List of ATSI causes:
Blak Lives Matter
Sisters Inside - Free the People
Grandmothers Against Removals:
BSB: 313-140
Acc: 122 364 81
Blak Lands Matter
Stop Adani (Wangan Jagalingou Corp)
BSB: 034-003
Acc: 278 038
Blak Labour Matters
Solidarity member of First Nations Workers' Alliance
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Services
TRANSCRIPT (loose)
(presenter introduction)
It's been a big week everyone - a big week in a big year. Even the most spineless of liberals have noticed the difference.
This show was recorded on Thursday the 4th of June to meet deadline. 3CR studios are still closed. My apologies if there are glaring ommissions in the show. The situation out there is developing rapidly. Yesterday, the 6th of June, was the Melbourne Black Lives Matter protest organised by the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance and participated in by a broad section of society. This was the biggest protest in Melbourne under any type of social distancing restrictions.
I hope that the event was a success. I expect there was brutality and probably a lot of fines.
Today's show will cover, in part, the current trouble in the imperial core, responses to said trouble, attempts from the imperial core to distract from the dysfunction, and compare the BLM protests in the US with the Hong Kong protests. Coronavirus news is on hold this week!
First up, TROUBLE IN THE IMPERIAL CORE: namely the protests sparked by the "alleged" police murder of George Floyd.
- US National guard depployments - 62,000 Nation Guard Members on duty according to National Guard Bureau. These troops operate under State Active Duty orders in co-operation and somewhat subordinate to state and local law enforcement. The rules as to force and armaments vary from state to state. Ranging from crowd-control armaments - batons, tasers and peppery spray in Colorado to pistols in Minnesota.
Washington DC's National Guard is activated in its entirety and this particular grouping takes orders from the president, rather than the state authorities.
- People continue to be murdered by police so far in ongoing protests. In Louisville David McAtee, BBQ restaurant owner was murdered by the police. No body camera footage is available to corroborate police claims they were returning fire because no body cameras were turn on. In response to this particular piece of news the police chief of Louisville was fired by the mayor. David McAtee is still dead.
- It is telling that the country which had precious little money to respond to COVID-19 has bottomless coffers when it comes to deploying the full might of the state against its citizens and paying overtime for police. It's a classic portrayal of the kinds of rights which US citizens enjoy: abstract rights of political expression and free speech and the actual right to be murdered by an out-of-control police force which grew up watching the same kind of disgusting police dramas which still poison the minds of the populace today. No money for PPE but money for teargas.
- Defense Secretary Mark Esper: “I think the sooner that you mass and dominate the battlespace, the quicker this dissipates and we can get back to the right normal,” said in a call with governors on Monday. The use of military language and tactics to control the populace is not new and is part of the problem which civilians have with the so-called "right normal".
------ Attempted distractions from the imperial core
Some kind of bizarre play to the envangelical right with Trump walking to a church. To provide this passage there was a huge assualt on gathered protests. During this assault an Australian 7 news cameraman was hit with a teargas projectile fired by police. To hear protestants say Trump is doing a Jericho walk should be a moment of shame for people of faith.
US Courts have ruled that Syrian and Iran are liable for damages for American citizens who are wonded and killed by Palestinians in Israel in yet another insult to sovereignty. This isn't the first time US courts have tried this one and I doubt it will be the last.
The US and UK imperial mainstream and the confused elements of the left over there and in Australia are all concerned about a proposed law in Hong Kong. According to such media agencies: "China's proposed national security law could end Hong Kong as we know it." Considering HK as it lies is a vestigial remnant of UK colonialism I think that the end of HK "as we know it" would be a good thing for HKers. The usual cohort of "pro-democracy" US bootlickers have lined up to whinge about it. US law-makers are assessing it under the Hong Kong Democracy and Human Rights Act- this is an act for which aforementioned subaltern imperialists lobbied. Under the act the US assesses whether HK is sufficiently autonomous from China and if not, sanctions will be applied. This "autonomy" actually means how rigorously HK is advancing the foreign policy interests of the United States of America. HK must enforce US sanctions, export law and trade policy relating to mainland China to safeguard US business interests operating in HK from the realities of business in a space which is being de-colonised by the PRC.
