abu ghraib

click here if you still support our government.

robin, can i have one of your wellbutrins...


Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beginning in 2004, accounts of abuse, torture, sodomy[1] and homicide[2] of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (also known as Baghdad Correctional Facility) came to public attention. The acts were committed by some personnel of the 372nd Military Police Company of the United States, and possibly additional American governmental agencies.[3]

As revealed by the 2004 Taguba Report, a criminal investigation by the US Army Criminal Investigation Command had already been underway since 2003 where multiple recruits from the 320th MP Battalion had been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with prisoner abuse. In 2004 articles of the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel abusing prisoners, came to public attention, when a 60 Minutes II news report (April 28) and an article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue) reported the story.[4] Janis Karpinski, the commander of Abu Ghraib, demoted for her lack of oversight regarding the abuse, estimated later that 90% of detainees in the prison were innocent.[5]


A man claiming to be Satar Jabar standing on a box with wires connected to his body.
Lynndie England and Charles Graner posing with prisoners ordered to form human pyramidThe U.S. Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and seven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and September 2005, seven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to federal prison time, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner, and his former fiancée, Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005. The commanding officer at the prison, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, was demoted to the rank of Colonel on May 5, 2005. Col. Karpinski has denied knowledge of the abuses claiming that the interrogations were authorized by her superiors and performed by subcontractors, and that she was not even allowed entry into the interrogation rooms.

The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib was in part the reason that on April 12, 2006, the United States Army activated the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion, the first of four joint interrogation battalions.[6]

blue uniforms=adult children

perhaps this poor lady should have done her homework before deciding she wanted to be a wonderful member of 'those who uphold the law'...
from the portland mercury website:


The Thick Blue Line—Portland Cop Fired For “Snitching?”
Posted by Matt Davis on Wed, Feb 27 at 8:25 PM
A former Portland cop plans to sue the city over allegations she was terminated in retaliation for “snitching” on an officer who was supposed to be training her.

The former cop is making potentially explosive allegations against a specific officer, but more worryingly, she describes a culture of silence permeating the bureau’s culture as a whole.
SERPICO: 1973 movie about a cop ratting out his fellow officers…

Lawyers for former probationary Officer Lyndsay Hunt filed a tort claim with the city last October saying Hunt plans to sue for violations of the Oregon Whistleblower Law, ORS 659A.203, and gender discrimination law. To avoid a lawsuit they have given the city a deadline of Friday, February 29 to settle out of court.

Hunt was hired as a Portland cop on July 27, 2006, and had been on the force for approximately one year when the alleged events occurred, according to her tort claim—which the Mercury obtained this afternoon from the city’s Office of Management and Finance under the freedom of information act.

On May 23, 2007, Hunt was assigned to Northeast Precinct under a new training coach, Officer Quency Ho, after completing Portland’s 16 week “Advanced Academy” training.

New cops in Portland go through 13 weeks of state training in Salem before hitting the streets for three months with a coach. Hunt had successfully completed three months’ coaching with Officer Leslie Pintarich between October 2006 and January 2007, before completing four months of advanced academy and arriving in NE precinct with Ho.

Hunt alleges that on May 24, 2007, she and Ho responded to a call regarding a potential altercation at a residence in the area of 60th and Sandy Boulevard. Another officer was on the scene, and took the lead in talking to the neighbors who called the police, as well as to the suspect who was alone in his ground floor apartment watching television.

Based on his conversations with the neighbors and with the cooperative suspect, the other officer found a lack of probable cause and thanked the suspect for his time, according to the tort claim.

“After the suspect shut his door,” the claim continues, “Offer Ho began trying to kick the door down. Ms.Hunt stopped Officer Ho. Officer Ho then drew his firearm and walked to the side of the apartment to an open window, and pointing his gun at the suspect, demanded he unlock the front door.”

“As the suspect began unlocking the front door, Officer Ho forced upon the door and attacked the suspect, slamming him against the wall and putting him in a choke hold,” the tort claim continues. “After roughing him up for a while, Officer Ho left. There was no legal basis for this action. Ms.Hunt demanded that Officer Ho stop his illegal activity but was ignored.”

The other officer, Officer Thoman, is alleged to have remained at the scene during the entire incident, but did not enter the apartment with Officer Ho.

“Despite Ms.Hunt’s plea that Officer Ho refrain from needlessly beating up civilians and that Officer Ho, at the very least, needed to fill out a use of force report for drawing a firearm, Officer Ho responded, ‘If no one finds out, we won’t get caught. Look the other way’,” the claim continues. “Ms.Hunt was stunned by Officer Ho telling her to keep quiet about the incident.” More after the jump…

The tort claim also alleges Officer Ho refused to let Hunt hand in an accurate police report that contradicted his own “false account of the events” at another call, the following day.

Responding to a call about a suspect armed with a knife and an possible victim in a parking lot at 915 NE Schuyler, Hunt and Ho found the suspect there with his knife still extended, the claim alleges. Numerous witnesses were present, but the alleged victim had fled, leaving a bicycle behind. Hunt apprehended the knife-wielding suspect and handcuffed him, but Ho intervened.

“Since there’s no victim, there’s no crime,” Ho is alleged to have told Hunt, before telling her to leave the bicycle at the scene, and asking one of the witnesses to dispose of the knife. On returning to the station, he is alleged to have handed in the false report.

The tort claim makes several other allegations about Officer Ho, including that he took goods several times without payment from the 7-11 at NE Weidler and 3rd, and told Hunt to do the same. He is also alleged to have told Hunt she was not “manly” enough, and to have criticised her manner in dealing with one suspect, saying, “you’ve got to leave those girl emotions on the side. You’ve got to play like a boy out here.”

