri, Jul 25: (2:45 5:00)7:15 9:30
Sat, Jul 26 - Sun, Jul 27: (12:30)2:45 5:00 7:15 9:30
Mon, Jul 28 - Thu, Jul 31: (2:45 5:00)7:15 9:30
Shangri-La Entertainment presents a Shakey Picture production
Credits:
Director: Bernard Shakey
Writers: Neil Young, Mike Cerre
Producer: L.A. Johnson
Director of photography: Mike Elwell
Music: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Editor: Mark Faulkner
Running time -- 96 minutes
No MPAA rating


--------8 of 8--------

America's Cyborg Warriors
by Tom Burghardt
July 24th, 2008
Dissident Voice

As the costs of imperialist war skyrocket, securocrats find themselves
under the gun so to speak, of corporate and Pentagon masters demanding
"results".

No matter that the solutions sought are for "smart" weapons - particularly
those that "think" - systems they believe capable of dominating global
south and "homeland" cities. This quest for technological mastery has been
dubbed by Pentagon theorists as "network-centric warfare" (Rumsfeld's
"Revolution in Military Affairs" [RMA]) a "transformational" process that
turn cities, any city, into a limitless "battlespace".

Indeed, current U.S. Army doctrine for fighting in urban environments
define the problem as central to U.S. "national security". [national =
US ruling class -ed]

As urbanization has changed the demographic landscape, potential enemies
recognize the inherent danger and complexity of this environment to the
attacker, and may view it as their best chance to negate the technological
and firepower advantages of modernized opponents. Given the global
population trends and the likely strategies and tactics of future threats,
Army forces will likely conduct operations in, around, and over urban
areas - not as a matter of fate, but as a deliberate choice linked to
national security objectives and strategy, and at a time, place, and
method of the commander's choosing. (Urban Operations, Field Manual No.
3-06, Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., October 26,
2006) [emphasis added]

Key to RMA is the belief that contemporary military operations aim for
defined effects and that it is now possible for U.S. forces to defeat
adversaries through a combination of surveillance technologies,
devastating firepower and the suppression and degradation of
communications networks. Durham University geographer Stephen Graham has
deemed such notional irrationality by U.S. war planners "technophilia".
Graham avers:

[S]uch technophiliac discourses depicting an RMA ushering new relatively
reduced-risk, "clean" and painless strategy of US military dominance
assumed that the vast networks of sensors and weapons that needed to be
integrated and connected to project US power would work uninterruptedly.
Global scales of flow and connection have thus dominated RMA discourses;
technological mastery, omnipotent surveillance, real-time "situational
awareness", and speed-of-light digital interactions, have been widely
portrayed as processes which, intrinsically, would usher in US military
"Full Spectrum Dominance", on a planetary scale, irrespective of the
geographical terrain that was to be dominated. ("From Space to Street
Corners: Global South Cities and US Military Technophilia," Unpublished
paper, 2007) [Full spectrum dominance = full ruling class dominance -ed]

Bloodied by "facts on the ground" in Iraq and Afghanistan however, and
despite imperialism's much-vaunted technological superiority, America's
techno-warriors continue searching for "Holy Grail" solutions to the
political quandary they have confronted since the Vietnam war: how to
achieve "victory' in environments that have proven themselves deadly
quagmires, humiliating object lessons never learned by the world's sole
"hyperpower"?

In a world of supercomputers, complex algorithms and emerging
nanotechnologies, the Pentagon's research arm, the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the "tip of the spear' that our
capitalist masters are banking on to "win" the "war on terror'. And in
this world, surveillance is the gateway and ubiquitous key to controlling
the counterinsurgency "battlespace". [ie, us. -ed]

Portrayed in media accounts as a "gee-whiz' agency of nerds and quirky
misfits, DARPA researchers were instrumental in designing - or
appropriating for military use - the surveillance technologies deployed by
the National Security Agency (NSA) under president Bush's so-called
"Terrorist Surveillance Program".

As Tim Shorrock points out in his essential book, Spies For Hire: The
Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, DARPA "money funded some of the
NSA's first data mining programs". Indeed, Shorrock reported recently in
Salon that the NSA's surveillance program is directly tied into state
"Continuity of Government" planning including use of the Main Core
database,

According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive
knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation
apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including
NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of
surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former
intelligence official described Main Core as "an emergency internal
security database system" designed for use by the military in the event of
a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition
of martial law. Its name, he says, is derived from the fact that it
contains "copies of the 'main core' or essence of each item of
intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other
agencies of the U.S. intelligence community". ("Exposing Bush's historic
abuse of power," Salon, July 23, 2008)

The secretive nature of the program is so highly sensitive, Shorrock
reports, that when a former senior Justice Department official mentioned
Main Core to an intelligence analyst stationed inside the White House
after the 9/11 attacks "he turned white as a sheet". One can only wonder
what role DARPA and their "outsourced" corporate partners played in
updating Main Core or programs similar to it.

