Gimme Shelter: the Brief And Strange History of CHOP (AKA CHAZ)

by DANIEL BEAUMONT JULY 7, 2020 COUNTERPUNCH

Photograph Source: Derek Simeone – CC BY 2.0

“Rape, murder—it’s just a shot away, it’s just a shot away”
–“Gimme Shelter” the Rolling Stones

The end has come for CHOP—or CHAZ. At first the six-block area just east of downtown Seattle was called CHAZ. The area was occupied by protesters on June 8^th after it was reluctantly ceded to them by Seattle Mayor Jennie Durkan and the police. That was the day that the Seattle Police Department vacated and locked up its East Precinct building on 12^th Avenue. When the police left, the occupiers painted “People” over the “Police” in the sign, “Seattle Police Department, East Precinct.” Then they declared the surrounding area the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, soon referred to simply as CHAZ. Whatever exactly it was, it had a name. Then some black community leaders suggested it be called Capitol Hill Organize Protest. Hence, CHOP, although CHAZ was still being used. Whatever you call it, as of the First of July it was no more.

In general, I’m against renaming things. Why rename the West Indies? It will forever remind us of Columbus pulling up in front of the wrong address. As my nephew said, “He get lost and he gets a holiday named after him. I get lost all the time.” My nephew lives a short walk from the area that briefly was known as CHOP or CHAZ.

In any event, the lack of agreement as to what to call themselves was not a good sign—it seemed to suggest the lack of a clear idea among the protesters as to what they were doing. And finally the protesters’ confusion was just about the only thing clear about the entire exercise. That confusion is the subject of this essay.

The next day June 9^th one of the protesters posted on a blog a list of thirty demands. That’s a lot of demands. Soon four more would be added. For a nation used to the brevity of text messages and tweets even reading them was demanding. Among the demands foremost were the defunding or possibly the abolition of the Seattle Police Department and even the court system, the release of all protesters who had been arrested. then things followed like free health care, free college, free housing—I’ll stop there. The shopping list of demand is really only germane to this essay as an indication of the confusion that was to follow.

The reaction of the right wing to all of this was predictably hysterical. Trump tweeted that “Domestic Terrorists” had “taken over Seattle.” A bit of overstatement there. Since the six blocks under terrorist control lay in the middle of an urban area stretching more than 90 miles from Everett in the north to the state capital Olympia in the south. Of course, Trump’s grasp of geography is none too sure and his love of hyperbole is well known. The president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild Michael Solan actually outdid Trump in his geographical magnification of CHOP. Solan told Fox News, “This is the closest I’ve ever seen our country, let alone the city here, to becoming a lawless state.” The day after that on “Cavuto Live,” Solan said, “This could metastasize across the country.”

Solan need not have worried. There was—at that point—nothing going on in CHOP that would’ve upset his Aunt Bea.

The Guardian’s lead story on Friday, June 12^th provided the best description of it in its youthful exuberance:

The space has both a protest and street fair vibe, with a small garden, medic station, smoking area, and a “No Cop Co-op”, where people can get supplies and food at no cost. There’s also a trio of shrine-like areas filled with candles, flowers and images of George Floyd and many others who have been killed by police…

For days, the area has been filled with all manner of speeches, concerts and movie nights, including “13th,” the Ava DuVernay documentary about racial inequality

Protesters have described the site as a safe and peaceful place, where the vast majority of people wear masks to protect each other against coronavirus and offer whatever skills or supplies they have. On Wednesday, people could be seen handing out masks, hand sanitizers, snacks and water.

Designated smoking areas and movie nights aside, most of the description of the scene in CHOP made me think of the Sixties, especially of Woodstock in August of 1969. One statement of a CHOP protester in particular stood out. The protester, Dae Shik Kim Jr., said, “I think what we’re seeing in CHAZ (sic) is just a snippet of a reality that the people can have.” ^[1]

Kim’s words reminded me at once of something Mick Jagger said during the Rolling Stones tour of the States in the fall of 69 after Woodstock. Jagger was answering a question at a press conference not about Woodstock, but about a free concert the Stones had proposed to be held at the end of their tour. Of the concert, then still in its planning stages—‘planning’ is a misnomer—Jagger said, “It’s creating a sort of microcosmic society, you know, which sets an example to the rest of America…” Well, it did that.

That concert was Altamont, a name known by anyone who is a Stones fan or has some knowledge of the history of rock ‘n’ roll. When the Altamont concert is mentioned fifty years later terms like “disastrous,” “notorious” and “infamous” still precede it. Hells Angels were at the concert either hired or not hired to provide security. They sat on the edge of the stage with their bikes parked in front of them, and from almost the beginning began to scuffle with the part of the crowd of 300,000 closest to the low stage. Shortly musicians were also fighting with the Angels. Four people died at the concert, three by various misadventures. The fourth, a black man named Meredith Hunter, pulled out a pistol in a melee while the Stones were playing and was stabbed to death by a Hells Angel.^[2]

Woodstock and Altamont took place in an era of mass protests like CHOP, though neither as part of a mass protest as CHOP is—though they were not unrelated to the protests of that era by any means. They could be thought of as sort of contrapuntal events.

I went to mass demonstrations against the Viet Nam War in the late 60s and early 70s. I was then in my teens and lived in Seattle. The biggest demonstration was in 1970 after Kent State and Jackson State. The participants in the anti-war demonstrations reflected the various other causes that after 1967 were part of the anti-war movement, black civil rights, the Chicano movement, women’s rights, the environment—there were more—so that soon one spoke of The Movement whose goal was social change well beyond simply ending the Viet Nam War.

When Nixon campaigned for president in 1968, he said he had a “secret plan” to end the war in Viet Nam. The secret turned out to be that he shifted the war in Viet Nam from the ground to the air, thus reducing the number of ground troops—and casualties—and at the same time he replaced the draft with the lottery. The result was a large reduction the war casualties among American forces and also in the number of draftees. The net effect of these moves was seen by 1972.