Ho is also alleged to have said: “It’s a boy’s world and this is a boy’s club. You’ve got to act like a boy if you’re going to survive.”

Hunt reported her concerns to the cops’ training division on Friday May 26, 2007. Sergeant Parman, a supervisor in the department, and Field Training coordinators Bill Hubner and Joe Schilling, are alleged to have responded that they “knew there was a recurring problem in Northeast Precinct because a disproportionate number of female officers either quit or were fired very soon after joining the Precinct.”

Hunt was told by Officers Hubner and Schilling to “look the other way” as to what she saw, and was told “you can have all the integrity you want in six months when you are no longer on probationary status if you keep your mouth shut,” according to the tort claim.

Hunt was then allegedly told by Hubner that she was no longer physically safe and that if she ever needed backup, no Portland Police Officer would respond for her because she was a “snitch.” Hubner allegedly told Hunt, “you started a rebellion in Northeast precinct.”

As a result, Hunt was transferred to Central Precinct on May 30, 2007. But she alleges Officer Schilling did not disagree when she told him she believed she would not be safe there either, and that he told her to turn in her badge, guns, and uniforms, and to fill out resignation paperwork to “make things official.”

Hunt alleges she was contacted by Sergeant Brumfield and Captain Hendricks, who reiterated that they hoped she would return to the force, but that to do so she would need to “look the other way” until she was no longer on probationary status.

Following Hunt’s alleged termination, her reputation as a “snitch” is alleged to have spread quickly through the police bureau because of defamatory statements made by cops, and in particular in an article in the July 2007 issue of the cop paper, the Rap Sheet.

“The article defamed Ms.Hunt, misrepresented the facts surrounding her dismissal and portrayed her in a false and negative light,” reads the tort claim.

The article, by Officer John Brogan, does not refer to Hunt by name, but alleges “a trainee at Northeast Precinct recently quit after only 3 or 4 days with her coach.” Her reasons, described by Brogan, included “such things as her coach didn’t wear his seatbelt, drove with his lights off (while looking for prowlers) and accepted a free coke from a 7-11.”

“She was clearly looking for an excuse to quit,” Brogan wrote.

Hunt’s attorney, Matthew Ellis at Kell Alterman & Runstein, has declined comment on the tort claim or on the contents of the Rap Sheet article. But police oversight activists are concerned.

“It doesn’t surprise me that there is some form of corruption in the police bureau and that officers who try to expose that corruption are told that they have to go along with it,” says Dan Handelman of activist group Portland Copwatch. “If what Ms.Hunt is alleging is true, then it’s clear that officers are not encouraged to blow the whistle, and in fact, that it is dangerous for them to do so.”

“I am surprised at the extent of the behavior she alleges—particularly the officer busting back into an apartment that another officer had cleared to point a gun at the suspect and rough him up, and then saying they weren’t going to write a report,” Handelman continues. “If that is a true allegation, then there is a serious culture of silence that needs to be addressed.”

It is against the police bureau’s policy to comment on pending litigation.

www.treesit.blogspot.com

Road Kill: New Highway Blocked By Protesting “Raccoons”
author: Zoe Blunt e-mail: treesit@gmail.com
The Raccoons are a ragtag mob of irregulars holding back a major highway interchange project designed to service Bear Mountain, a sprawling golf resort in Langford, just west of Victoria B.C. A few dozen dumpster-diving, trash-talking, anti-authoritarians with a passion for undisturbed natural places have built a camp in the path of the new highway. Visitors are welcome! Check the map at http://treesit.blogspot.com
The barricade at the end of the road is decorated with freshly-planted poinsettias in a mound of earth. Yellow plastic sunflowers, two graffitied TV sets and an oversize truck tire line a meter-wide trench just past the pavement's end. They mark the boundary between the city of Langford and a protest camp occupied by feral humans.

These environmentalists bear no resemblance to the throngs of sandal-wearing, long-haired, peacenik hippy tree huggers seen at Clayoquot Sound in the 1990's and more recently at Eagleridge Bluffs in West Vancouver. Vancouver Island is home to a whole new breed of forest defenders: the Raccoons.

The Raccoons are a ragtag mob of irregulars holding back a major highway interchange project designed to service Bear Mountain, a sprawling golf resort in Langford, just west of Victoria. A few dozen dumpster-diving, trash-talking, anti-authoritarians with a passion for undisturbed natural places have built a camp in the path of the new highway. The proposed interchange cuts through a pocket of forest packed with natural and cultural rarities: a sacred First Nations cave, a seasonal pond, garry oak meadows, arbutus bluffs, red-legged frogs and chocolate lilies.

Right now the Bear Mountain Tree Sit looks like a gloomy, swampy hobo camp, dotted with tents, tree forts at dizzying heights overhead, and a giant teepee covered with tarps. "A tarp-ee," notes one of the campers.

"This is the only example of eco-anarchist action in Canada right now," says Ingmar Lee, a Victoria environmentalist and camp supporter. "This is the grassroots, and it's a totally different kind of protest."

"Just because you fell and died,
Doesn't mean you didn't fly."
- graffiti on a tree platform 30 meters up

Almost all the campers and visitors are under 25, and some are veterans of the Cathedral Grove treesit protest, which lasted two years and ultimately defeated a BC Parks plan to cut down giant trees to build a parking lot. Here, the first platform went up in April. Five more followed, and they are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Kicking the protest camp off public property is a sticky legal issue, and so far no one has moved to start a court case. But Stewart Young, the gung-ho pro-development mayor of Langford, is ramping up his criticism. The mayor's rumblings peaked with Young accusing the campers of poaching deer and rabbits at the site.