            Like The Minority Report, Only Scarier

Unfortunately, we don't have to look very far to discover traces of these
all-encompassing surveillance projects.

One example was a 2003 DARPA program called "Combat Zones That See" (CTS).
The plan was to install thousands of digital CCTV networks across occupied
cities in the belief that once the system was deployed they would provide
"warfighters" with "motion-pattern analysis across whole city scales". CTS
would create a nexus for mass tracking of individual cars and people
through algorithms linked to the numeric recognition of license plate
numbers and scanned-in human profiles.

The program was denounced by privacy and civil liberties advocates for
its potential use as a mass surveillance system that could just as easily
be deployed on the streets of American cities. In theory CTS, or a similar
program could be further "enhanced" by Scaleable Network Social Analysis
(SSNA), originally designed for DARPA's infamous Information Awareness
Office run by convicted Iran-Contra felon John Poindexter.

SSNA's aim is "to model networks of connections like social interactions,
financial transactions, telephone calls, and organizational memberships,"
according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's 2003 analysis. Once
license plate numbers are "mined" from raw CCTV footage, investigators
could: a) identify a car's owner; b) examine her/his web-surfing habits;
c) scan e-mail accounts for traces of "inflammatory rhetoric;" d) monitor
recent purchases for "suspicious" items.

After the program was uncovered, all traces of CTS have since disappeared
from DARPA's website. However, the program has been farmed-out across the
agency. I will explore some of the "innovative" solutions that DARPA
securocrats are investigating to "improve" imperialist "warfighting"
capabilities, particularly those falling under the purview of Military
Operations on Urban Terrain. As should become clear, all of the
applications described below are "dual-use," that is, they are readily
adaptable for "counterterrorist" purposes here at home.

                     Lifting the "Fog of War"

The Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) describes its
"mission" as one that "will lift the fog of war," in order to "understand
the world.  From sensing to cognition, we bring the future of computing to
the warfighter".

IPTO is divided into six "thrust areas:" Cognitive Systems, Command &
Control, High Productivity Computing, Language Processing, Sensors &
Processing, Emerging Technologies. Each "thrust area" is further
subdivided into a score of projects, the majority of which are concerned
with developing technologies to "control the battlespace" of occupied
cities. [eg University Avenue, Snelling... -ed]

The Cognitive Systems office is currently working on a project called
Learning Applied to Ground Robots (LAGR), a system "to develop a new
generation of learned perception and control algorithms for autonomous
ground vehicles, and to integrate these learned algorithms with a highly
capable robotic ground vehicle". In other words, ground-based "killer
robots" that can act on their own volition and "take out" insurgents
independent of any human control. Early, human-controlled versions of
these systems have been deployed in Iraq. Corporate and university
grifters Applied Systems Intelligence, BAE Systems, Carnegie Mellon
University, Florida A&M University, General Dynamics, and SRI
International among others are jointly working on the project in alliance
with DARPA and the Army Research Laboratory's Robotics Collaborative
Technology Alliance. [Insurgents = eg anti-war & civil rights etc groups]

The Command & Control brief is described as "the exercise of authority and
direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached
forces in the accomplishment of a mission. Without question the missions
faced by our warfighters today (such as counterinsurgency) and the
operational environments (such as cities) are more complex and dangerous
than ever before". To achieve "situational dominance," the following
projects are in the works:

Deep Green, an "innovative approach to using simulation to support ongoing
military operations while they are being conducted". According to Wired
defense analyst Noah Shachtman, software suites designed include
"Blitzkrieg" which will model "battlespace" alternatives and "Crystal
Ball," a program that "will take information coming into a headquarters to
figure out which scenarios are most likely to happen, and which plans are
likely to work best". As if to drive home the importance of Deep Green to
Darpacrats, major corporate grifter Science Applications International
Corporation (SAIC) was awarded a $42 million contract in June for work on
the project, according to Washington Technology.

Heterogeneous Airborne Reconnaissance Team (HART) (formerly known as
"HURT" - the acronym says it all!) is described by DARPA thusly: "The
complexity of counter-insurgency operations especially in the urban combat
environment demands multiple sensing modes for agility and for persistent,
ubiquitous coverage. The HART system implements collaborative control of
reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition (RSTA) assets, so that
the information can be made available to warfighters at every echelon".
According to its website, major capitalist grifter Northrop Grumman is
designing a suite of tools to be used with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
capable of operating below 100 feet.

