SJTV speaks with local Activist lawyer Paul Richmond about the on-going development of a paramilitary police state in America.Paul Richmond Formally schooled in film production (BFA, California Institute of the Arts, MFA, The American Film Institute), his later work has focused on independent and community-based media.
He arrived in Seattle in 1998 to attend UW Law School. While at school, he helped initiate the creation of the IMC and train hundreds of people to videotape police misconduct. He was a producer and consultant on the recently completed documentary “Urban Warrior.”
He has taught video and film production on a college level. He is currently an attorney in private practice and is on the Board of the Washington State Bar Association’s Young Lawyer’s Division, the WSBA’s Diversity Committee and the King County Bar’s Legislative Committee.
SJTV Editorial from Producer Marlin Hathaway.Good evening and welcome to social justice television today is October 14, 2005. This week I would like to present to you to an editorial of sorts.
It seems the government, and the cronies behind them, are hell-bent on driving the working people of this country and the world into the ground. Their rapaciousness is only outdone by their seeming indifference and categorical denial of the needs of the people and our planet.
Meanwhile the 'left' here within the city of Seattle, and nationally, continue to have dysfunctional communication and organizational structures, rendering them insufficient to handle the coming crisis.
This is leading me to the conclusion that short of a mass mobilization of revolutionary thinkers organizing for systemic change in a radically new and advanced manner, and I mean like mobilizing tomorrow or the next day, that the time has come to consider self-exile, or going underground, to escape the coming police state.
Now having said that, I'm not suggesting that we all scramble north to Canada or anything. But if I'm thinking this way, and others that I know are also thinking in this manner, and judging from the past I mean really, looking at the rise of Nazi Germany in particular, the writing is on the wall, all of us are saying it, and it's just a matter of time before it actually comes into being.
Looking at New Orleans, it seems obvious to me that we are approaching a totalitarian state, and Katrina or rather, the ruling class’s response to Katrina, leaves no doubt in my mind that our rulers don't give a shit about the working people of this country or anywhere else in the world.
Scarier still, looking at the way the neo-cons are fracturing even within the Republican Party, in particular looking at the most recent senate vote of 90 to 9 promoting language against torture, which Bush threatens to veto, the Miers nomination, and all the inquiries, supeanas and indictments…
These are all classic examples of a split within the neo conservative wing of the ruling class, and I don't think that there's going to be any reckoning between these constituencies soon. In fact they're probably going to worsen.
I mean, the thing to worry about is really what element of the ruling class does the Bush agenda represent? Who is in the seat of power? Are these the people who understand the need to sometimes the throw the workers more crumbs so they don't lose the whole enchilada… the ones to give us the new deal, some semblance of civil rights, women's rights, an end to the Vietnam War?
I think not.
Remember, Bush is going to use the military to quarantine vast sections of the country. This is their solution for quelling dissent in the near future. They are reviewing plans for mobile detention camps to compliment the 600 camps already in place. Their strategy is to suppress, not compromise.
I think this is the cadre that feels that the world is their oyster and that they have moved far too slowly and allowed too many potential riches to slip through their fingers.
These people feel that the Clintonesc neo liberals were too slow, in particular after the fall of the Soviet Union, allowing potential economic competitors to gain footholds and exploit markets that these neo conservatives feel that they have a manifest destiny to control.
They feel that we workers have become to entitled, to bold in our asking for things like eight hour work days, social security, universal healthcare and other basic commons. To these thugs, we aren’t deserving of these social resources and rights because it infringes on their potential profit.
Now I know I'm verging on hyperbole, and the dogmatic style of my youth is coming out as I begin to scream, like a subway repentor with a signboard on his chest stating the end is near, but I have something serious to say, the end IS near, and we better get off our asses!
Brothers and Sisters of Seattle, we really need to review our inaction or the shortsightedness of our political actions. We can no longer afford to take the roads afforded us by these neocons and neo libs. We have to be more critical of this system of indoctrination and exploitation. The world can’t wait for our rulers and puppet leaders to come around to the truth that this system is bankrupt and isn’t working for the vast majority of us on the planet.
We can’t ask the Ruling Class to review its modus operendi, they don’t give a shit about anything except their own welfare. It would be like asking a Mafia Don to review the use of strong arming to exert pressure on the locals, it just isn’t in their paradigm.
Every time we write, call or protest, we are asking the ruling class to listen, respond or act on our behalf. But history shows us that they only act if they feel so threatened as to possibly lose their stranglehold on power. It was just such pressure that forced them to cough up the new deal, women’s rights, and fictitious democratic freedoms.
But what I’m trying to say here is… Is that this cadre of Imperial thugs aren’t of the stock of ruling class that understands the need to give up a little power to retain ultimate control.
They are of the stock that solves its conflicts with force, fear and lies. And today they are isolated. They are isolated from the American people, they are Isolated from the people of the world, and everyday they grow more isolated from their traditional allies among the Ruling Class. Today in America, they are growing more isolated from their own constituency within the republican party.
Some see this trend as a sign of the Bush Agenda’s weakness, and it is, but it is also an ominous sign of these thugs becoming more desparate, and like a desparate animal, they are beginning to feel backed into a corner, and like a cornered, wounded, desparate animal, they will use everything in their arsenal of power to survive, because this cadre of thugs knows no other way, than the way or force, fear and lies.
I live in two states now, outrage and fear. I know what will happen if I let my fear rule me. I don’t act, I capitulate. So the conclusion I have come to is this. If we don’t organize and act to repudiate the Bush Agenda, capitalism and oppression now, today, we are truly doomed to live or die in a new fascist state. If we can organize quickly, you will see me there, but if we can’t..?
If we’re lucky, we’ll see each other in the mountains, or Canada. If not, I’ll see you in the camps. If I live that long. What else can I say?