The last mass demonstration I went to was in 1972 and it was the smallest. They had been growing smaller. Young white males, no longer threatened by the draft, stopped protesting. I remember one of speakers at that protest was a man named Roberto Maestas the leader of a Chicano group called, I think, La Raza. His speech was somber. Maestas began, “I’ve been coming to these demonstrations for years. The war is still going on and these demonstrations are getting smaller.” Then he talked about needing to find another way forward.

By 1974 no one any longer spoke of The Movement except in the past tense. Eventually we all found our several ways forward. By the Eighties Jerry Rubin of the Chicago Seven and Dennis Hopper of “Easy Rider” fame were Reagan supporters. And there followed the long domination of the right. We are still living with the way Nixon reshaped American politics.

CHOP is about half a mile from Swedish hospital where I was born. My sister lives now about twelve blocks southwest of CHOP. One of her two sons—the one who gets lost—lives a short walk north of it, the other a similar distance east of it. While they’re all sympathetic to the BLM protests both in Seattle and across the nation, CHOP seemed to them a more motley and less focused group than the larger mass of BLM protestors.

While all of the protesters agreed about the cause of Black Lives Matter, many people in CHOP brought with them many other causes that were not embraced by the larger mass of BLM protesters. There was also, more critically, a difference between the organization of the larger BLM protests and CHOP. Black civil rights groups and community groups provided some organization and cohesion to the larger protests—which was seen in how the initial instances of looting soon diminished. CHOP on the other hand really had no organization whatsoever. I read of a protester at CHOP saying its organization would grow “organically”—another Sixties buzzword that after 1972 was mostly used with regard to tomatoes.

Initially some of CHOP’s neighbors were enthusiastic. Lisa McCallister, a thirty-year-old case worker in Seattle who had attended the protests, described CHOP as “…amazing. It’s the retaking of a space that was covered in violence for no reason. They were teargassing and flash-banging at 12:30 at night for hours. And then to kind of completely retake this space with peace and love.”^[3]

The Woodstock peace and love ambience was to last twelve days at CHOP. It took four months for the Woodstock peace and love thing to crash to the ground at Altamont. But things happen faster these days.

The first week of CHOP’s existence my sister complained of the disruption even in her neighborhood. Her younger son visited CHOP and he told her, “It’s like a poorly organized street fair.”

But even before CHOP came into being there were bad signs of things to come. The first took place not in the neighborhood where CHOP would be located, but across Lake Washington in the wealthy suburb of Bellevue.

On May 31^st, somewhere between 1000 and 2000 people raced passed the security guards at the upscale suburban Bellevue Mall, smashed through plate glass doors and windows and looted the stores. Some of the looters had guns which they used to shoot out the windows of shops. While some headlines mistakenly linked it to the George Floyd protest, the event was nothing of the sort. Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett said that it was the work of gangs. He had evidence in the form of cellphone conversations that gangs, whose main line of business was drugs, coordinated and timed the raid so as to be camouflaged under the George Floyd protests. Mylett said, “I can’t emphasize enough how repulsive it is that people would take and exploit the homicide of George Floyd to further their criminal intention.”^[4]

Then in the week after the birth of CHOP, my sister’s youngest son heard on the street where he lives the sounds of intermittent gunfire for a few nights. Likely it was the sound of a gun or guns being fired in the air by someone who wanted to make his presence in the area known to those who lived there. But who would that be? The most likely suspects were either rightwing militia members or gang members. The gangs as we’ve seen had already exploited the general confusion for their own ends. At the same time that my nephew heard gunshots in his street at night, rightwing militias made their presence known.

On June 15^th and 16^th a probation officer in Portland, Oregon received calls that a man in her charge had been in Seattle in CHOP and the area around it—simply being of the Portland area was a violation of his probation. The man, Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, a resident of Vancouver, Washington across the Columbia River from Portland, was associated with the rightwing group the Proud Boys and had been convicted of 4^th degree assault for an incident in Portland in the summer of 2018. Video shot near CHOP surfaced showing Toese with a group of men getting out of an SUV and confronting a protester. Toese throws the man on the pavement and then Toese and his fellow thugs kick and beat him.

A few days later on the afternoon of Thursday June 18^th, a 37-year-old protester lured a 25-year-old deaf woman into his tent with a promise of free food and tried to rape her. A passing medic heard commotion in the tent, wrested the woman away from the man and got her out of his tent. After the medic got her out of the tent, the man tried to pull her back in.

Then, two days later on Saturday June 20^th, two men were shot in two different locations though both were in or near Cal Anderson Park that was part of CHOP. Some of the confusion was caught on City security cameras that monitor the park. When the police responded they were met by a crowd. The police said the crowd argued among themselves about letting them in. But finally would not let them get to the sites of the shootings.

Omari Salisbury, a freelance journalist, had shot video documenting CHOP from its beginning. His video shot in the early hours of Saturday morning shows a tumultuous scene as he describes how one of the victims was receiving CPR by CHOP volunteer medics. An article by Seattle Times journalist Mike Carter was based on Salisbury’s video and what Salisbury told him. The following is excerpted from Carter’s article:

Salisbury described a scene of “pandemonium” at the medic tent when one of the victims was being treated there, as the medics and others argued over whether they should call Medic One or transport the victims themselves. “There was a lot of confusion,” he says on the video. Salisbury said the CHOP area “emptied out pretty quickly” after the shooting. “The population got real small, real quick,” he said.

