“We’ve seen this! We’ve seen this!” The voice, previously calm, is alarmed.  His camera moves swiftly as people are trying to escape the pointed weapons fired by the police and National Guard.  The journalist is still yelling and the camera focuses in on the face of a sheriff: “I’ve been on film before, that doesn’t make a bit of difference to me.”

“The whole world is watching.” But the carnage goes on, captured by the journalist and his camera.  The people, students, journalists, poets, pacifist are clubbed to death. 

Meanwhile, beyond this desert scene, the Tribunal continues.  More of the same people, deemed enemies of the State, come before judges and lawyers and housewives representing the Silent Majority and are accused of subversion, speaking out against the government that, as one accused journalist argues, is a violent State that has disregarded the Constitution, indeed, human rights!

The dissidents and protesters are sentenced to extreme terms, but they can opt to be sent to Punishment Park.  There, in the desert, people are told to walk some 60 miles until they, ironically, reach the American Flag — and freedom! If they are unsuccessful, they will be arrested and sent to prison.  These people have only a short time to reach the flag, and time has already run its course before they start out!

In this space, sadistic behavior has power and controls with impunity.  The police and the National Guard have no intentions of “arresting” the protesters; they speak to the journalist/camera operator about shooting targets before they stage a killing of someone they claim to be among the law enforcement ranks.  Consequently, they begin their hunt for the unarmed people, who have with no food and water and are struggling with the brutal weather conditions.  Those who make it to the flag are accosted by the police and National Guard.  As they struggle for their lives, they are either clubbed or shot to death.

Back at the Tribunal, another group is readied for Punishment Park.   

Protesting will not be allowed.  Resistance is futile.

A brave, long time warrior here in Madison showed this Peter Watkins, 1971, film, Punishment Park, the other night. If you think this kind of brutality and violence couldn’t happen here, think again.  In the tradition of Pax Americana, there were all kinds of “sporting” or entertainment of this nature from sadistic gang rapes of Black girls and women during slavery to lynching, an activity for the whole family! There are photos of children hoisted on the shoulders of fathers watching people hanged to a tree and set ablaze.  The cameras, too, caught men instructing dogs to bite the legs of little Black children.  Black people in the deserts of Sudan are dying from starvation while desperate Iraqi parents are forced to abandon 1.7 children. There are people, now, being chased through the desert, rounded up for detention camps — yes, Iraqis, but also Mexicans and Latin Americans, too, on this soil.  The latter are eventually deported, while the former are sent off to Black sites for torture that is not torture. Africom has plans in the works for “permanent military bases in sub-Saharan Africa," according to Danny Glover and Nicole C. Lee writing for The Nation.  That plan in sub-Saharan Africa would seek “African solutions to African problems.” 

In America’s urban landscape, conditions are critical, as city authorities seek “common-sense” solutions to curbing “crime.” (No, they are not considering Martin Luther King’s anti-poverty agenda or pulling troops from Iraq and Afghanistan).  No, it seems that Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein and her fellow senators (Democrats and Republicans alike) are looking for solutions to rid the country of troublesome conditions, thus troublesome people. 

Her website states that Senator Feinstein is an “independent voice” and that she works with “Democrats and Republicans to find common-sense solutions to the problems facing California and the Nation.” I don’t live in California; I used to in the 1970s.  I am told that the gang problem is an issue.  But Feinstein’s Gang Abatement and Prevention Act 2007 (she has previous versions of this bill which don't address the underlying cause of gang activity.  They do, however, call for more police and, of course, more detention facilities. 

"Senator Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum," according to radical blogger, Joshua Franks, "has raked in millions of dollars from Perini, a civil infrastructure construction company,” In other words, Senator and husband are making a “killing” from the “war on terror” behind the scenes, while in front of the cameras, he presents himself as a benevolent builder of Tibetan orphanages.  

Late this past summer, Feinstein proposed legislation, S 456: Gang Abatement and Prevention Act of 2007, a bill to increase and enhance law enforcement resources committed to investigation and prosecution of violent gangs, to deter and punish violent gang crime, to protect law-abiding citizens and communities from violent criminals, to revise and enhance criminal penalties for violent crimes, to expand and improve gang prevention programs, and for other purposes.

