Anti-War Activist Brutalized, Maced & Clubbed at Peaceful Demonstration Charged with Slew of Offenses
The video is courtesy of Artvoice's local blog:
At Friday’s Stop All Wars at Home and Abroad demonstration, Buffalo’s part in a national call to action, longtime local activist, Nate Buckley, was tackled, beat with a baton and sprayed with mace at close range. Two other activists were also arrested.
At 4:30PM on Friday, over 70 people gathered at Lafayette Square to protest wars at home and abroad. They marched down Court St to City Hall, past the FBI offices and held a short rally in front of M & T Bank Offices.
M&T was chosen by protest organizers because the huge financial conglomerate has made substantial investments in “defense,” providing material support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya. In addition, M&T received 600 million dollars in government bailout funds in 2008 and have not repaid a penny while the company’s top three executives received 2.1 million dollars each in 2010. This is all Legal.
Shortly before 6:30PM, an employee of M&T asked the protesters to get off the concrete feature that ran along the sidewalk, protesters initially chose not move. Niagara Frontier Transit Authority (NFTA) police arrived and the protesters did get off the private property. However, police tackled demonstrator Nate Buckley beat him with a baton, and sprayed mace directly into his eyes. NFTA police have a long track record of brutality in this city. It would not be right not to mention the Extreme injustice and disparities of Class, Gender and Race have to play in Police Brutality and Legal injustice system. Cell phone video footage featuring this police action is available.
Buckley has been charged with 4 Class A Misdemeanors (Inciting to Riot, Riot in the second degree, Resisting Arrest, Obstructing Governmental Administration), a Class B Misdemeanor (Unlawful Assembly) and six Violations (one count of Trespass and five counts of Disorderly Conduct). Buckley will be fighting these charges in court and is available for interview.
That was the press release and the following is my take on it. There will be future action around this issue, I will keep people informed. I was released that night, because the protest moved to the holding center and didn't leave until all three activists were released! Thank you everyone for your support.
2,383 coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. 4,762 coalition forces have been killed in Iraq since 2003.[1] Although reports of Iraqi and Afghanistan deaths are far less reported, UK’s Guardian reports 10688 civilian deaths just since 2006, five years after the war began and this number does not include those deemed combatants. [2] In Iraq, leading scientists, estimated 655,000 have died that wouldn’t have otherwise since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003. This also is legal.[3]
According to National Priorties since 2001 the US government has spent $1,178,560,192,356 on Imperialist Wars for empire. The money Erie county has had to dole out for these wars of Imperialism is $4,705,529,253. That is not including the war at home, with largest prison industrial complex this world has ever seen! Every year 16 million children die of hunger. For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years. Throughout the first decade of new century more than 100 million children died from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days. I won’t ask a useless rhetorical question like what are our governments priorties, people or profit? If you can’t figure that out I am sorry for you.
If we take a step back and apply what is happening globally to our local situation I believe it becomes very clear. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank (WB) and other banks and multi-national corporations control much of the world through debt. They lure a country in by offering loans promised to build their economies. After the country finds itself over it’s head in debt the IMF and WB use Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), under the guise to help debtor nations to pay back loans and strengthen economies. What they really do is set up a countrys’ infrastructure and government to best aid in exploitation of raw materials, labor, human rights, open markets.
Although every country has specific SAP details, the overall goals are the same. These following steps are some of what debtor nations are required to follow- 1. Radically reduce government spending and subsidies, example- Local, State and National Cuts to social services, arts, education, health care, community organizations and projects 2. Cut or restrain workers’ wages, example- Union busting all across this country stripping the rights of workers to collectively bargain ie. Wisconsin 3. Remove barriers to imports and foreign investments, 4. Devalue local currency (thus making the country’s exports cheaper on the world market), example- the dollar has fallen to record lows and continues to fall 5. Privatize state enterprises and remove regulations on business example- the privatization of the public sector every where from the US military to our water here in Buffalo! 6. Loss of civil liberties, human rights, (thus making it to control dissent “legitimately”), - example Patriot act 1 and 2, Military Commissions Act and heightened repression of activism ei- FBI raids on anti-war activists around the country and this situation 7) Lowering of environmental standards/regulations, (thus making exploitation of raw materials cheaper and easier to extract) examples- Hydro-fracking exemptions from all environmental regulations destroying our most precious resource water.
This is what has been happening for a long time. It has ravaged the “third world” and many communities here in America. A couple of quick examples Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday. (sources: UNICEF, WHO). In sub-Saharan Africa, measles takes the life of a child nearly every minute of every day. An effective measles vaccine costs as little as $1 per child. (source: WHO) Compare this to over 2 million dollar salaries at working for a bank that perpetrates these kind of conditions.
If you look today at the US, and locally, we can see this kind of program in action. Debt in this country, state, county, city and all us people is out of control. Buffalo is run by a control board which number one priorty is to pay back loans to the banks. It clearly isn’t for the youth or education, because there is a 75 percent drop out rate among black males and 55 percent drop out rate for white males in Buffalo School system.The control board is undemocratically unelected board that has authority over the City. In 2009 when city of Buffalo pushed for the control board to become an advisory board the OVERLORDS of Poverty using their authority over our “democracy” vetoed the loss of their power. They have now changed their name from control board, which is obviously to accurate of name, to Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority and still functions the same way. 75 percent drop out rate among black males and 55 percent drop out rate for white males.
According to NetAid, over a billion people, or roughly one in six, live in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than US$1 a day. The World Bank goes on to define moderate poverty as basic subsistence living, on $1 to $2 a day. All told, nearly half the world's population lives in poverty -- that's 2.8 billion people living on less than two dollars a day. Each year over 8 million people die because they are simply too poor to stay alive. This process of economic, social, and political exploitation that has gone on for 1000’s of years is now being implemented in America. Some areas of inner city, deep country, reservations have already been living in extreme poverty. It is all avoidable. It is all by design. This greedy power structure consists of Banks, Multi-national Corporations, Governments, Violent Power Organizations to keep this injustice running like the US military, local, state, federal Police organizations, and “intelligence” Agencies like FBI, NSA, Homeland Security.
This Violent Power Structure demonizes the poor, street criminals, activists, and freedom fighters, while completely not addressing peoples needs or the crimes of the rich. Slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people is a crime. Huge rich banks getting bailed out is stealing. Polluting our environment and causing cancer is murder. Death from starvation is murder. Bank executives or any one for that matter making over a million dollars a year while every five seconds a child dies of hunger related issues is a crime. The list goes on but the punishment doesn’t. Because the victim is you and me, we are stolen from, our families are put to war, we have to deal with cancer. When we hold a peaceful demonstration, to try to make change to deal with all this we are criminalized by the same power structure and laws made by the rich. Mace me, Beat me with baton, charge me with 11 accounts of criminal behavior on M&T bank for nothing. Again I am not going to ask a useless rhetorical question of who police or the laws serve. I don’t want to speak for the whole crowd but I know personally I and many others spend the majority of our time trying to make the world a better place for me and you our families. Trying to think of ways to rid our selves of racism, sexism this pig power structure and restructure our world today in a way where everyone is fed, housed, has access to health care and where there is true democracy and all people have an equal voice regardless of anything. I am just one of millions in the world who are trying to do this. These rich criminals who sit on top need to stopped. We need to fight against this system with everything we have. In the words of Assata Shakur
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
[1] http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/index.html
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-civilian...
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR200610...