Former nurse Alex Bennett said she was walking her dog with a friend when a passerby told her about a shooting. She was leaving, she said, when she turned the corner at 11th Avenue and Pike Street and came across the second victim on the hood of a car, bleeding from a wound in his arm. Bennett said she used her sweatshirt as a tourniquet to try to stanch the bleeding and asked someone to call 911. When a volunteer CHOP medic came by with a first aid kit, Bennett said they examined the man and found another wound in his chest. The man’s skin was turning clammy and his breathing was shallow, she said, and when it became clear an ambulance wasn’t coming — or wouldn’t be there fast enough — she and others loaded him into a van and raced to the hospital, where a medical team was waiting outside. They found at least one wound on the man’s chest. Afterward, she said, she was questioned by a police officer, who she said “told me that when they responded to the first victim they were chased out of there, which is why they didn’t come for the second one.”^[5]

The hospital where the victims were taken was Harborview, about a five-minute drive from CHOP. How long it was exactly from the time the second victim with the chest wound was shot until the CHOP medics got him to Harborview is difficult to determine, but it seems it took at least twenty minutes. In any event, by the time he got to Harborview ER he’d lost too much blood to be saved and he died minutes later.

The next two nights there were two more shootings in or near CHOP. The victims were only wounded.

Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat dropped by CHOP on the 23^rd, the day after the last of the three shootings. Westneat wrote: “We can police ourselves!” a man was still insisting in one of the CHOP’s intersections on Tuesday when I stopped by. “The hell we can,” a woman responded under her breath.^[6]

Whether the perpetrators of the shootings on Saturday and Sunday were gang members or rightwing militia members is unknown. The first night June 20^th it appears there were actually two separate shootings that happened close together. The first victim of the first shooting, DeJuan Young, who was wounded, was shot by different people and a block away from where Lorenzo Anderson was shot and mortally wounded only minutes later. Young said his shooting was motivated by racism. “So basically I was shot by, I’m not sure if they’re Proud Boys or KKK,” said Young from his hospital bed. “But the verbiage that they said was hold this ‘N—–’and shot me.”^[7]

The end of CHOP seemed in sight. On Monday June 22^nd, Seattle Mayor Jennie Durkan said, “It’s time for people to go home.” To finally help CHOP go gentle into that good night, the mayor called for help from leaders of the black community in Seattle. Early the next morning June 23^rd, another man was shot and wounded near the northeast corner of Cal Anderson Park.

The next day, Wednesday June 24^th, a tweet from a group called “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest Solidarity Committee” said, “Few people remain in our beloved CHOP…The CHOP project is now concluded.” That same day some Capitol Hill residents and businesses filed a class-action suit against the City of Seattle for damages caused by CHOP. By Friday June 26^th, probably less than a hundred people remained in CHOP.

In the meantime, Seattle City Council member Sawant, a socialist and member of the Seattle City Council had issued a new demand. Of the homicide she said, “Our movement should demand and insist that the Seattle Police fully investigate this attack and be held accountable to bring the killer(s) to justice.”^[8] Since CHOP was a “police-free zone” the police would presumably in her view need to obtain a special dispensation from people in CHOP to conduct an investigation in it—and that might have to await the “organic” development of some organization. Once they have permission they will need to speed up their investigation before they are defunded. It begins look like “Duck Soup” with real bullets.

Over the weekend of June 27^th and 28^th, city crews began removing some of the “Jersey barriers” that the mayor had ordered set up when the occupation began, and the mayor announced the streets in CHOP would soon be reopened. But as soon as the crews removed the jersey barriers, protesters threw up new barriers made of more homely materials—sheets of plywood, trash cans and old sofas. Some of the press thought the City might somehow finally clear CHOP of the remaining protesters over the weekend, but it didn’t happen.

What did happen was that on Sunday June 28^th, hundreds of the protesters who had left CHOP gathered at Warren G. Magnuson Park on Lake Washington, and marched from there past the house where in 2017 a black woman, Charleena Lyles, called 911 to report a burglary and she ended up being shot dead by the two police who responded to her call. The two policemen claimed they found no evidence of a burglary and that Lyles suddenly turned on them with a kitchen knife. Lyles had a history of mental illness and that case is still under investigation. From there the protesters marched to the wealthy district called Windermere where Mayor Jenny Durkan lives. How they learned of Durkan’s address would become a sub-plot in the CHOP story since Durkan’s address is protected under the state confidentiality program because of her law enforcement background as a US attorney.

The next day Monday June 29^th in the early hours of the morning, there was yet another shooting in CHOP, the fourth and final one. This time the shooting apparently culminated in front of the still vacant police precinct building. Two young black men in a Jeep Cherokee were shot and were taken to Harborview Hospital where one man died. It seems that armed members of an Antifa group in CHOP shot them. There is video showing the vehicle driving wildly around in Cal Anderson Park and someone in it apparently shoots at people in the park or houses next to it. Then there is more video showing what are apparently the Antifa people running towards gunfire, possibly on 12^th Avenue where the precinct building is located, and someone can be heard to shout, “Anyone without a gun, hit the ground!” By the time the police reached the bullet-riddled vehicle, homicide detectives said it was clear the vehicle had been cleaned of evidence, presumably by the armed Antifa group.

The mayor’s patience with CHOP was inexplicable to some or written off as weak-kneed liberal appeasement by others. But my sister told me of rumors that the FBI told the mayor that they had an informant in CHOP, and, on the basis of what their informant told them, she should not do anything about CHOP because it was so disorganized and so many of its factions were at odds with one another that it would disintegrate all on its own.

The mayor’s call for help from black community leaders to help end CHOP seems significant. It points to a difference between some of the black leaders and many white protesters. At some point if all of the protests across the country are to become an organized political movement that can bring about real change, the white protesters who are not organized will need to follow the lead of black organizers and leaders.

Regarding all the chaos, the violence and deaths Kshama Sawant issued a Trump-like statement. She said the violence was due to capitalism. Therefore, she and the protesters at CHOP bore no responsibility.

It’s true that Seattle shows some of the most egregious features of capitalism per Marx. It is the city of Jeff Bezos’ global colossus Amazon and it is also a city where a full-time employee of the US Postal Service lives in a tent under a freeway ramp because she can no longer afford the lease on her apartment. But Sawant cannot blame capitalism for the naiveté of many in CHOP who were oblivious to the possibility that criminal gangs and rightwing militias might exploit their social experiment with fatal consequences, nor can she blame capitalism for the attempted rape of the deaf woman by one of her confederates. That they are still debating what to call themselves as CHOP was disintegrating and being dismantled speaks to how ill-suited most of the protesters were to organize anything. Even movie night. The first film they should have screened is the Maysles Brothers documentary “Gimme Shelter.” That might have given them pause. Or maybe not.

