January 19, 2024 roundup: Gaza, Oakland violence, Proud Boys in decline, LA Sheriff Gangs, Neo-Fascism & Jamaican diaspora films

For those who don't know me (©Ali Winston)

Introductions are always odd, but here we are. This will be the inaugural weekly post summarizing recent articles and projects that have come to my attention, pointing to new/old work of mine that will live behind the subscriber wall, and riffing on other matters of interest. Weekly posts like this will live outside the paywall. The other work, well...

My interests are a bit eclectic, so if you didn't expect to see African Cup of Nations observations alongside developments with the NYPD or LA Sheriff's Department...that's just how I roll.

Currently I'm in the midst of a couple different long-term investigations (far right, tech money) that will appear in the coming weeks. For those who missed it, the first episode of Skeleton Key from my mate Jake Hanrahan at Popular Front about Turkey's Gray Wolves is available to subscribers here.

Let's get to it

BLEEDING EDGE JOURNALISM

-The Oaklandside got first crack at a crucial audit of OPD's Ceasefire program, which was responsible for half a decade of sustained violence reductions in a city with decades of persistently high crime and murder rates. The audit revealed that former Mayor Libby Schaaf allowed the program to atrophy, and steps taken by former Chief LeRonne Armstrong exacerbated difficulties faced by the carrot-and-stick initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic. I covered Oakland's Ceasefire program exhaustively since 2010. Here are some selected pieces, but for more on this topic, chapter 12 of The Riders Come Out At Night is the comprehensive account.

-Remember a few months back when it was controversial to point out the Israeli Defense Force strikes on hospitals? Well, CNN published a gargantuan visual investigation finding that 20 of 22 hospitals in the Gaza Strip suffered damage during the first two months of Israel's war of retribution against the Palestinians for Hamas' October 7th assault. More than 1,200 were killed on October 7th, and well north of 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the IDF's ensuing war, which has drawn charges of genocide from South Africa, and war crimes from Chile and Mexico just yesterday. The conflict is spreading rapidly, with new conflagrations cropping up in Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, and Yemen. Here's the New York Times item on potential for a far large regional war that should be avoided at all costs.

-143,000 buildings in Gaza, or almost half of all structures in the contested Palestinian territory, have been damaged since the IDF bombardment began, according to mapping by Corey Scher of the CUNY Grad Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University. Their mapping has been using by virtually every news organization of note on the planet, with the best English-language examples being the Financial Times' reports on IDF airstrikes leveling an entire neighborhood in Gaza and a sobering assessment in early January taking stock of what might actually be left standing once the conflict ends (which hopefully it does tomorrow).

-More reporters (almost all of them Arab) have been killed covering the latest phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict war than at any point in history. This includes World War II, the Vietnam War, both Gulf Wars and the Forever Works in AfPak. Listen to the most recent episode of the always excellent Popular Front with Vice News reporter Hind Hassan.

-Greenland's ice sheet shrank lost 5,091 sq km (1930 sq miles) of area between 1985 and 2022, according to a jarring new study in Nature. The rapid loss of ice cover, caused by man-made emissions from burning fossil fuels, is contributing directly to rising sea levels that many residents of Northeastern states in the U.S. may have noticed last week, particularly Mainers.

-The Proud Boys, a Neo-Fascist street gang that likes to drink, dress up in Pittsburgh Pirates/Steelers colors, brawl with Fascists and unsuccessfully try to overturn a presidential election, are in steep decline, per reporting by Amanda Marcotte at Salon. Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes, who by some miracle has avoided legal repercussions for the gang he helped create and that is proscribed in his native Canada, got in his feelings about Marcotte's piece. He's back online, because of course Apartheid Clyde needs his 1488er friends.

-Newcastle United, the English Premier League club bought three years ago by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund in a blatant case of sportswashing by the murderous dictatorship of Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (that's Mister Bone Saw to you plebes), is at the center of a $58 million lawsuit filed in Canada by former Saudi intelligence Chief Dr. Said Aljabari. Yasir al-Rumayyan, NUFC's chairman who also occupies a key role in the Saudi government as well as LIV Golf, the Trump-affiliated Saudi foray into the world's most boring sport, stands accused of pursuing a multi-year campaign to hound Aljabari's family, alleging that al-Rumayyan's actions were intent on “harming, silencing and ultimately destroying” the former spook's family. Court papers were served to al-Rumayyan at Newcastle United's Saint James Park ground. Justice of roosting chickens and all that. The Athletic's Adam Crafton broke the news.

-And lastly, in Los Angeles' decades-long struggle to stamp out deputy gangs in the country's largest Sheriff's department, former LASD number one Alex Villanueva took the opportunity at a recent oversight hearing to exhibit some spectacular head-in-the-sand behavior. When asked under oath about a Los Angeles Times investigation unearthing the existence of yet another deputy gang, the Industry Indians, and their alleged assault of several teenagers outside a bowling alley in 2022, the former Sheriff claimed the deputy cliques were like "softball teams" and challenged the veracity of the LAT's reporting. LASD deputy gangs have been tied to police killings, jailhouse beatings (the 3000 Boys) , and played a major role in the downfall of former Sheriff Lee Baca and his underling, Paul Tanaka.

(N.B. The LAT newsroom union is on a one-day strike today protesting imminent layoffs by the paper's billionaire owner. Please refrain from clicking on any of the LAT links until January 20th, 2024. Solidarity.)

BOOK OF THE WEEK - The Beast Reawakens, by Martin A. Lee (1997) is tragically out of print, but available on archive.org and at many public or university libraries. Lee, a longtime magazine writer who also authored books on the 1960s counterculture and co-founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, conducted extensive archival research into the Cold War survival of National Socialism in Europe and North America, right through its explosion to the forefront of Western society following the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

The scope of this book is kaleidoscopic, but topics covered include the role of Third Reich figures and their collaborators in NATO's "stay behind" GLADIO program, the often-ignored support networks fostered between American skinheads and their West German counterparts in the 1980s and 1990s, and the Reagan Administration's utilization of far right elements in their anti-Communist crusades. Oh and you'll never look at Germany's political class the same after this. Below are a few pages to give an idea of what you'll encounter: Reagan commemorating an SS graveyard in Germany, alongside Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

FILM - The Criterion Collection has a phenomenal capsule of American, British and Carribean films themed around the social politics of Reggae. All the films here are well worth your while, and of course the Harder They Come is the centerpiece. However, Rockers and Babylon are films I've long loved for their gritty, street-level look at poverty and social conditions in late 1970's Jamaica and early 1980's London. Babylon in particular was so incendiary (viewers in Bristol rioted after a screening) that UK authorities heavily restricted domestic distribution with an "X" rating when it was first released. It took 40 years for the film to see a North American release. The music as well is phenomenal - Gregory Isaacs, Burning Spear, Jah Shaka, Aswad, it doesn't get better than this.

MUSIC - Henry Rollins' (yes, the angry dude who fronted Black Flag) absolutely essential KCRW show out of Santa Monica, CA put me onto this excellent post-punk band out of Ohio, The Serfs. It'll appeal to folks who like Joy Division, Molchat Doma and sounds of that ilk.