The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Brian K. Noe

We Tortured People

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Today the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the Forward, Findings and Conclusions, and Executive Summary of their study on the Central Intelligence Agency’s “enhanced interrogation” program. Prior to its release, it has been a source of contention within the ruling class. The CIA actually was caught spying on the Senate Committee during the process of the investigation.

Here’s a link to the report.

Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program

For those who would like a three sentence summary, here it is.

We tortured people.

We lied about it.

The torture yielded no useful information.

The Assassination of Fred Hampton

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Today marks the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Fred Hampton by the Chicago Police. Five years ago, on the fortieth anniversary, Democracy Now aired a retrospective.

On December 4th, 1969, Chicago police raided Fred Hampton’s apartment, shot and killed him in his bed. He was just twenty-one years old. Black Panther leader Mark Clark was also killed in the raid.

While authorities claimed the Panthers had opened fire on the police who were there to serve a search warrant for weapons, evidence later emerged that told a very different story: that the FBI, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Chicago police conspired to assassinate Fred Hampton. Noam Chomsky has called Hampton’s killing “the gravest domestic crime of the Nixon administration.”

See the full report: “The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther” | Democracy Now!.

Order Versus Justice

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The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote these words from a jail cell.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Understanding Ferguson

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Here are some more links of interest concerning Ferguson.

The Language of the Unheard

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Here’s a quote, apropos of the day.

It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Speaking at Grosse Pointe High School on March 14, 1968

Articles That Caught My Eye Today

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“DOWN OUTRIGHT MURDER”: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE SHOOTING OF MICHAEL BROWN BY DARREN WILSON | Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept

A State-by-State Look at TANF | The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities

A generation jeopardized by obsession with testing | Wendy Lecker, The Stamford Advocate

WALL STREET IS TAKING OVER AMERICA’S PENSION PLANS | Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept

The war on giving | Jessica Hansen-Weaver, Socialist Worker

How Police Use Military Tactics to Quash Dissent | Aaron Cantú, Alternet

Wal-Mart’s Bottomless Greed: Dodging Billions in Taxes, Scheming to Avoid Billions More | Steven Rosenfeld, Alyssa Figueroa, Alternet

1% Rake In More Than Cost of All U.S. Social Programs

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According to a report highlighted on Alternet, each year since the recession, America’s richest 1% have made more than the cost of all U.S. social programs.

The numbers are nearly unfathomable. Depending on the estimate, the 1% took in anywhere from $2.3 trillion to $5.7 trillion per year.

Even the smaller estimate is more than the combined total budgets for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the entire safety net for SNAP, WIC, Child Nutrition, Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Housing.

Read more: 5 Facts About How America Is Rigged for a Massive Wealth Transfer to the Rich | Alternet.

Detroit Up For Grabs

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Jerry White of the Social Equality Party describes how Detroit is currently being carved up by the bankers in what will become a model for other American cities in decline.

Detroit, the former auto capital of the world, is in the final stages of a bankruptcy process that has from the start been a conspiracy of the banks against the city’s working class population. Closing arguments in federal bankruptcy court are scheduled to begin next week, a legal formality before the city’s brutal restructuring plan is approved by the judge.

The so-called “Plan of Adjustment” will gut the pensions and health benefits of more than 30,000 current and retired city workers, sanction the sell-off of public assets, and provide a legal fig leaf for the termination of water and other vital services to entire working class neighborhoods.

Last week, some 200 investment bankers from throughout the US gathered at the Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance at the University of Michigan to discuss the business opportunities emerging from the carve-up of Detroit.

Read more: The carve-up of Detroit – World Socialist Web Site.

Stanley Aronowitz on a Post-Political Labor Movement

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In These Times has an interview with Stanley Aronowitz on how the labor movement falters and how it might recover.

Post-political means that the union movement may endorse candidates or run its own, but essentially does not rely on electoral politics and public officials—that is, the state—to fulfill its goals. Instead, unions should rely on their own resources, on their own members and on their own imaginations to create conditions to make their members’ lives better, in the way that unions, especially in the early-to-mid-20th century, once established and ran very good, moderate-cost cooperative housing.We’ve been relying for so long on politicians to solve problems that the union membership no longer really relies on its own power. The proper word is really “post-electoral” or “post-state,” and it once had a tremendous resonance among large numbers of workers.

Read the interview: A ‘Post-Political’ Labor Movement – In These Times.