The police chief, Carmen Best, at a press conference in CHAZ on Monday June 29^th said, “Enough is enough.” Kshama Sawant has called for the mayor to resign or be impeached. Mayor Jenny Durkan has called on the Seattle City Council to investigate Sawant, noting the City Council may “punish or expel a member for disorderly or otherwise contemptuous behavior.”^[9] Durkan is said to suspect that it was Sawant who leaked her address to the protesters who marched to her residence Sunday. Durkan also wants Sawant investigated for letting protesters into City Hall when it was closed due to the pandemic and for encouraging the illegal occupation of the police precinct building.

On July 1^st, Seattle Police in riot gear cleared CHOP with the help of the Bellevue Police. At 4:58 am Mayor Durkan issued an order to clear the area. At 5 am the police entered CHOP and ordered everyone to leave within eight minutes or they would be arrested. They arrested at least 32 people. Policemen also reentered the precinct building though they did not move back in. City workers at the same time began to clear the last few barricades. Police also began investigating several vehicles without license plates that had been observed circling CHOP while the police were clearing it. The people in the vehicles had firearms and were wearing body armor.

That morning my sister flew to Palm Springs. There had been barely any police presence on her street the last few days. Junkies shoot up on her street now during the day, and the night before she left she could hear the shootings in CHOP. Last week a gang managed to distract the guard downstairs and break through all the high-tech security to get into the building where she lives. Residents can only use the elevator to go to the floor they live on, the business center, and the gym. The gang unlocked the apartment next to her and took everything, even the appliances.

My sister went to Palm Springs to look at a condo in a gated community. She and her husband who died last fall swore they would never live in a gated community. But she lives alone now and times have changed.’

Notes.

1) Kim’s remark and all the preceding excerpts are in the same article https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/11/chaz-seattle-autonomous-zone-police-protest For the sake of clarity with one or two exceptions I have changed CHAZ to CHOP in the quotes that follow. ↑

2) Mick Jagger, an intelligent man, no doubt regretted his fatuous words soon after the concert. Jagger is also filmed in the documentary watching the Maysles brothers edit the footage of the interview. To his credit he didn’t ask the Maysles to cut his foolish remark. ↑

3) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/11/chaz-seattle-autonomous-zone-police-protest ↑

4) https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/cellphone-video-leads-23-arrests-bellevue-square-mall-looting-frenzy/6YLITHLO4ZB5JIIUNLPHDZPBR4/ ↑

5) All of the following material is taken from an article written by a Seattle Times journalist, Mike Carter. I have altered the wording of his article in places. Where there are direct quotes, they are in Carter’s article which may be found at https://www.policeone.com/officer-safety/articles/seattle-police-release-video-of-response-to-autonomous-zone-shooting-that-left-one-dead-rc1XiwMtgt7T9vjk/ ↑

6) https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/the-irony-of-the-no-cop-chop-it-showed-how-much-we-still-need-the-police-after-all ↑

7) Horne, Deborah (June 23, 2020). “Man critically injured in CHOP shooting says he was the victim of a racial attack”. KIRO-TV Retrieved June 23, 2020. ↑

8) https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-council-member-kshama-sawant-calls-on-mayor-durkan-to-resign ↑

9) https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/durkan-asks-seattle-city-council-to-investigate-sawant-for-contemptuous-behavior/

IMF head urges pandemic response that tackles climate crisis



FILE PHOTO: IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva speaks during a news conference in Rabat, Morocco, February 20, 2020. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

GENEVA (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva urged policymakers on Wednesday to use their response to the coronavirus pandemic to tackle climate change.

“Looking ahead, policies should lay the foundation for a low-carbon, resilient recovery that would create millions of jobs while help address the climate crisis,” she told an International Labour Organization conference.

“We are especially concerned that the crisis will jeopardise the important development gains of the last years,” she added.

The IMF last month forecast a deeper global recession than initially anticipated. It now anticipates a global GDP contraction of 4.9% this year and a total output loss of $12 trillion through the end of 2021.

Singapore scientists seek power from darkness through shadow energy

THOSE ON THE LEFT HAND PATH WILL ENJOY THE IRONY OF THIS

Joseph Campbell

Dr. Swee Ching Tan uses a remote controlled vehicle to test the shadow effect generator device at a lab in the National University of Singapore June 26, 2020. REUTERS/Joseph Campbell

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Scientists in Singapore are hoping to perfect a new method of power generation driven largely by shadows, with the hope that it could one day help highly urbanised cities power themselves.

The shadow-effect energy generator (SEG) being developed by the National University of Singapore has the potential to harness power like solar cells, but without needing open spaces with uninterrupted light.

To work effectively, the SEG requires both light and dark and, like solar panels, relies on light to shine on silicon to energise electrons.

However, using panels that feature a thin layer of either gold, silver, platinum or tungsten, the difference in light intensity drives electrons from lit areas towards the shade, creating electricity in the shaded areas.

“Our shadow effect generator comes in handy. It can be placed in those areas to harvest obstructed light,” said research team leader Dr Swee Ching Tan.

The research is still in its early stages yet Tan’s team is already thinking about the potential of establishing a company to make SEG available for home use.

The panels the team have been testing are about 6 sq cm in size and capable of producing just 0.25 volts, meaning about 20 are needed to power a light bulb, or charge a cellphone.

The ideal environment for use would be cities, Tan said, with constantly shifting levels of light and shade throughout the day from clusters of tall buildings and the sun’s changing position in the sky.

“It’s not practical to place solar cells in such cities. So the device might come in handy in places like very densely populated cities, where skyscrapers are everywhere, where shadows are always persistent,” Tan said.