Young said bylaw officers found a deer carcass near the camp in the woods. "We've respected their right to protest, but killing deer and rabbits is absolutely disgusting," Young told the Goldstream News Gazette in December. The city directed the RCMP and conservation officers to investigate and lay charges if they find out who is responsible. No one has been charged.

Two neighbours who live adjacent to the forest said it's not the campers who are killing animals. "There's been poaching in this area for decades," said an elderly neighbour on Goldstream Avenue who declined to give his name.

"We've called the conservation officers about deer carcasses a couple times a year ever since I've lived here," said Ron Rayner, a long-time resident who lives just north of the camp and the TransCanada Highway. "It's an ongoing problem."

Langford resident Bob Partridge is "skeptical" about the mayor's claims. He writes, "[J]ust now, as construction is supposed to begin on the Spencer Road Interchange, the protesters/activists who have previously been requesting donations of whole grains, have apparently suddenly become carnivores, slaughtering innocent animals in the woods of Langford?"

"Are we certain they are also not sleeping on duvets stuffed with spotted owl feathers?" Partridge asked sarcastically.

Some of the campers admit they eat deer, rabbits and even raccoons - but they insist they are not hunting . The meat is road kill collected from the TransCanada Highway, one tree sitter told A Channel News. Another pointed out the hypocrisy of building a highway that will mangle more animals, while simultaneously trying to cast the environmentalists as bunny killers. A third wondered aloud if Stewart Young was vegan.

RCMP and bylaw enforcement officers tell us the Raccoons are "guests of the city of Langford," and they even allow them to have a campfire without a permit. Back in April, Young huffed to reporters, "They are on provincial land right now and it's going to be a year or so before we get to the point of having to go there, so they can sit there as long as they want," The protestors took him at his word and set up a kitchen, where they cook raccoon stew, venison steaks, and bunny burgers.

No doubt the tree sit gives Young a royal pain in the ass, but the blustery mayor has bigger fish to fry. Langford City Council, in a "special" meeting convened two days after Christmas, made the unusual move of adopting two new bylaws, rather than just giving them first reading. One bylaw authorizes borrowing $25 million to build the interchange, while the second exempts the process from the usual counter-petition process, which gives citizens the right to challenge a decision.

The community's response is a roar of outrage. Many residents of Langford, it seems, are more irate about the apparent abuse of process than about the imminent loss of green space, wetlands, and rare species. Dozens of volunteers are joining forces to canvass the city with a (non-binding) petition to reject the bylaws.

Steven Hurdle of Langford is organizing the petition drive. "While Langford may have found a legal loophole in declaring the interchange a 'Local Service Area' to let them avoid the referendum, we can still win the political war," he writes. "Langford council might find this an albatross that's unexpectedly hanging around their neck as this issue drags on."

Back at the camp, tree sitters and visitors are critiquing the City of Langford's annual levy tour. Every New Year's, politicos across the region open up their offices to the public, with free booze and food for all.

Well, not quite all. "They only had bag lunches for like 25 people," one complains. "I got there at the end and there was no more food. So I took all the tea bags that were left."

Another camper pipes up, "That punch was weak."
"Yeah, the punch was watered down, so we had to drink more of it to get a buzz."
"Yeah, that's why we brought our own cups. We did it up proper with the cups."
"We asked if we could take their poinsettias with us, but they said no. Then after a while, they gave us the poinsettias so that we would leave."

what are u doing for valentines?

spending time with your loved ones?
i will be too...im bringing my two furry poms to this:
saturday, feb 9..
10 am
1137 SE Yamhill
shut down ungar furs
if u need another reason:::::
Nicholas Ungar Furs to Pay Fine of $40,000
author: IDA reposted by beagle
Resulting in a tip to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife by In Defense of Animals, Nicholas Unger Furs is fined for at least $40,000 for selling coats and other items made from pelts of endangered or banned species.
www.furkills.com
www.furisdead.org


speaking of that...
also from the indymedia site...
Final nail in Shumacher's coffin
author: Uma Spay
Shumachers have been ordered to pay a total of 97grand to those they accused of driving them out of their blood stained business.
A federal judge has ordered Schumacher's furriers to pay nearly $97,000 in legal fees to the animal-rights protesters he has accused of destroying his family business.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ordered Gregg Schumacher and Schumacher Furs & Outerwear to cover $43,186 in legal fees to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; $34,735 to In Defense of Animals; and $18,950 to protester Kevin Mieras, court records show.

Schumacher and his wife Linda sued animal-rights protesters for a relentless campaign of Saturday protests that the couple maintains stepped over the bounds of free speech into crimes and violations of city ordinances.

But Mosman threw out such claims in a series of rulings last year. This week, he signed an order compelling the Schumachers to pay the protesters' legal fees in the case.

In his order, Mosman called the facts of the case "extraordinary" but said the Schumachers had abused the legal process.

"Although the (Schumachers) may have had meritorious claims against people whose names they did not know, or even against the City of Portland," Mosman wrote, "they sued people against whom they had no evidence for $6.6 million, sought to restrict their First Amendment rights, and disparaged their reputations with accusations of criminal conduct, terrorist affiliations and responsibility for 'shutting down' a business whose financial solvency was questionable before the protesting activities began."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, one of the nation's most influential animal-rights organizations, hailed the decision.

"The court's decision is a victory for the First Amendment -- and for animals, who rely on groups like PETA to convey their pain and protest their slaughter for fur," the organization's legal counsel, Bonnie Robson said in a prepared statement released Friday.