The Persistent Operational Surface Surveillance and Engagement (POSSE),
program "is building a real-time, all-source exploitation system to
provide Indications and Warnings of insurgent activity derived from
airborne and ground-based sensors. Envisioning a day when our sensors can
be integrated into a cohesive 'ISR Force', it's building an integrated
suite of signal processing, pattern analysis, and collection management
software that will increase reliability, reduce manpower, and speed up
responses". According to the Defense Update website, SAIC "was awarded" a
$32 million contract to work on the project for the U.S. Air Force.

The Sensors & Processing "thrust area" of IPTO states that since "U.S.
forces and sensors" are "networked across" services and domains, new means
are required to "manage" these increasingly complex systems. Since "future
battlefields will continue to be populated with targets that use mobility
and concealment as key survival tactics, and high-value targets will range
from quiet submarines, to mobile missile/artillery, to specific individual
insurgents," therefore, "sensor processing, sensor fusing and information
management" will provide the "warfighter" with the ability for "pervasive
and persistent surveillance of the battlespace and detection,
identification, tracking, engagement and battle damage assessment for
high-value targets in all weather conditions and in all possible combat
environments". [Which of us might qualify as a "high-value" target? -ed]

One program, UrbanScape claims it will "provide the warfighters patrolling
an urban environment with an up-to-date, high resolution model of the
urban terrain that can be viewed, manipulated and analyzed. The overall
objective of the program is to make the foreign city as 'familiar as the
soldier's backyard'". Or perhaps, provide the "warfighter" with a "high
resolution model" of his own backyard! The project is a "collaborative
venture" of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the
University of Kentucky, one of whose researchers now sits on the board of
SET Corporation's Management "team". Small world (of leveraging DARPA
"expertise" into big bucks!)

We turn next to DARPA's Strategic Technology Office (STO). STO's "mission"
is "to focus on technologies that have a global or theater-wide impact and
that involve multiple Services". Among the more than five dozen projects
in the works we find the following:

Integrated Sensor Is Structure (ISIS), whose goal is to develop and deploy
a "stratospheric airship based autonomous unmanned sensor with years of
persistence in surveillance and tracking of air and ground targets".
Essentially a large blimp that can hover at some 70,000 feet for years
over a "target" city, ISIS engineers are currently developing
ultra-lightweight antennas for the system. According to Defense Industry
Daily, major corporate defense grifters who have received tens of millions
of dollars in funding for ISIS include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and
Northrop Grumman.

VisiBuilding will address "a pressing need in urban warfare: seeing inside
buildings". This Orwellian project proposes to 1) determine building
layouts; 2) find anomalous quantities of materials and 3) locate people
within the building. VisiBuilding "will develop knowledge-deriving
architectures for sensing people and objects in buildings" in order to
"find which buildings should be searched, through detailed assessment of
targeted structures for building layouts and behavioral analysis, live
updates of building occupancy to support building raids, and finally
post-mission analysis to find hidden objects or people".

A perfect tool for "snatch squad" specialists deployed to "render" suspect
"targets" during counterinsurgency or police operations! According to
Washington Technology, SAIC pulled down a $5.2 million contract for
initial work on the project.

                              Conclusion

As can be seen in the brief survey above, DARPA projects seek to enhance
U.S. capabilities for dominating "target" cities. But let's not kid
ourselves, cities are viewed by corporate grifters who reap the rewards in
"outsourced" multibillion dollar contracts and the securocrats who deploy
these systems, as no more than killing fields and occupation zones. What
does this say about a predatory system that regards human beings as so
much expendable waste to be targeted, tracked and when expedient, killed
by machines controlled by other human beings thousands of miles away?

America's techno-warriors and their corporatist masters most certainly
plan to field such systems in the "homeland" itself. Viewed as exemplary
means to control "restless natives" in the imperialist metropolis,
surveillance technologies replete with biometric "smart cards," highly
politicized terrorist "watch lists," sensor and tracking equipment are the
"speartip" of a technical-scientific counterrevolution, neoliberal
globalization's "dark side". [All of the above brought to us by our
friendly US ruling class. How they must love us. -ed]

Deployed in U.S. and European cities along with the other accoutrements of
an emerging police state - data mining, internet and cell phone
surveillance - in the final analysis, these systems represent not the
strength, but rather the precarious nature of capitalism's entire
geopolitical project. However, that doesn't make them any less deadly - or
dangerous - to a functioning democracy.

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay
Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage
and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military
"Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press. Read other articles
by Tom, or visit Tom's website.

This article was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is
filed under Civil Liberties, Empire, Imperialism, Military/Militarism,
Science/Tech. Send to a friend


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
                     over 2225 subscribers as of 12.19.02
              please send all messages in plain text no attachments

 To GO DIRECTLY to an item, eg
 --------8 of x--------
 do a find on
 --8
                          vote third party
                           for president
                           for congress
                          now and forever