New OECD data sheds light on multinationals profit-shifting to cut taxes

PARIS (Reuters) - New country-by-country data on big multinational companies’ tax reporting indicates they tend to book profits in low tax financial hubs rather than where they really do much of their business, the OECD said on Wednesday.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said the data confirmed economists and tax experts long-held suspicions that multinationals were legally exploiting loopholes in international tax rules to park profits in low tax jurisdictions.
Multinationals with group revenues of at least $750 million have been required since 2016 to report income, profit and taxes for the countries in which they operate under an under an international push to shed light on the issue led by the OECD.

First insights from the trove of anonymised and aggregated data reveal a “misalignment between the location where profits are reported and the location where economic activities occur”, the OECD said.


On average multinationals’ operations in investment hubs report 25% of group profits but only 4% of employees and 11% of tangible assets.

SURPLUS VALUE 

The median value of revenue per employee in jurisdictions with no corporate income tax was $1.4 million, the report said.

      Meanwhile, the same value in places where            corporate income is taxed at less than 20%           was $240,000 and $370,000 where the tax rate        is more than 20%.

The OECD said the findings made it all the more important to complete negotiations among nearly 140 countries on a global minimum corporate tax rate, which are due to be wrapped up this year.

COVID-19 pandemic plunges working world into crisis: ILO

FILE PHOTO: Workers wearing face-masks travel through the Waterloo Station during the morning rush hour following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in London, Britain, July 6, 2020. REUTERS/Toby Melville

GENEVA (Reuters) - Global leaders called for a comprehensive approach to counter the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which International Labour Organization chief Guy Ryder said on Wednesday had plunged the world of work into “unprecedented crisis”.

“Let’s be clear: it’s not a choice between health or jobs and the economy. They are interlinked: we will either win on all fronts or fail on all fronts,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an ILO summit that will be addressed by dozens of heads of state and government via recorded messages.


World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the summit the world had a special duty to protect the millions of healthcare workers at the front line of the crisis and suffering increasing cases of infection and death.

“Together we have a duty to protect those who protect us,” he said.


The outlook for the global labour market in the second half of 2020 is “highly uncertain” and the forecast recovery will not be enough for employment to return to pre-pandemic levels this year, the ILO said last week.

The U.N. agency said the fall in global working hours was “significantly worse than previously estimated” in the first half of the year.

Criminals cash in on rush to buy coronavirus protective gear, U.N. says
VIENNA (Reuters) - A rush by countries to buy personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic has created an opportunity for criminal groups, which are peddling sub-standard equipment and likely to move on to medicines soon, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.

Criminals have adapted quickly, also running scams where no equipment is supplied at all, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in the report.

“COVID-19 has been the catalyst for a hitherto unseen global market for the trafficking of PPE. There is also some evidence of the trafficking of other forms of substandard and falsified medical products, but not to the same extent as PPE,” the report said.

It gave few specific examples of criminal groups supplying PPE but it said Argentina had placed under investigation an organisation making hand sanitizer, face masks and other PPE that was not authorised for distribution. It also cited a media report of counterfeit medical masks being produced in Turkey.


“Regional trends indicate that significant seizures of protective equipment, mostly substandard and falsified face masks and IVD (in vitro diagnostic) test kits for COVID-19, have occurred in the regions where the highest number of deaths and infections were first recorded: Asia, Europe and the Americas,” it said

As for scams where nothing was supplied, the UNODC said that in March “German health authorities contracted two sales companies in Switzerland and Germany to procure a consignment of face masks worth 15 million euros ($17 million) through a cloned website of an apparently legitimate company in Spain”.

It called for greater cooperation to close “gaps” in regulation and oversight.

“It can be expected that as a treatment becomes available and a vaccine to prevent contracting COVID-19 is identified, the focus will move away from PPE scams towards vaccine and treatment scams,” the report said.

Hong Kong bans protest anthem in schools as fears over freedoms intensify
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong authorities on Wednesday banned school students from singing of “Glory to Hong Kong”, the unofficial anthem of the pro-democracy protest movement, just hours after Beijing set up its new national security bureau in the Chinese-ruled city.

FILE PHOTO: Secondary school students form a human chain near a school campus to protest against a teacher's release over 'her political beliefs' as they said, in Hong Kong, China June 12, 2020. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

New security legislation imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing requires the Asian financial hub to “promote national security education in schools and universities and through social organisations, the media, the internet”.

The school anthem ban will further stoked concerns that new security laws will crush freedoms in China’s freest city, days after public libraries removed books by some prominent pro-democracy figures from their shelves.

Authorities also banned protest slogans as the new laws came into force last week.

The sweeping legislation that Beijing imposed on the former British colony punishes what China defines as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with up to life in prison.

Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung, responding to a question from a lawmaker, said students should not participate in class boycotts, chant slogans, form human chains or sing songs that contain political messages.

“The song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’, originated from the social incidents since June last year, contains strong political messages and is closely related to the social and political incidents, violence and illegal incidents that have lasted for months,” Yeung said. “Schools must not allow students to play, sing or broadcast it in schools.”

Earlier on Wednesday, China opened its new national security office, turning a hotel near a city-centre park that has been one of the most popular venues for pro-democracy protests into its new headquarters.

Both Hong Kong and Chinese government officials have said the new law is vital to plug gaping holes in national security defences exposed by the anti-government and anti-China protests that rocked the city in the past year.

They have argued the city failed to pass such laws by itself as required under its mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law.


Critics of the law see it as a tool to crush dissent, while supporters say it will bring stability to the city.

In a statement last month, China’s Hong Kong Liaison Office, Beijing’s top representative office in the city, blamed political groups “with ulterior motives” for “shocking chaos in Hong Kong education.

End of an era? Series of U.S. setbacks bodes ill for big oil, gas pipeline projects
Valerie Volcovici, Stephanie Kelly

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - A rapid-fire succession of setbacks for big energy pipelines in the United States this week has revealed an uncomfortable truth for the oil and gas industry: environmental activists and landowners opposed to projects have become good at blocking them in court.