Added to this the US is weighing in on China's policies toward its own ethnic minorities, namely, the Uyghur muslims in Xinjiang - a topic covered on Alternative News in previous months. In essence, East Turkestan separatists have allied with the sinophobic West over a disagreement about what China should do to manage poverty and terrorism in the northwest of the country and then how to manage a transition from an agraian economy to a technology-manufacturing economy. Today I saw a claim that there are 2 million Uyghurs in concentration camps in Xinjiang. This is the biggest figure so far. I hope, one day, that I see reports of 10 million detainees. These figures are absolute garbage and should be ridiculed and treated as such. The fact that our media parrots these figures handed down to us from US newspapers and Australian think-tanks sponsored by US weapons manufacturers should really be ringing the alarm bells.
HK protests 2019-2020 vs USA protests 2020
Characterisation
HK protests largely characterised (in good and bad faith) as anti-auth, anti-imprial, left-wing protests. This is because they are protesting both the HK govt and the govt of the PRC. These protests are mis-characterised *in the interests of US Imperialism*.
The idea that these protests are left-wing is hard for me to understand. The demands of the protestors are: Withdraw the extradition bill, don't call the protests 'riots', amnesty for arrested protesters, independent inquiry into police use of force against protesters and for the CE (wtf) of HK to resign with new CEs elected. These demands have largely arisen from the activities of the protests themselves. The only 'democratic' demand is the one calling for the election of a chief exec.
How about: affordable housing, extradition bill should only be for financial crimes, the expansion of existing poverty eradiction programs, sustainable development ONLY, UK reparations for 150 years of colonialism? How about: the end of financial capitalism? 90% tax rate on the 1%? Massive expansion of social programs?
Possibly because these are the demands of the poor and marginalised, and the protests do not comprise these groups.
Being pro-democracy does not mean left-wing. For instance, the USA is a democratic country but we don't call the USA left-wing. Australia is a democracy but you wouldn't call us left-wing.
The foolish assumption that if there are protestors they are in the right has duped the vast majority of the left. Smashing windows doesn't make you left-wing.
Now, the protests in the USA. Are the protesters left-wing? Are they in the right? What are their demands? There are plenty of smashed windows - are these protest, not, in fact, the SAME as the HK protests? I think not.
Police ramming protesters with cars, the national guard firing at people who are on their porches, ongoing murders by police - these things are not common across both movements. These things are only happening in the United States of America. Why is this? This answer may not shock you: The USA is an authoritarian police-state in which you are free to speak your mind, catch COVID-19 while becoming medically bankrupt and then get shot in the face with a rubber bullet for walking home. But at least it's not communism!
To conclude: the HK protests have more in common with right-wing "quarantine=communism" protests than they do the current wave of protests in the US sparked by the police murder of George Floyd.
This brings me, with some chagrin to an appeal for support for this radio station, 3CR. Please donate. You can do so at 3cr.org.au and put your favourite show down too. I note that at this time there is a huge push for donations to Indigenous Lives causes. These causes are highly valuable. The Campaign For International Co-operation and Disarmament supports these causes - as does 3CR. On the Altnertive News page on 3CR I will include a list of ATSI Lives, Land and Labour causes which I encourage you to give to. I understand this is a rough time for heaps of us. My apologies if this is one request too many.
Systemic racism is real and it has real-life implications. Oppressed people the world over suffer under the heel of this ill. Indigenous people in Australia are part of this cohort. Since the Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody in 1991 there have been 432 further deaths and ZERO convictions. This must end. Black Lives Matter.
(presenter signs off)
Romina Beitseen and Andrew Irving