"The judge stopped the Schumachers' scheme to silence anti-fur critics and ordered the furriers to pay PETA's attorney fees."

paul newman is a huge dork.

dateline last night and my a.d.d. caught a story about paul newman's farm, empire, etc. they shot the whole thing from an angle that he usues organic farming and creates charities therefore the paul newman empire is good for the planet. he credited his knowledge of organics to his daughter. too bad mr. newman no one taught you about sustainability and local product! you are one of the single largest companies at 250 billion dollars who produce food and you want to call it eco concious because you ship all over the world to hungry yuppies who snatch up your expensive shit because its called healthy and has your stupid face on every bottle? how many bottles is that exactly? i'll tell you how many mr. newman. its more than your ONE STUPID little tiny farmers market can equal out. it will squash local healthy sustainable foods out like little bugs in a giant insect light! you suck mr. newman! you are a greedy bastard. i hate your stupid empire and your fake 'interest' in organics. you only like it because it appeals to stupid yuppies, aka rich idiots. i hope your dressing keeps your salad crisp in hell.

punk illegal manifesto

NO ONE IS ILLEGAL!

For a world without borders! No immigration controls!

DEFEND THE OUTLAW!

Immigration controls should be abolished. People should not be deemed 'illegal' because they have fallen foul of an increasingly brutal and repressive system of controls. Why is immigration law different from all other law? Under all other laws it is the act that is illegal, but under immigration law it is the person who is illegal. Those subject to immigration control are dehumanized, are reduced to non-persons, are nobodies. They are the modern outlaw. Like their medieval counterpart they exist outside of the law and outside of the law's protection. Opposition to immigration controls requires defending all immigration outlaws.

BEWARE THE FASCIST! UNDERSTAND THE ENEMY!

Immigration controls are not fascism. Detention centres are not extermination camps. However immigration laws are different from other laws in one other significant way. They are the result, at least in part, of organised fascist activity. This country's first controls were contained in the 1905 Aliens Act and were directed at Jewish refugees fleeing anti-semitism in Eastern Europe and Russia. A major, perhaps the major, reason for the implementation of this legislation was the agitation of the British Brothers League. This was a proto fascistic organization which was formed in 1901 specifically around the demand for controls, which organized major demonstrations in London's East End and which can legitimately be viewed as the main force behind the legislation. The first controls directed against black people — the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act — quickly followed events in Notting Hill and Nottingham in 1958. These were the so-called "race riots" — so-called to give a spurious impression of both spontaneity and non-political street fighting. The reality was that these physical and political attacks on black people were engineered by explicitly fascist organizations such as Oswald Moseley's Union Movement and Colin Jordan's White Defence League. And these organizations had a specific demand — immigration controls. Fascist front organizations such as the British Immigration Control Association subsequently continued the agitation until legislation was enacted. Oswald Mosley himself was quoted in the left-wing Reynolds News (5/11/61) as claiming the Bill leading to the 1962 Act was the "first success" for fascist activity in this country.

Immigration laws are inherently racist, since their purpose is to exclude outsiders. And they feed and legitimise racism. Far from being a natural feature of the political landscape, they are a relatively recent and disastrous distortion of it, explicable only by racism. This, together with the fascist origins of such laws, renders problematic the notion of "reform", as opposed to abolition, of immigration controls.

IMMIGRATION CONTROLS ARE MORE THAN THEY SEEM

Immigration controls deny people's right to freedom of movement and the right to decide for themselves where they wish to live and to work. They also deny people access to rights such as the right to work and the right to social and legal protections enjoyed by some of the current inhabitants of the place to which they migrate. In the process they cause intolerable suffering to many people. The sole purpose of this suffering is to deter others who might come to this country to claim asylum, to work or to join family here. People are thus punished not for anything they have themselves done, but for what others might do in the future.

Controls are not simply about exclusion and deportation. They are a total system. A system of extremes of pain and misery. They are international in the sense that virtually all countries, particularly all industrial countries, use controls. They are also international in the way the old British Empire was international. British Embassies, British High Commissions, British Consulates encircle the globe denying visas or entry clearance to the unchosen. A vast edifice of repression is built to prevent the movement of people. Those who attempt to flee wars and repression, or to improve their situation through migration, are forced to resort to buying false papers from agents or, worse, to travel clandestinely, again usually with the help of often unscrupulous agents. In the process many of them suffer great hardship, and thousands die. The answer is not to abolish agents, unscrupulous or otherwise. It is to abolish the controls on which the agents, the pain and the misery breed.

Controls are also internal to the modern state and in particular to the modern British state. They require the expansion of repressive and violent activities such as surveillance, security, prisons and policing, changes which threaten to permeate society as a whole. The deaths of Joy Gardner and others at the hands of immigration officers are a portent for the future.

Immigration officers have become part of what Karl Marx's colleague Frederick Engels described as 'the armed bodies of men' who constitute the state. Under immigration laws around 2,000 immigrants and asylum seekers who have not been charged with any crime, including children, babies and pregnant women, are locked up without trial, without time limit, and with minimal access to bail. Asylum seekers who are not detained are no longer allowed to work. Since 1996 employers have become an extension of the immigration service, responsible for the immigration status of their workers and liable to criminal sanction for employing undocumented workers. Over the last two decades entitlement to most welfare state benefits and provision has to some extent or another become linked to immigration status. Those without the required status go without. They are excluded from virtually all non-contributory benefits, child benefit, social housing and homelessness accommodation, in-patient hospital treatment, significant areas of community care legislation relating to the destitute, the sick, the elderly and the otherwise vulnerable, protection under child care legislation, state education provision in prisons and detention centres and in the proposed new accommodation centres. So much for the idea that those coming from overseas obtain priority treatment! Instead since 1999 asylum seekers from overseas have been deliberately transformed into an under-class subject to a regime that is the direct copy of the nineteenth century poor law. Like the poor law there is maintenance below subsistence level (seventy per cent of income support). Like the poor law there is forced dispersal into accommodation over which those dispersed have no choice. Under legislation introduced in 2002 many asylum seekers are no longer to have even this miserable entitlement, neither supported by the state nor allowed to work.