FILE PHOTO: Police vehicles idle on the outskirts of the opposition camp against the Dakota Access oil pipeline near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S., February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester -/File Photo
The latest setbacks have increased the difficulty for developers of billions of dollars worth of pipeline projects in getting needed permits and community support. The oil industry says the pipelines are needed to expand oil and gas production and deliver it to fuel-hungry markets, but a rising chorus of critics argue they pose an unacceptable future risk to climate, air and water.

“Any company that is going to look to invest that kind of money into our infrastructure is really going to have to take a hard look,” said Craig Stevens, spokesman for Grow America’s Infrastructure Now, a coalition comprised mainly of chambers of commerce and energy associations.

The Trump administration has sought to accelerate permits and cut red tape for big-ticket energy projects such as the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. That effort has failed so far, and may even have made legal challenges easier, because rushed permitting paperwork has caught the eyes of judges.

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Dakota Access pipeline, the biggest duct moving oil out of the huge Bakken basin, to shut down and empty because the Army Corps of Engineers had failed to do an adequate environmental impact study. The same day, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked construction on the proposed Keystone XL line from Canada pending a deeper environmental review.

For years, both those pipelines have been targets of protests and lawsuits by climate, environment and indigenous rights activists.

On Sunday, Dominion Energy Inc (D.N) and Duke Energy Corp (DUK.N) decided to abandon the $8 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline, meant to move West Virginia natural gas to East Coast markets, after a long delay to clear legal roadblocks almost doubled its estimated cost.

“What we have been seeing in the last couple of weeks is a shift in the importance of communities and landowners — and their voices in this process,” said Greg Buppert, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which represented opponents of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

“Building energy infrastructure today is certainly more challenging than it was five, 10 or 15 years ago,” said Joan Dresken, chief counsel to the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.


U.S. oil and gas lobby group the American Petroleum Institute is concerned about the “chilling effect” the recent decisions will have on the industry and investor community, said Robin Rorick, API vice president of midstream and industry operations.

RECIPE FOR A SETBACK

The unifying factors in all these setbacks were a highly motivated opposition and shoddy regulatory paperwork, according to Josh Price, senior analyst of energy and utilities at Height Capital Markets.

He added that both factors were, ironically, enabled by President Donald Trump’s vocal efforts to boost the fossil fuels industries and downplay climate risks.

“You have environmental justice groups emboldened by the Trump administration’s stance on climate and really dedicating a lot of resources to halting projects through the courts,” Price said. “The second part in this dynamic is some of the hasty work being done at the permitting agencies in the Trump administration. We’ve seen this time and time again, this effort to streamline projects has backfired.”

A White House official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has said oil and gas jobs are important to the economy and that the industry can thrive without causing significant environmental damage.

Investors in future will likely favor projects that expand on existing infrastructure and already have in place rights of way and environmental permits, said Jay Hatfield, portfolio manager of the New York-based InfraCap MLP ETF, a fund with a focus on energy pipeline operators.

“There are possible expansion opportunities when you can’t do long-haul pipes... The cancellations of recent projects could make it more valuable to own those assets,” he said.


In the coming days, the Trump administration is expected to finalize an overhaul of the National Environmental Protection Act, a bedrock environmental law guiding environmental reviews for major projects. The revisions will likely set time limits for environmental assessments and limiting the scope of reviews.

Environmental activists oppose the overhaul, but also figure that if it goes ahead it will only formalize legal risks for big energy infrastructure projects.

“There is no path to building new major crude oil pipelines anymore,” said Jan Hasselman, the Earthjustice lawyer representing the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in its years-long battle to block Dakota Access.

Airbus workers stage protest over job cuts
TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) - Airbus (AIR.PA) workers began a brief strike on Wednesday over plans to cut up to 15,000 jobs in response to the coronavirus crisis, which has stripped demand for jets as airlines cope with a plunge in tourism and business travel. 

A protester wears a cap with Force Ouvriere (FO) Metaux signage during a demonstration outside the Airbus factory in Blagnac, near Toulouse, France July 8, 2020. REUTERS/Nacho Doce
Unions said up to 8,000 workers were expected to join the action scheduled to last 1.5 hours in Toulouse, France, where employees were preparing to march alongside one of the runways at Toulouse-Blagnac airport overlooked by Airbus headquarters.

The airport was due to remain open.

“Airbus has a real responsibility to get to grips with its restructuring which is excessive and gives a terrible example to suppliers,” said Jean-Francois Knepper, who represents the Force Ouvriere union.

In Germany, the IG Metall union urged Airbus to avoid forced redundancies at the planemaker or its Premium AEROTEC unit.

Unions have called a wider day of action in French plants on Thursday.

Asked to comment on the protests, Airbus referred back to a statement last week by CEO Guillaume Faury that it was facing the “gravest crisis this industry has ever experienced” and was committed to limiting the social impact of its reorganisation.

Airbus has said a third of the 15,000 jobs are set to go in France included 3,378 in the southwestern city of Toulouse where it assembles wide-body jets and some smaller A320s.


Europe’s largest aerospace group has historically enjoyed stable labour relations with its unions and strikes are rare. Workers staged a similar protest during a smaller restructuring exercise in 2008, when Airbus avoided compulsory layoffs.

Facing the industry’s worst crisis over the impact of worldwide lockdowns, Airbus has refused to rule out forced redundancies this time round but sketched out concessions in return for extensions in furlough schemes and research aid.

Backing anti-racism protests, renowned intellectuals lament intolerance 'on all sides'
Kanishka Singh
FILE PHOTO: A protestors holds up a sign during a Black Lives Matter march in London, Britain, June 28, 2020. REUTERS/Toby Melville

(Reuters) - More than 150 world renowned academics, writers and artists signed a letter published on Tuesday expressing support for global anti-racism protests while lamenting an “intolerant climate that has set in on all sides”.