S 456 passed the Senate on September 21, 2007 by “unanimous consent,” which means it “passed without an actual vote,” Jason Ziedenberg, from the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. explained to me, because “it was attached as a trailer.”  “There was no debate.”  In other words, the senators did not read the bill!

S 456 will cost $5 dollars per person but what are the real cost of this bill?

Jason Ziedenberg and Laurie Jones authored a report in opposition to S 456, in which they claim that the definition of “gang” is problematic.  According to the report, the over-broad and too-inclusive definition of gangs, in the bill, will dramatically increase unwarranted federal prosecution of youth of color, and could ensnarl a wide spectrum youth.  If a group of five youth regularly associate, and members of that group commit what could be defined as a gang crime on three separate occasions, all five youth could be prosecuted under the gang laws, even if some of the members never participated in criminal activity.

The “definition of gang is so broad that it would capture” youths who have left gangs,” said Ziedenberg.  In addition, the report points to the jailing of young people as adults:

Data shows that tens of thousands of young people end up in the adult system for non-violent offenses. In 2003, over half the youth in California’s adult system were prosecuted for misdemeanors and less than 30 percent received a prison sentence, suggesting that the majority of youth could be safely handled in the juvenile justice system. Of the 8,000 young people who enter Connecticut’s adult court system, the vast majority are arrested for non-violent offenses. In 2002 almost 14,000 17-year-olds were admitted to Wisconsin’s adult jails but only 15 percent of these youth were arrested for violent crimes.

The laws do not “protect” the “perceived guilty” from crime.  “The laws are not evenly applied…youth of color and those without access to adequate legal counsel [are] more likely to end up in adult correctional facilities.”

What is the cost of Feinstein’s S 456 bill? It will cost Blacks and Latino/as more anguish, as the harassment of our children by the police will increase, since it is conceivable that, with the Gang Abatement and Prevention Act 2007, any group of children standing together could be declared a “gang,” arrested, and fed to the adult corrections system.  To protect the community of the innocent, the Constitutional Rights of Blacks and Latino/as must be violated!

The rights of the innocent will be protected by rounding up these young people, crime or no crime, in a country where they are already perceived as suspicious persons.  It will cost us our children who, just like children in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and maybe Iran, will be fed to corporate machines for profit.  Homeland Security contracts to Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR could mean these children slave away for these corporations in domestic detention camps.

Then there is this question posed by Roland Sheppard in 1994 but unfortunately still relevant today: “How much of the ‘gang violence’ is real or just media hype?” (The corporations own the media!).  In “Crime and Punishment,” (Roland Sheppard Website) Sheppard writes of the higher rates of incarceration for Blacks than whites. 

In the aftermath of the rebellion in South Central L.A. two years ago, there has been a massive media blitz to make "violent crime" the major issue of the day.  After all the hype, polls have been taken that show crime as the "major" issue — ahead of unemployment, health, taxes, etc.

While the media continue to focus on “crime stories,” the “crime rate” has remained virtually the same.”  And this is important, Sheppard writes:

I am also acutely aware that the U.S. is the biggest drug dealer in the world. They are the biggest weapons dealer in the world.  These are profitable enterprises.  Black and Latino/a children (despite the “message” of the number one film American Gangster) are not making deals with opium smugglers out of Afghanistan. 

Feinstein’s S 456 is now with the House of Representatives as H.R. 3547. 

On October 16, 2007, Rep. Bobby Scott (Virginia) introduced the Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education (“Youth PROMISE”) Act.  Larry Dillard, Scott’s Press Secretary told me that the Representative “firmly believes” in this bill because it offers “solutions” for our young people confronting a nation that increasingly diminishes the opportunities for them to survive.  The “Youth PROMISE Act” questions the need for new laws.  Instead, it focuses on “prevention,” offering a wide array of programs including early childhood education, home visiting for parent training, youth development, including after school efforts, mentoring, mental health services, substance abuse prevention services, and effective approaches to keep youth in school, according the National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition’s statement to Rep. John Conyers.   

