[News] Holder’s Final Betraying Kiss to the People of Ferguson: The Wholesale Abandonment of Decency

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*http://blackagendareport.com/node/14644*


    Holder’s Final Betraying Kiss to the People of Ferguson: The
    Wholesale Abandonment of Decency


      by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, and Kevin
      Berends

All week the DOJ has been floating trial balloons throughout the media 
that former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson will not be brought up 
on any charges for his slaying of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown – 
despite 16 eyewitnesses who said that Brown was surrendering with his 
hands up when he was summarily executed by Wilson; despite the glaring 
abuse of the grand jury process by St. Louis District Attorney Robert 
McCullough and despite Michael Brown's 4th Amendment protections against 
the excessive use of force.

There is no "very high bar" that needs to be met to establish the case 
that Wilson intentionally violated Michael's civil rights as Holder 
cynically asserted during his recent diatribe at the historic Ebenezer 
Baptist Church. The Black Attorney General never even mentioned Brown’s 
right to protection from excessive force or Eric Garner’s protection 
from being strangled by police, his right to duty of care rather than 
his slave patrol police assailants' refusing to administer life saving 
CPR. Both incidents demonstrate the broader, reckless disregard for 
people who look like Michael and Eric that is rampant in the US. The 
echoes of slavery still reverberate through Ferguson and Brooklyn and 
Cleveland and Oakland and all the other race-toxic communities nationwide.

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder see nothing wrong with 
any of this. If they did, they are empowered to act. Yet the only things 
they have done proactively about the issues of police brutality and 
fraudulent grand juries are the establishment of a useless Task Force on 
21st Century Policing 
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/18/president-obama-announces-task-force-21st-century-policing> 
[1], headed by – of all people – Charles Ramsey 
<http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/08/dc-paid-26m-to-private-lawyers-in-mass-arrest-case.html> 
[2], who as Chief of Police in Washington, DC unleashed a police 
onslaught against unarmed civilian demonstrators who were practicing 
their constitutional right of peaceful assembly that cost the District 
millions in damages awarded in a class action suit. On top of that, they 
now toss us the cynical bone of hollow promises that they will add 
investigating the Ferguson police department to the mountain of 
investigations that they have already promised into the deaths of 
Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and so on ad nauseam.

And so today, in advance of the Justice Department's official 
announcement that there will be no charges brought against Darren Wilson 
we must declare our victory such as it is. Unlike the investigation into 
George Zimmerman's hunting Travyon Martin for sport – February 26, 2015 
will mark the 3rd year with still no DOJ ruling – the effort of common 
American citizens under the banner of the Hands Up Coalition DC 
(consisting of nearly 40 organizations) has forced the Department of 
Justice to hastily spew its no-finding without the usual delaying tactic 
of waiting years before slipping some half-measure to the press out the 
back door late on a Friday afternoon.

This time – and only because for three months we have stood sentry at 
the doors of the DOJ and in the streets across the country – we smoked 
them out. They had to reach a decision in the Brown case. But this free 
pass that is about to be granted Darren Wilson is a bitter rebuke to 
Michael Brown's family given Mr. Holder's solemn public promise to stand 
with them. Holder's breach of promise to them stands alongside the oath 
he violates every day that passes without his prosecuting the highest 
public officials who designed, implemented and oversee a systemic regime 
of torture. The brutalizing of African Americans and the torture of 
prisoners are one and the same.

Sadly, the families of John Crawford III, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner and 
all the other victims around the country must let go of any illusions 
that DOJ is in their corner.

“St. Louis District Attorney Robert McCullough stacked the jury, he 
manipulated witnesses – in some cases with people he knew to be lying. 
He allowed no adversarial cross examination and then presented the 
findings as though they were arrived at justly," said Kymone Freeman, 
Program Director for We Act Radio. "He stalled for three full months – 
while decent people were getting beaten, shot, pepper sprayed, sound 
bombed and tear gassed – when he could have accomplished all he had to 
do in a single day's work by acknowledging that 16 people said Michael 
Brown's hands were up when he was murdered. It was not up to Bob 
McCullough to decide guilt or innocence in this case. It was up to him 
to let a jury decide. But that would have included Michael Brown's peers 
and McCullough couldn't risk exposing one of his goons to a fair trial."