American linguist and activist Noam Chomsky, veteran women’s rights campaigner Gloria Steinem, authors J.K. Rowling and Salman Rushdie, and journalist Fareed Zakaria were among the signatories.

The letter on “justice and open debate” was published by Harper’s Magazine and will appear in many leading global publications.

It supported ongoing demonstrations against police brutality and racial inequality that have spread from the United States across the world, following outrage over the death of an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while detaining him in Minneapolis on May 25.

However, the letter also said that the sentiments unleashed have hardened a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments to the detriment of open debate, and allowed ideological conformity to erode tolerance of differences.

“As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second”, the letter said, adding that resistance should not be allowed to “harden” into a brand of “dogma or coercion”.

Free exchange of information and ideas are becoming more constricted on a daily basis, the letter warned.

It said that censoriousness was spreading widely across the culture through public shaming, a tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a “blinding moral certainty” and an intolerance of opposing views.

“The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other”, the letter added.

Cannabis could prevent deadly lung condition linked to coronavirus, study claims
Researchers from the University of South Carolina claim that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the main active compound in cannabis, can reduce inflammation in the lungs

(Image: Getty Images)

Cannabis could help to prevent a deadly lung condition linked to coronavirus, a new study has claimed.

Researchers from the University of South Carolina claim that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the main active compound in cannabis, can reduce inflammation in the lungs known as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

ARDS occurs when the immune system releases cytokine proteins, which lead to inflammation of the lungs.

This condition affects three million people worldwide every year, with figures expected to be even higher amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The NHS explained: “Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a life-threatening condition where the lungs cannot provide the body's vital organs with enough oxygen.

Lung scan (stock image) (Image: Getty)

“It's usually a complication of a serious existing health condition. This means most people are already in hospital by the time they develop ARDS.”

In the study, the researchers tested the effects of THC on mice with ARDS.

They found that in 100% of cases, the THC stopped the inflammation in the lungs, by slowing the release of cytokine proteins.

How Counterinsurgency Tactics in the Middle East Found Their Way to American Cities

Many of the repressive police tactics and technologies used in the US have been developed in the Middle East to suppress dissent. Ending police violence at home must involve ending America’s wars abroad.
The Israeli Defence Forces in the Gaza Strip. (IDF via Getty Images)

BY ELYSE SEMERDJIAN  JACOBIN

A knee to the neck. A rubber bullet to the eye. A tear gas canister to the head. America spends $100 billion annually on policing, much of it supported by the exchange of material and counterinsurgency tactics used in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the “war on terror.” Raining down on American protesters in the current wave of protests, rubber bullets have a history stretching back to the British policing of Republican protesters in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, and the Israeli containment of Palestinians during the First Intifada in 1987. How have the military tactics and technologies used to suppress dissent in the Middle East found their way to America’s cities in the latest round of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests?

A Very Special Friendship

In May, protests erupted after the asphyxiation of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer — an extrajudicial execution for the alleged use of a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill at a convenience store. Mahmoud Abumayyaleh, the store owner who contacted the police about Floyd, is himself a Palestinian-American, but may not see the connection between his being Palestinian and the choke hold that took Floyd’s life.

In 2012, a hundred Minneapolis police officers received training from Israeli consultants in Chicago, while another counter-terrorism training session, cosponsored by the FBI, took place in Minneapolis. Israeli deputy consul Shahar Arieli commented on the training at the time, “Every year we are bringing top-notch professionals from the Israeli police to share some knowledge and know-how about how to deal with terrorism with our American friends.”


He conceded concerns that “law enforcement operations could violate civil rights,” speaking about a productive collaboration developing “terrorism prevention techniques.” That same year, the Minneapolis Police Department adopted those techniques — frequently used against Palestinians and protesters in the West Bank — and entered them into their use-of-force guidelines. In the last five years, Minneapolis officers have rendered forty-five people unconscious, including George Floyd.

The United States has long been Israel’s primary supplier of military weapons — a “special relationship” forged when the United States transported 2.2 million dollars of military assistance during the 1973 War. Over the decades, a complicated web of aid, military contracts, subsidies, and cash funds have been given to Israel.

More recently, the United States has promised 38 billion dollars over the next decade in military aid to Israel, with President Trump openly acknowledging that arms deals create jobs in the United States. Though it is not called economic stimulus, 100 percent of US aid is flushed back into Israel’s economy, and Israeli arms, in turn, are coveted in the global market because they have been field tested within the laboratory of human suffering called the West Bank and Gaza.

As Jeff Halper argues after September 11, the United States adopted Israel’s “security state” model where constitutional, civil, and human rights are subordinated to security imperatives. With security as the nation’s highest value, Israeli knowledge in policing terrorism, surveillance, behavioral science, profiling, torture, and maiming was transferred to various offices in the United States, among them the Department of Homeland Security, US marshals, police chiefs, Customs and Border Protection agents, the FBI, and the CIA.

At the time of this exchange, Israel was fighting a second Palestinian uprising, the Al-Aqsa Intifada. With the prevalence of civilian suicide bombers, Israel’s counterinsurgency focused on unarmed Palestinian and foreign protesters, as well as journalists resisting the army’s occupation tactics.

During this Second Intifada, a new practice known as “human shields” became military policy, whereby soldiers held the bodies of Palestinians as human armor in an act that left no doubt whose life was disposable in the logic of the occupation. Although Israeli courts made the practice illegal in 2005, it continues to be used in the Occupied Territories.

Because of the live rounds fired during the Second Intifada, Israel offered safety to “embedded journalists,” who would become mouthpieces for the Israeli military. The United States would borrow this policy for journalists a few years later in Iraq, using military law and disorder to undermine the democratic pillar of the free press.

As foreign peace activists and Palestinian protesters were shot with live sniper rounds during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel developed a sophisticated public-relations campaign to counter its global image, part of which included partnerships with US law enforcement.

