Chatting with the chief

On Aug. 1st, 2000, Philadelphia played host to the RepublicanNational Convention.

The streets of the city also were the scenes of large,tumultuous street demonstrations like the kind seen at nearly everygathering of the world’s corporate and political powerbrokers. been present since the World Trade Organization meetingsin Seattle in November of 1999.

This Nov. 20-21st, these same power brokers will be meeting inMiami for the eighth round of negotiations about the Free TradeArea of the Americas.

Tens of thousands of activists are expected to join with localgroups for a series of events starting on the 17th, including theusual marches, rallies, teach-ins, forums and so on.

Making things more interesting than they already are, thecurrent police chief in Miami is one John Timoney the same man whocame under heavy criticism for his decisions as Philadelphia policecommissioner during the 2000 RNC.

I’ve got some questions after reading about his role inthe Philadelphia confrontation, as well as his remarks to the pressregarding the upcoming Miami demonstrations.

Since I’m surely not the only one with inquiries andconcerns, I think an open letter is appropriate.

Chief Timoney:

You say that you’ve been telling your officers the samething that you told them in Philadelphia. You tell them thatthey’re going to be facing off against a bunch of”spoiled rich kids” who are going to try to get underthe skin of your officers.

This statement of yours has me puzzled. First, I know spoiledrich kids. Indeed, I go to school with them, and they aren’tputting themselves at great personal risk in order to try and makethis world a better place.

They’re doing a lot of other things, but I won’t gointo that here.

I have to wonder, then, if you’re deliberately spreadingmisinformation, or you’re just misinformed yourself.

I’m hoping the latter is true.

The corporate media certainly aren’t helping. I’mcontinually amazed, though I probably shouldn’t be by now, atthe constant barrage of scorn and outright lies spread by themainstream media.

For one thing, they continually refer to a scary subset ofrioters intent on, to use their terminology,”violence.”

The truth is quite different, and I think you know this as wellas I do.

In Seattle, for instance, long before any acts of vandalism hadbeen committed against what some activists call “SweatshopRow,” the police had already launched savage attacks againstdemonstrators.

Unfortunately, these attacks were also made against Seattleresidents who happened to be in the way.

Peaceful people were beaten, and “non-lethal”weapons such as tear gas and rubber-coated projectiles were usedindiscriminately, at ranges far under the safe minimum recommendedby their manufacturers.

This kind of sadistic police violence has marked several (butnot all) of the similar protests since then.

During the 2000 RNC, your officers tried to bypass potentialmayhem by engaging in what observing attorneys referred to as a”civil rights nightmare.”

Around 400 activists were preemptively arrested on completelyspurious charges.

Your officers did not feel the urge to avoid the jail brutalitythat had occurred at previous actions, however.

Prisoners were repeatedly beaten, taunted, dragged across thefloor and thrown against the walls.

Some were denied medications for asthma and diabetes, and therewere accounts of officers chaining a man to cell bars while theybeat his hands with handcuffs.

There are reports of a female officer twisting a man’spenis, and another stomping on a man’s genitals.

The corporate media rarely even hint at this sort of thing.

Worse than distorting the truth about who the protesters are,what they do and what happens to them, the mainstream media alsocompletely misrepresent the relevant issues.

There isn’t much intelligent debate about the matters athand. That’s fine with the power brokers, who loathe to seeany kind of informed public discussion of their plans.

I know of only one case of a World Trade Organizationrepresentative engaging in a fair debate with WTO opponents, andapparently, it ended in a resounding victory for the opponents.

I doubt the mainstream media will tell the truth about the FTAA,so here it is:

The FTAA is like NAFTA on crack. In every nation in the WesternHemisphere except Cuba, corporations would have the power tooverride government standards regarding public health and safety,health and safety in the workplace, environmental standards and thelike. These standards will hence be referred to as “tradebarriers.”

You and your officers have nothing to gain by defending thiskind of feudalism, since you probably don’t belong to theslice of society that will benefit.

Why are you participating in the slander and violence directedat those brave people trying to do something about it?

Sincerely,

Scott Charney

Scott Charney is a senior History and English major. He canbe reached at [email protected]