Scott’s bill, however, involves the formation of a “local council” that would include “representatives from law enforcement, court services, schools, social service, health and mental health providers, and community-based organizations, including faith-based organizations.” The council would “develop a comprehensive plan for implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies” that will target “young people who are at-risk of becoming involved or [who are] involved in gangs or the juvenile or criminal justice system.” Eleanor Holmes Norton co-sponsors this bill, along with House Representatives such as Danny K. Davis, Patrick Kennedy, and Sheila Jackson Lee. 

The council Rep. Bobby Scott proposes would have to seek input from a large proportion of the everyday residents and those residents would have an active role in determining what is needed in their community. In other words, a bottom-up approach is better than one that is handed to the residents from above.  The driving force behind any program should originate from the people themselves — with government agencies assisting.  Consequently, we need to see parents, aunts, uncles, mentoring college students, teachers, pastors, priests, nuns, grassroots people — people who live in the neighborhoods themselves — the community — focused around the issue of children’s safe and well being and less involvement with the brass and State authority.  The question is, what is it that we can do to save our children and thus save our communities? 

I believe the sponsors and supporters of the Youth PROMISE Act want to see solutions to the imprisonment of our children.  But I have to ask: Is there an advantage for law enforcement and juvenile courts to work to save the lives of our children? That is, why would the police and courts want to see an end to the arrest of Black and Latino/a children?  Homeland Security is handing out millions of dollars in contracts for domestic detention camps.

The danger in Feinstein and Scott’s bill is that law enforcement personnel stay on the scene as the controlling factor.  In the latter, they become the “benevolent” enforcers of “gang abatement laws” already in place, rather than the other kind who rip and roar through Black communities.  Didn’t we cover this ground before: “good” slaveholder vs. “bad” slaveholder?”  Sensitivity training of law enforcement is not enough to undo the feelings that we live in a police state.

The real beginnings of change would have to involve the education of all participants, in an understanding of how crime in the U.S. is profitable for the prison industrial complex; how “illegal” drugs fuels the U.S. economy; how weapons sales and weapons possession by average white citizens contributes to fear of violence and violence itself in this nation; and how white supremacy assures the criminalization of Black youth.  With the knowledge we gain from this discussion of American reality, we can have the beginnings of an education that is meaningful to all participants and one that is long overdue.  Otherwise, I can’t see how councils of law enforcers and other social services will really solve the problem of shipping our children off to domestic prison “Black” sites.  I can’t see law enforcement personnel or the juvenile court workers recognizing their role in the devastation that is taking place in the Black community throughout this country.   I can’t see them recognize that these children, gang bangers or not, juvenile delinquents or not, have a right to struggle, as Malcolm would tell us, for their human rights. 

Feinstein’s S 456 is dangerous, and we need to wake up to its dangers — Blackwater and detention camps! If the definition of a gang is so broad as to capture even the innocent, then what will happen if we gather to protest — say — this bill itself? Is the Punishment Park scenario coming to a neighborhood near you?  Take a look at H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (October 24, 2007), targeting individuals prone to “violent radicalization.”  They take words out of our mouths so we can’t even articulate who we are and what we need to do, without falling into their sphere of thinking about ourselves and our course of action.  But many of us want to “radically” change (positive change for life) the downward spiral of the Black community against the “violent radicalization” of cooperate greed. Would we be rounded up and labeled “terrorists” as we fight for the human rights of all?

Gang abatement, no! Our children’s lives are being manipulated so that Black Americans can be used as scapegoats for a country steeped in internal and global criminal activities that it does not want its citizens to protest!  Shop or sleep or work several jobs but don’t object.

In Minnesota, people who still want to demonstrate at the RNC next September 2008, and who have applied for permits have yet to be granted those permits. They are now engaged in demonstrations to demand the right to protest!

The Associate Press reports that the city authorities in Long Beach, California, have banned the Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, and Military Families Speak Out from marching in the Veterans Day Parade this year.  These groups are too “political,” according to the city organizers, and, as a result, they “do not fit the spirit of the parade.”  They do not express the spirit of “gratitude.”   

These groups are banned because they want to protest violence! Really sounds like Punishment Park! 

Malcolm said:

Read more of Malcolm's words in Malcolm X Speaks.

Note: The Courage Campaign (a group of progressive California democrats) is campaigning to censure Senator Feinstein.