A recent New York Times 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/us/justice-department-ferguson-civil-rights-darren-wilson.html?%2520r=o> 
[3] article did not even mention the gross misuse of the Grand Jury 
system by St. Louis DA McCullough.

The Department of Justice could have intervened for any one of those 
egregious acts, but did not. "The Obama administration has innocent 
American blood on its hands. The entire process is gangrenous. Despite 
their promises to Michael Brown's family, the Ferguson community and the 
country, neither the president nor the attorney general have the moral 
courage to do what is right," said Eugene Puryear 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike-debonis/wp/2014/10/22/meet-an-at-large-d-c-council-candidate-eugene-puryear/> 
[4] of #DC Ferguson and ANSWER Coalition National Organizer.

After holding their hands and looking Michael Brown’s grieving parents 
in the eye while assuring them that the US Department of Justice would 
stand with the people of Ferguson, let AG Eric Holder stand once again 
in front of cameras, in Ferguson, with Michael Brown's parents beside 
him and tell the country that his Department of Justice will not indict 
Darren Wilson. Give Eric Holder the photo op of telling Michael's 
parents to their face that Darren Wilson’s assassination of their son 
was a “good kill” protected by the US Constitution. Let Mr. Holder tell 
the Ferguson community that the DOJ is only investigating how it can 
improve the vile, nearly all-white Ferguson police force. Let him face 
the righteous wrath of all those betrayed by the Obama administration's 
complicity in the murder of Michael Brown.

Going forward it is now time to consider new tactics and strategies.

The system that once forbade Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his 
compatriots from crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge has morphed, expanded 
and grown so sophisticated that it now accommodates “peaceful 
demonstrations” with police escorting protesters from die-ins to 
“shutting shit down.” This isn't respecting our constitutional right to 
petition the government for redress of grievance. No. This is 
appeasement and patronizing.

I don't recall the history lessons about Martin, Biko, Garvey and 
Nkrumah holding die-ins in the street. Or of Malcolm reveling afterwards 
about standing in front of the Department of Justice month after month 
while the folks inside went about business as usual and sided with yet 
another white cop who had blatantly murdered an unarmed black civilian. 
And I must have missed the section on Fidel or Che settling for a 
special Presidential U.S. Commission to look into whether or not there 
should have been changes made in the way the government did business in 
Cuba. Nope. The current post-Ferguson uprisings are most certainly NOT 
our grandparents' civil rights movement—or comparable to any other 
revolutionary movement. Not by a long shot.

Yet to the casual observer the guys with the machine guns and helmets 
and personnel carriers and tasers at their disposal scored a victory. 
They had the better team, the better infrastructure, messaging and 
message distribution with eager partners in the legacy media to drive it 
home. To be clear – the president is the epitome of the guy with the 
guns, as LBJ demonstrated in Selma when he dispatched the National 
Guard. Were the president equal to his rhetoric he would stand his 
ground. He has both the authority and capacity. Yet he and his attorney 
general have gone missing on this one, while newly-wed Darren Wilson 
enjoys the privacy of his sanctuary with impunity while his supporters 
bloat his bank account.

The police, the police unions and the highest officials in government 
are laughing at our gullibility, our congeniality, our embarrassing 
willingness to criticize "brutal police" while those same police 
facilitate our blocking the streets in downtown America – in areas not 
even remotely connected to the decision makers – while those whose 
support we need are sitting in the clogged traffic we created, maybe on 
their way to pick up their children from daycare or to see their dying 
mother and are chafing at the theater being played out at their expense 
in the streets.

We don't see any businesses doing that as a way to attract and retain 
customers.