Immigration controls are not only about refugees. This is just the latest government myth. Migrants and immigrants — those coming to work and those wanting to join family here — along with visitors and students are all equally subject to controls along with refugees. Except unlike refugees they are not even entitled to the fake safety net of the poor law. History is important. It is the immigrant communities, especially of the Indian sub-continent and the Caribbean, who from the 1970s launched a direct attack on immigration control by organizing around campaigns against deportations and for family reunion. It is these campaigns which laid the foundations for the present movement in defence of refugees.

CAN THERE BE NON-RACIST OR FAIR CONTROLS?

Immigration controls are racist. The first post-war controls, contained in the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, were directed at black people. However all those subject to immigration control are not black. Within the last decade there has emerged or re-emerged a racism against those from Eastern Europe often combined with an anti-Islamic racism which ensures controls are directed against all those from Bosnians to Serbs to the Roma to the nationalities of the new Russian empire. There is nothing new about this. The first immigration controls, contained in the 1905 Aliens Act, were imposed against refugees — Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe and Tsarist Russia. Controls were again imposed on Jews attempting to escape Nazism. In short the first half of the twentieth century was about controls against Jews, the second half about controls against black people and the last decade has been about controls against anyone fleeing war, poverty or mayhem or anyone wanting to join family here.

Today there exists, however fragmented, a movement against immigration control — a movement which challenges deportations, which opposes detention centres, which offers solidarity to refugees. The great strength of this movement is that it has united and formed a coalition between liberals and socialists, between reformists who don't challenge controls on principle and socialists who are opposed to all controls — and who argue no-one is illegal. The greatest weakness of this movement is that on the level of ideas liberalism dominates. Many of those critical of controls believe that such controls can somehow be sanitized, be rendered fair, be made non-racist. Even socialists are sometimes reluctant to raise the demand for the abolition of all immigration controls or to take this demand to its logical conclusions, in case this alienates potential allies against the abuses that follow from them. The result is that the argument against controls is simply not presented. Many people, perhaps most fair-minded people, if they are presented with the case, do agree that in principle immigration controls are wrong, but may also believe that to argue for their abolition is unrealistic.

But ideas matter and so too does the struggle for ideas. Wrong ideas can at best lead to confusion and dead-ends and at worst collusion with the present system. It is our position — a position which denies anyone is illegal, a position that is for a world without borders — that immigration restrictions can never be rendered fair or non-racist. This is for the following reasons. First controls are inherently racist in that they are based on the crudest of all nationalisms — namely the assertion that the British have a franchise on Britain. Second they are only explicable by racism. Their imposition is a result of and is a victory for racist, proto-fascist and actual fascist organizations. It is impossible to see how legislation brought into being by such means, legislation accompanied by the most vile racist imagery and assumptions, can ever be reconfigured and rendered "fair". Third the demand for "fair" controls simply ignores the link between immigration controls and welfare entitlements. This link is itself intrinsically unfair — and racist. Finally controls can never be "fair" to those who remain subject to them.

The demand for no controls — based on the assertion that no one is illegal — is frequently derided as utopian and is compared adversely to the "realism" of arguing for fair controls. However this stands political reality on its head. The struggle against the totality of controls is certainly uphill — it may well require a revolution. However the achievement of fair immigration restrictions — that is the transformation of immigration controls into their opposite — would require a miracle.

MORE PROBLEMS WITH ARGUMENTS FOR REFORMS.

The proclamation, our proclamation, that No One Is Illegal means what it says — it does not mean some people are not illegal or only some people are legal. The demand for no controls means no collusion with either the arguments for controls or with controls themselves. However controls have become so politically legitimised over the relatively short period of their existence that it has become all too easy to accept their existence whilst simultaneously opposing them. Here are some examples of what we are arguing against — deliberately difficult and we hope provocative examples:

First we are absolutely and unconditionally in favour of campaigns against deportation. However we are critical of the emphasis given to so-called "compassionate" grounds — in particular the re-occurring themes of sickness, age, vulnerability of children, violence towards women and destruction of family relationships. Of course we accept that these issues have to be presented, and presented forcibly, to the Home Office in private as part of any legal argument. The present balance of power — with the Home Office having most of the power — requires this presentation. However this does not require campaigns against deportation to construct themselves politically and publicly around such compassionate grounds. What this does is make a distinction between the "worthy" and the "unworthy" — between those with compassionate grounds and those without. It legitimizes the racist-inspired obligation that people feel to justify their presence here. In doing this it transforms what is normally undesirable — for instance ill health — into something highly desirable in order to try to remain here. Under the guise of gaining support on humanitarian grounds it actually dehumanizes individuals, and denies them their dignity, by reducing them to the sum total of their disabilities and vulnerabilities. It creates a competition between those subject to immigration controls as to who has the more "compassionate" grounds. Ultimately it makes it virtually impossible for young, fit, childless, single people without an asylum claim to fight to stay. This is why we support the slogan 'Solidarity not Pity'. We support unconditionally the right of all people to stay here if they wish to, and irrespective of their personal circumstances.