An extensive 2018 report titled “Deadly Exchange: The Dangerous Consequences of American Law Enforcement Trainings in Israel,” compiled by Researching the American-Israeli Alliance, documents how Israel’s policing tactics were transferred to US personnel. Over 250 police departments have received training inside Israel.

Moreover, Israeli Weapons Industries established two police training centers inside the United States: a police academy in Paulden, Arizona, and the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) Center, in partnership with Georgia State University in Atlanta. The same university offers degrees to Israeli personnel as a part of these exchanges grounded in the integrated knowledge of counterinsurgency.

Atlanta, one of the great black American cities, created a video integration center modeled after one frequently showcased during a training session in the Old City of Jerusalem. Near Atlanta is GILEE’s predecessor, the School of the Americas, where ten former heads of state in Latin America honed their skills in torture and repression.

That Rayshard Brooks and George Floyd could be killed by police in the street means the rules of the occupation are at play on US soil. Procedurally, the knee to the neck and other choking restraints should only be used when an officer believes their life is in imminent danger.

A week ago, an officer in Bellevue, Washington, restrained an unidentified black woman who asked to speak with the sheriff. As he pushed her to the ground he said, “On the ground or I’ll put you out,” a threat to render her unconscious or possibly dead with his choke hold. What does it say when black people appealing for their legal and human rights are interpreted by the police as life threatening?

The “no knock” warrant that broke down Breonna Taylor’s door and enabled police to shoot her eight times is not only the police equivalent of a drive by shooting, it’s a paramilitary tactic. In 2016, when the Houston shooter was “neutralized” using a robot field-tested in Afghanistan, it marked the first “targeted assassination” of an American citizen. The United States condemned extrajudicial killings in the Occupied Territories before adopting it for use on suspected terrorists.

The hallmark of the “war on terror” was the presumption that any youthful, able-bodied male is a terrorist body. Fighting-age brown male bodies were “neutralized” by the person controlling the drone in Yemen and Afghanistan who, like the police knocking down Taylor’s door, serves as judge, jury, and executioner. In the “war on terror,” all military-aged men were not counted as civilian casualties.

The very presence of the living black body of the African American and the brown body of the Arab are a threat regardless of whether they are carrying a weapon or not, whether they are a criminal or not.
“Humane War” on Home Turf

The killing, maiming, and imprisonment of Palestinian bodies is today considered “worst practice” of the Israeli occupation. When these brutal tactics caused an international backlash during the First Intifada, Israel responded by “softening” its approach with the adoption of rubber bullets — much as the British Army was moved to adopt rubber bullets as an alternative after the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre caused so much bad publicity.

Today, there are more than seventy-five different types of “non-lethal” projectiles labeled rubber bullets. A beanbag round recently entered the skull of a sixteen-year-old protester in Austin causing the kind of injury that has maimed and killed Palestinian protesters for over three decades. While Austin has since banned beanbag rounds, the overall militarization of the American police has effectively Palestinianized dissent in the United States, bringing counterinsurgency tactics that both the United States and Israel have been using against Arabs onto home turf.


In a series of peaceful, unarmed border protests called “The Great March” in Gaza from 2018 to 2019, over 10,000 Palestinians were maimed by Israeli snipers with state-of-the-art scopes on their guns aimed for the knees. Weapons designed to inflict maximum damage without killing by using ammunition that mushrooms and expands within the body.

When we look only at death, we overlook lifelong disability caused by “less-lethal weapons.” This new frontier is called “humane war.” It’s goal is to kill less people while maiming for life. Jasbir Puar has documented how less lethal weapons produce disabled bodies that will be fed back into the capitalist medical industry to be rehabilitated for a profit.

In his prescient work, Rubber Bullets (1998), the late Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi argued that Israel’s choice to use the apparently nonlethal projectiles against Palestinians was a moral turning point that threatened liberal democracy by compromising its principles for the sake of extreme nationalism. Rubber bullets and knees on necks have similarly brought America to the precipice. How do we fight back against the normalization of militarized police violence in our cities and the threat it poses to democracy?

Ending America’s “forever wars” is a start. Activists must demand a ban on surplus materials and tactics training acquired by the police from Israel and US counterinsurgency abroad. The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions national committee issued a powerful statement of solidarity calling for support for BLM.

Such solidarity is built on an understanding that what is happening inside the United States, though not identical, is intimately connected to technologies of colonization and brutal policing overseas, in places like Palestine. Addressing the crisis at home, means looking toward the United States’s influence — and inspiration — abroad.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elyse Semerdjian is a professor of history at Whitman College and a community organizer for the Walla Walla chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Women attack Canadian Black Lives Matter protesters with hockey stick

By Kenneth Garger July 8, 2020 NYPOST/WINNIPEG SUN

Two women in Canada were filmed attacking protesters with a hockey stick at a Black and Indigenous Lives Matter rally on Saturday.

Winnipeg police said they are investigating the attack on a black man andn a indigenous woman at the protest outside the Manitoba Legislature grounds, according to the Winnipeg Sun.

One of the victims, Theo Landry, 29, said that he and his friend were targeted by the women in a car — one of whom was white — after he briefly laid down in the road.

“What transpired on July 4, I was saddened but not surprised,” he told the newspaper.

There were four people inside the car when it stopped and its occupants allegedly yelled racial slurs at Landry.

He told the paper that somebody inside said if he “continued to protest he would get hurt.”

Landry said after he and the woman got up and retreated to the other protesters, the car drove back towards them and he sprayed water on its windshield — prompting the car to stop.

That’s when a white woman exits, according to one video circulating online that purports to show the incident, and chases after Landry and his friend.

Landry said he was struck twice on the arm by the first woman.

Another video shows a second woman from inside the car taking the hockey stick and hitting Landry’s friend over the head with it. She suffered a laceration to the head, according to Landry.

The attack left Landry “a little sore the next day, but psychologically is where the biggest toll is taken,” he told the paper.

“To know that there are people who will resort to such anger over water is very disproportionate.”