But a discerning eye sees that in the long arc of Justice we have scored 
victories, too. By participating in shut downs and marches and vigils 
and workshops and strategic conversations we have enjoyed a sense of 
power, the healing of fellowship and the kindling of a new belief that 
the promised land is within reach. And we have learned some valuable 
lessons: We now know what to expect from the Obama administration – 
nothing. We now know what to expect from the president's commission on 
policing – nothing. We now know that the police have been instructed to 
tolerate our fitful outbursts as a way for us to blow off steam, to 
diffuse the energy that builds every time the slave patrols collect 
another bounty. We have by now seen the only real policy the government 
has to offer – waiting us out until the storm blows over. That's it.

Both sides can only claim partial victories. But riding out the storm is 
just as ineffective for them as our docile, symbolic protesting is for 
us. And with every innocent fallen black citizen the platitudes served 
up by the administration about a brighter tomorrow ring more hollow 
still. When history presented Eric Holder his Rosa Parks moment, he 
retreated to the back of the bus. And when righteousness tapped Barack 
Obama on the shoulder with his Lester Maddox moment, he sidled up to the 
white folks with the ax handles. Mercifully, Eric Holder is about to 
ride into the sunset of mediocrity where untold wealth via obscene 
honoraria, book deals and other million dollar opportunities await. May 
his opulent future be plagued with remorse and shame.

Unlike the President's lame assertion that torture and racism occurred 
in the past and we need to move forward, may we remind ourselves that 
ALL punishable crimes get committed in the past and adjudicated in the 
present. No one can be convicted for a crime they may commit, only those 
they have committed. If there is no justice for police-murdered 
civilians there can be no peace. And if there is no justice for war 
criminals – beginning with the President and applied equally throughout 
the chain of command – there can be no peace.

This is next to war. When our vaunted past revolutionary leaders 
confronted their oppressors they didn't shrug, "Give me liberty, or give 
me the remote."

Then why do we?


          Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the author of No FEAR: A
          Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the
          EPA, that is available through amazon.com. Dr. Coleman-Adebayo
          worked at the EPA for 18 years and blew the whistle on a US
          multinational corporation that endangered vanadium mine
          workers. Marsha's successful lawsuit led to the introduction
          and passage of the first civil rights and whistleblower law of
          the 21st century: the Notification of Federal Employees
          Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act).
          She is Director of Transparency and Accountability for the
          Green Shadow Cabinet, serves on the Advisory Board of
          ExposeFacts.com., and coordinates the DC-based Hands-Up
          Coalition (www.handsupcoalitiondc.com) Contact Marsha at:
          MarshaCAdebayo at blackagendareport.com and
          www.marshacoleman-adebayo.com


          Kevin Berends is Director of Communication for
          www.nofearinstitute.org, co-founder and first executive editor
          of Lake Affect Magazine and producer of the independent
          television program 'Streetlevel.' Kevin can be contacted at:
          info at handsupcoalitiondc.com

Watch the Hands Up Coalition-DC and Witness Against Torture demonstration

at the Department of Justice and occupation of DC Police Station: 
https://www.popularresistance.org/coffins-brought-to-dc-police-to-protest-police-killings/ 
[5] [6]
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*Source URL:* http://blackagendareport.com/node/14644

*Links:*
[1] 
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/18/president-obama-announces-task-force-21st-century-policing
[2] 
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/08/dc-paid-26m-to-private-lawyers-in-mass-arrest-case.html
[3] 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/us/justice-department-ferguson-civil-rights-darren-wilson.html?%2520r=o
[4] 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike-debonis/wp/2014/10/22/meet-an-at-large-d-c-council-candidate-eugene-puryear/
[5] 
https://www.popularresistance.org/coffins-brought-to-dc-police-to-protest-police-killings/
[6] 
http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblackagendareport.com%2Fnode%2F14644&linkname=Holder%E2%80%99s%20Final%20Betraying%20Kiss%20to%20the%20People%20of%20Ferguson%3A%20The%20Wholesale%20Abandonment%20of%20Decency

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