Second we are absolutely in favour of exposing the lies and hypocrisies of those advocating immigration controls — such as the lie that people coming here are a "burden" on welfare or are "flooding" the country. It is important to reject the notion that if immigration controls were abolished this country would be invaded by the populations of entire continents; the reality is that the vast majority of people prefer to stay where they are if this is at all possible. However we are opposed to building a case against immigration controls on the grounds that immigration is in the economic self-interest of the current inhabitants of this country, both because such an argument is wrong in principle and because the situation can change. For example although it was true until recently that more people left this country than came here, this is no longer the case. And while migrants, immigrants and refugees are currently net contributors to the welfare system, supposing it could be shown that new arrivals are somehow accessing a "disproportionate" percentage of welfare, would that mean we now have to support controls? Statistics are useful to refute distortions and lies, but cannot be the bedrock of our opposition to controls. Statistics can be a hostage to political fortune. Principles cannot. This is why we support the principle of No One Is Illegal.

Third we recognize the many contributions made to British society by migrants, immigrants and refugees stretching back centuries. Britain has been constructed out of waves of migration — the very idea of there being an "indigenous" population is both politically racist and historically nonsensical. However we are opposed to all arguments that seek to justify the presence of anyone on the grounds of the economic or cultural or any other contributions they may make. It is not up to the British state to decide where people should or should not live, or anyone else but migrants and refugees themselves. We support the unfettered right of entry of the feckless, the unemployable and the uncultured. We assert No One Is Illegal.

GAINS FOR SOME MEAN EXCLUSION OF OTHERS. NO 'EQUAL-OPPORTUNITIES' IMMIGRATION CONTROLS!

An obvious, if often overlooked feature of immigration control and the struggle against it, is that defining who may be excluded from it by necessity entails defining who is included in it. No One Is Illegal means that reform of immigration control, in whatever way such reform is presented, is at best problematic, at worst unacceptable because it would leave some people subject to control. It would still leave immigration outlaws. The degree to which any demand falling short of total abolition of controls is acceptable can only be measured by the degree in which it takes up the fight for all outlaws. All specific demands gainst controls need to be put in the context of and worked out through a position of opposition to all controls. Again we present some deliberately controversial examples:

First we are critical of the demand for a government "amnesty" against immigration outlaws. The level of our criticism will depend on the level at which the amnesty is pitched. Who is to be included in this demand? More importantly who is to be excluded? What gives anyone opposed to controls the right to define who is to be excluded? No One Is Illegal means what it says — anyone in the entire world who wishes to come or remain should have the right to do so.On a pragmatic basis amnesties have to be criticised as they will be used by the Home Office to entrap those not included in the amnesty.. This is precisely what happened when in 1974 a Labour government declared a tightly defined amnesty — deporting many of those who applied under the mistaken belief they fell within the definition.

Second we are critical of demands which, however well meant, leave even more vulnerable and exposed to immigration controls those not contained within the demand. An example is the demand that women coming here for marriage who are subsequently subject to domestic violence should not be subject to the requirement that they remain living with their partner for twelve months in order to acquire full immigration status. After years of campaigning this demand has now been met in part. As such it is clearly a tremendous gain for those women who otherwise would have the impossible choice of remaining in a violent relationship or being deported. However where does this leave all those women not subject to violence who wish for whatever reason to leave the relationship? For them not being battered by their partner has now become a positive disadvantage for immigration purposes. This is yet another example of how something morally outrageous — abuse of women — has become something highly desirable in immigration law. It is simply not a tenable position to argue. The only tenable position is to fight for the right of all, men or women, to remain irrespective of their personal situation.

Third immigration controls are not just racist. In their nationalism they encompass virtually all reactionary ideology. So unsurprisingly they are homophobic. Until recently there has been no provision for a gay partner to come or remain. However we are critical of the campaign for 'equality' with heterosexual relationships for gay relationships within immigration control. There cannot be equal opportunities immigration controls - unless one is in favour of the equality of the damned. For the last forty years immigration control has systematically attacked, undermined and wrecked tens of thousands of mainly black extended families from the Indian sub-continent, the Caribbean and Africa. Demanding equality with heterosexual couples simply ignores the inherent racism of controls and therefore the relationship between racism, sexism and homophobia. An additional problem is that the demand for the rights of gay couples elevates romance into a political goal — what about the single gay person, the celibate, the lonely, those of no sexual orientation or the promiscuous of any sexual orientation? Including gay couples within immigration law and its spurious "rights" means that all these other people are by definition excluded. Their status as outlaws is intensified. The way forward is to fight for the rights of all gay women and men along with everyone else to be able to come and remain irrespective of personal circumstances or relationships. The only equal opportunities immigration controls are no immigration controls.

Fourth, demanding to be "included" within controls — in the sense of demanding specific provision for gay couples — seems itself quite strange in that everyone else is fighting to be excluded from the tentacles of controls. However this contradiction only exists because, given the existence of controls, then absolutely everyone is already "included" in them to a greater or a lesser extent — in that everyone remains liable to investigation as to whether or not they are subject to them. In this sense women experiencing domestic violence still very much remain subject to controls — as they are obliged to undergo the humiliation of reliving the violence by having to prove its existence. The only political answer to these issues is to fight for no controls.

Fifth, each piece of immigration legislation going back to 1905 (and dramatically intensified in the last decade) can be seen as another brick in the wall — the wall preventing entry of the undesirable, the unchosen. It is therefore not sufficient to demand the repeal of the latest piece of legislation, to remove the latest brick — the whole wall has to go. Otherwise all those excluded by previous legislation remain outlaws and, what is worse, forgotten outlaws. Simply demanding the repeal of the most recent, and only the most recent, laws only serves to legitimize those preceding them. An example is the agitation against that part of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (the latest legislation) which denies support to asylum seekers who make "late" asylum applications — thus rendering these refugees destitute. However in 1999 there was a campaign against the then latest legislation — the Immigration and Asylum Act. This was the legislation which created the poor law of forced dispersal and below-subsistence support. But now the agitation is to include late asylum applicants within the poor law! Again this is not a tenable political position.

