While scrolling through my Twitter feed this week, I came upon the latest reports of vicious and abusive police behavior at the Occupy Wall Street protest camp in NYC. A crowd of about 80 marchers were surrounded by police and “kettled” with a bunch of dayglow orange plastic netting and kept corralled while being maced and pepper-sprayed prior to their arrest.

About the same time, though, I caught the heartening news that the Occupy Wall Street protests had expanded to Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Dallas (there may have been more since this cartoon was done, but I haven’t heard yet).

So, here’s one in solidarity with the gang at Occupy Wall Street in NYC and elsewhere!

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Follow Occupy Wall Street on Twitter here, and on the Web here.

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Never forget how the State used the attacks of September 11, 2001 as a pretext to shred the Constitution and encourage the escalation of police thuggery against citizens.

Never forget how the State used September 11 to encourage profiteering in the “defense” and “security” industries at the expense of citizens.

Never forget how the State used September 11 as a pretext for illegal wars and military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Never forget how the State used September 11 as a pretext for illegal imprisonment, secret courts and torture.

Never forget that the atmosphere of oppression, suspicion, paranoia and racism which has taken root in this country since September 11, 2001 has been fostered and maintained by both Republican and Democratic governments.

And last, but certainly not least…

Never forget how you, the American people, rolled over and allowed yourselves to be bullied and cowed into silence by the likes of Bush, Cheney, Obama, Ridge, Chertoff, Napolitano, Clinton, and Lieberman while they waged wars of aggression, built a gulag, committed genocide and torture and stripped away your liberty and dignity.

Never forget.
Happy Anniversary

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The 9/11 Conspiracists: Vindicated After All These Years? by Alexander Cockburn at CounterPunch.

Continue reading "Never Forget" »

Whenever political dissidents anywhere are disappeared, imprisoned, tortured or murdered, it affects me personally — but nothing has affected me quite as personally as the kidnapping and torture of Ali Ferzat, well-known Syrian cartoonist, by agents of the Syrian regime. This cartoon is in solidarity with Ferzat, standing with all of my comrades at Cartoon Movement and with artists around the world who put themselves on the line to speak truth and challenge authoritarian rule. (Pictured at left: Ali Ferzat recuperates in a Damascus hospital; foto via CNN)

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Continue reading "We Are All Ferzat" »

I really can’t come up with any words this time to go with this one; everything I’ve got to say about the uprisings in London and across Britain I’ve already said in this cartoon.

So, instead, I’ll just throw it over to Daniel Hind, writing at Al Jazeera in an op-ed entitled Nothing “Mindless” About Rioters:

Civil disturbances never have a single, simple meaning. When the Bastille was being stormed the thieves of Paris doubtless took advantage of the mayhem to rob houses and waylay unlucky revolutionaries. Sometimes the thieves were revolutionaries. Sometimes the revolutionaries were thieves. And it is reckless to start making confident claims about events that are spread across the country and that have many different elements. In Britain over the past few days there have been clashes between the police and young people. Crowds have set buildings, cars and buses on fire. Shops have been looted and passersby have been attacked. Only a fool would announce what it all means…

We can dispense with some mistakes, though. It is wrong to say that the riots are apolitical. The trouble began on Saturday night when protesters gathered at Tottenham police station to demand that the police explain the circumstances in which a local man, Mark Duggan, had been shot dead by the police. The death of a Londoner, another black Londoner, at the hands of the police has a gruesome significance. The police are employed to keep the peace and the police shot someone dead. This is a deeply political matter. Besides, it is conventional to say how much policing in London has changed since the Brixton riots of the early eighties – but not many people mouthing the conventional wisdom have much firsthand experience of being young and poor in Britain’s inner cities.

More broadly, any breakdown of civil order is inescapably political. Quite large numbers of mostly young people have decided that, on balance, they want to take to the streets and attack the forces of law and order, damage property or steal goods. Their motives may differ – they are bound to differ. But their actions can only be understood adequately in political terms. While the recklessness of adrenaline has something to do with what is happening, the willingness to act is something to be explained. We should perhaps ask them what they were thinking before reaching for phrases like “mindless violence”. We might actually learn something…

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Continue reading "Walk Like An Egyptian – Bash Back Like A Brit" »