At the same time there is being forgotten all those undocumented non-asylum seekers, migrants and immigrants, who have effectively been without any support due to provisions in various pieces of legislation prior to 1999. These statutes were themselves once new, were once campaigned against and are now forgotten — along with those subject to them.

No One Is Illegal means fighting to destroy immigration controls in their entirety and at the same time fighting to break the link between welfare entitlement and immigration status.

SOCIALISM

Many if not all of the arguments used to justify immigration controls are simply ludicrous and are more the result of racist-inspired moral panic than of any connection with reality. Such is the notion that the entire world population would come to this country if there were no controls: even if such an absurd notion were true, it should prompt concern for their reasons for coming rather than fear. Nonetheless these objections to open borders need to be answered and they require a socialist and anti-imperialist analysis. The objections about "overcrowding" can only be answered by discussing socialist use of resources — use based on needs not profits. The objection, the surreal objection, that migrants, immigrants and refugees obtain luxury housing and endless welfare compared to British workers needs to be answered both by pointing out the truth (namely that just the opposite is the case) but also by a recognition that benefits and welfare are woefully inadequate for everyone — both for the documented and the undocumented and that both have a shared interest in fighting for better welfare. The objection that those fleeing the devastation of the Third World have no right to come here can be met by pointing out the imperial responsibility for this devastation, both in the past and currently. As the Asian Youth Movement used to say "We are here because you were there". The objection that a state has the right to control its own borders can only ultimately be answered by questioning the nature of the nation state and borders. We agree and sing along with John Lennon — "Imagine There's No Countries".

THE WAY FORWARD — BREAK THE LINKS, PULL THE PLUG!

TO BUILD THE WIDEST POSSIBLE ALLIANCE in all struggles against immigration controls amongst those of differing political views. But to do this without collusion with controls and without compromising with the principle of no controls. To do this on the basis of challenging and winning over those involved to a position of opposition to all controls. No One Is Illegal — No Exceptions, No Concessions, No Conciliation.
TO RAISE THE DEMAND FOR NO IMMIGRATION CONTROLS within all actions and campaigns in support of migrants and refugees. A no-controls position should not be a necessary precondition of support for any particular campaign, but we should argue constantly within all campaigns for such a position. We should argue for campaign slogans to reflect a position of opposition to controls, not refugees are our friends or refugees are welcome here but slogans which recognise that we are in favour of freedom for all as a right, not a charity: No One Is Illegal — Free movement — No immigration controls.
TO SUPPORT AND BUILD EVERY SINGLE CAMPAIGN AGAINST DEPORTATION. To do this on the basis of solidarity not compassion. No One Is Illegal — No Need For Justification of Presence!
TO SUPPORT AND BUILD EVERY CAMPAIGN AGAINST DETENTION/REMOVAL CENTRES, since these are one of the clearest and most outrageously brutal and unjust consequences of immigration controls. No refugees or migrants should be detained simply because they want to be in this country. All detention/removal centres, and also all accommodation, induction and any other repressive 'centres' designed to enforce the unenforceable, should be closed. No One Is Illegal — No detentions!
TO FIGHT AGAINST ALL FORMS OF COLLUSION with immigration control and with the Home Office. In particular this means local authorities and voluntary sector organizations refusing to implement the new poor law. Local authorities should refuse to act as sub-contracted agents providing accommodation (often otherwise unlettible) for the forced dispersal scheme. Voluntary sector agencies should likewise refuse Home Office monies to enforce the poor law either through the provision of accommodation or advice. No One Is Illegal — Break The Links Between Welfare Entitlement And Immigration Status!

FOR WORKERS WITHIN THE WELFARE SYSTEM TO REFUSE TO COMPLY with the denial of benefits or provisions based on immigration status. Most workers within the welfare state, at either local or national level, entered their jobs in the belief they would be providing some form of socially useful service. Instead they now find they are denying services and have become part of the apparatus of immigration control. No One Is Illegal — No Compliance, Be In And Against The State!
Of course non-compliance by individual workers would leave them absolutely vulnerable to victimization and dismissal. Non-compliance requires major trade union support. It is manifestly important to try and win trade unions to a position of no immigration controls. To do this it is equally important to form rank and file groupings within unions of welfare workers who are being obliged to enforce internal immigration controls. No One Is Illegal — Workers' Control Not Immigration Controls!
FOR A MASSIVE TRADE UNION CAMPAIGN OF RECRUITMENT OF UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS ? of immigration outlaws. Such a recruitment campaign would help break the division between the documented and the undocumented. It would enable a campaign to develop against sweated labour and for the protection of migrant rights — rights to a fair wage, right to proper work conditions and, most of all, the right to work itself — as now it is unlawful to work without the correct immigration documentation. It would also provide another base for the undocumented to resist deportation and to fight for the regularization of their status. No One Is Illegal — Everyone has the right to work, the right to be in a union, and the right to have proper working conditions!
WE ARE NOT ALONE!

No One Is Illegal is a phrase first used by Elie Weisel, a Jewish survivor from Nazi Germany, a refugee and a Nobel prize winner. He was speaking in 1985 in Tuscon, Arizona at a national sanctuary conference in the USA in defence of the rights of refugees to live in the USA . The sanctuary movement undertaken by religious communities in the USA (and to a far lesser extent in the UK) in support of those threatened by immigration controls is one of many pieces of resistance to controls. Over the last few years No One Is Illegal groups have been formed throughout Europe and North America — for instance in Germany (Kein Mensch Ist Illegal), Spain (Ninguna Persona Es Ilegal), Sweden (Ingen Manniska Ar Illegal), Poland (Zaden Czlowiek Nie Jest Nielegalny) and Holland (Geen Mens Is Illegaal). In August 1999 anarchists organised a demonstration in Lvov Poland against the deportation of Ukrainian workers under the banner of No One Is Illegal. In France the sans papiers campaign under the slogan personne n'est illegal/e. There have been No One Is Illegal/No Border camps at the joint borders of Germany, Czech Republic and Poland, and No Border camps at Frankfurt, southern Spain and Salzburg. In June 2002 there was a demonstration against war, globalisation and in defence of refugees under the same slogan in Ottawa, Canada. In England groups are emerging calling themselves No Borders. The demand for no controls, rather than being seen as extreme,operates as a rallying call to the undocumented and their supporters. Our aim in producing this, our initial manifesto, is to encourage the formation of No One Is Illegal/No Border groups throughout this country — groups specifically and unreservedly committed to the destruction of all immigration controls.

what are you doing this weekend?

The 2007 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ANARCHIST CONFERENCE seeks to present creative and positive alternatives to the state, during a weekend that will be both fun and educational. This event is open to both anarchists and non-anarchists who are interested in learning about radical ideas, options, alternatives, and support systems. Not only will alternative ideas be presented but we will also focus on what concrete work is being done locally and with anarchist groups in other regions and other countries. This event will focus on discussion, dialogue, community organizing, youth, families, and people of color in the community. We hope that this event connects people from different schools of thought so that we can learn from each other to further popular-education and mutual aid..

December 14th and 15th at the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
6120 South Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90044 (323) 759-6063
From 1pm - 9pm. $5.00 Admission for each day and free dinner.

For more info:
www.diyzine.com

-50 minutes presentation, 10 minute breaks in between-

Schedule for Friday December 14th

1:30pm – 2:30pm
Room 1 Art Workshop / DIY Silk Screening by NELA FNB
Room 2 Animal Liberation Press Office
Room 3 A short History of Southern California Anarcho Movement By Jang
GARDEN TBA

2:30pm-3:30pm
Room 1 Radical Women’s Health
Room 2 Puerto Rican Liberation Movement by Lawrence Reyes
Room 3 Anarchist Marxist Economics by John Imani
GARDEN (out side) Anarchist Organizing Models Training

3:30pm-4:30pm
Room 1 Black Riders Liberation Party
Room 2 Critical Resistance / Prison Industrial Complex
Room 3 DIY Disasters Preparations by Hop Hopkins
GARDEN TBA

4:30pm-5:30pm
Room 1 Anarchist People of Color Panel (Francheska, Irina, Joaquin, D-Angelo)
Room 3 Community Organizing Workshop by Bilal Ali

5:30pm-6:00pm
Dinner

6:00pm-7:00pm
Room 1 Verbal Judo and Street fighting / Women's Self Defense
Room 2 Anti Racism & Anti Colonialism by Anti Racist Action
Room 3 Checking Privilege while creating Autonomy and Self-Determination (Revolutionary
Autonomous Communities)

7:00pm-8:00pm
Room 1 Political Prisoners Panel :
Ray Boudreaux (Panther 8) , Danae Kelly (Animal Rights Activist) , Sherman Austin (Anarchist
Political Prisoner), Henry W. (Hank) Jones (Panther 8)
Room 3 Q Team

8:00pm-9:00pm
Assembly

Schedule for Saturday December 15th

1:30pm – 2:30pm
Room 1 Premaculture Panel and Organic Gardening – L.A. Radical Change and Daisy
Room 2 Homophobia and History of Gay Rights Shannon
Room 3 Child Advocacy: Protecting Children from Abuse and Neglect by Camille
GARDEN Vegan Nutrition by Matt (Registered Dietitian)

2:30pm-3:30pm
Room 1 Youth Organizing Panel (Black Riders Liberation Party, Cop Watch, Youth Justice
Coalition, Revolutionary Autonomous Community, Q-Team )
Room 3 Interpersonal Relationships by Christine
GARDEN (outside) Non-Violent Parenting

3:30pm-4:30pm
Room 1 Chicano Anarchism by Omar Rodriguez
Room 2 Animal Rights Activism (with Danae Kelly, Pam / Animal Defense League and more..)
Room 3 Food not Bombs
GARDEN TBA

4:30pm-5:30pm
Room 1 Black Panther Party Panel - original L.A. members from the late 60's:
Ronald/Elder Freeman, Wayne Pharr, Somayah Kambui, Michael D McCarty (Chicago Chapter)
Room 3 White folks fighting White Supremacy by Active Resistance to White Supremacy (work
group of AWARE-LA)

5:30pm-6:00pm
Dinner

6:00pm-7:00pm
Room 1 Indigenous Rights
Room 2 No Borders workshop
Room 3 Independent Media Center A collective of organizations and journalists offering a
grassroots, non-corporate perspective

7:00pm-8:00pm
Room 1 Know Your Rights Training (Cop Watch LA - South Central and Frente Contra Las
Redadas)
Room 2 Anarchist Black Cross
Room 3 History of Anarchist Collectives and Anarchist Organizing

8:00pm-9:00pm
Assembly

December 16th at the Centro De Accion Popular
1042 N. Richmond St, Los Angeles, Ca. 90033 (near 5 fwy and 101 fwy)
Live performance by:
Aztlan Underground
H.T.T.H.
EL VUH
Another Destructive System
Anima Mundi
Sherman Austin
No Reform
Bruise Violent
ClitoRectomi
Progeria