March | 2018 | Forthright Radio

In this edition of Forthright Radio, we focus on the final clause of the First Amendment, which addresses “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Governments around the world have developed ways to suppress the right that right, using diverse methods, including what are euphemistically called “non-lethal” or “less than lethal” weapons. Indeed, we live in an age of “the commodification of repression,” where global industries profit on the suppression of the right of the people to petition their government.

Anna Feigenbaum is currently a principal Academic in Digital Storytelling at Bournemouth University, where she teaches multimedia journalism and convenes their Civic Media Hub. In the Fall of 2017, Verso published her most recent book Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of WW1 to the Streets of Today. Funded by a Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities grant, she used archival and data storytelling methods to track the movement of tear gas from the trenches of WW1 to the streets of today, asking

‘How did it become normal to police communication with poison’?

Her earlier book, which she co-edited, is Protest camps in international context: Spaces, infrastructures and media of resistance. She has held positions at Rutgers University, the London School of Economics & Political Science, and the University of London. Her work has appeared in numerous, diverse journals from The Atlantic to The Guardian, Financial Times and Waging Nonviolence.

PIETÀ Gaza City, Gaza Strip May 14, 2018

The mother of Leila al-Ghandour, a Palestinian baby of eight months, holds her body at the morgue of al-Shifa hospital. According to the Palestinian health ministry Leila died of teargas inhalation during clashes in East Gaza the previous day

Photograph: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images (https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2018/may/15/gaza-mourners-and-a-nearby-moon-tuesdays-best-photos)

In Tear Gas she chronicles the history and use of chemical weapons against civilians, documenting the lack of scientific or medical proof that they truly are non-lethal.

Two German soldiers and their mule wearing gas masks in 1916.
http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWgas.htm

Soldiers in gas masks advance on World War I veterans in the Bonus March protest in Washington in July 1932
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/11/greene.jobless.veterans/index.html

Demonstrators react to tear gas and smoke bombs set off to deter their voting-rights march in Camden, Alabama, in 1965. (AP photo.)
https://www.myajc.com/news/national/for-trump-nominee-jeff-sessions-race-great-battle-not-fought/9cpM4nR3NUFQTbuSPSDzXL/

State troopers wear gas masks as tear gas is fired on about 600 marchers trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL. They had begun a 50 mile march to the state capital, Montgomery, to protest discriminatory practices preventing black people from voting. State troopers used brutal force to push them back on what became known as “Bloody Sunday”. Charles Moore via Steven Kasher Gallery

https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/03/us/cnnphotos-selma-civil-rights-moore/index.html

Police surround an incapacitated man after throwing tear gas into the crowd of protesters, 1968, Kansas City, Mo.
Credit Western Historical Manuscript Collection

Photographer Nacio Jan Brown captured a moment that shocked many: a National Guard helicopter spraying tear gas on students and antiwar protesters in Sproul Plaza on May 20, 1969 — in some sense extending “the front” from Vietnam onto college campuses. The juxtaposition of the military-grade helicopter with the Campanile — the unofficial symbol of the UC Berkeley campus — helped make this photograph an iconic image of the suppression of campus protest. The demonstrators had gathered to commemorate the death of James Rector, who had been shot by police while on the rooftop of Granma Books on May 15, during a protest over the disposition of People’s Park.

Soldiers taking cover behind their sandbagged armoured cars while dispersing rioters with CS gas in Derry, Ireland on their “Bloody Sunday” Photo: PA/PA Archive/PA Images https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/northernireland/7828754/Saville-Inquiry-Bloody-Sunday-timeline.html

police tear gas demonstrators they had penned-in on wall street #occupywallstreet

Then-UC Davis police Lt. John Pike hits protesters with pepper spray on Nov. 18, 2011. (Wayne Tilcock / Associated Press) The former UC Davis police lieutenant who pepper-sprayed student protesters at a November 2011 Occupy demonstration would later receive about $38,000 in workers’ compensation.
http://www.dailycal.org/2013/10/23/former-uc-davis-police-lieutenant-receives-38000-workers-compensation-settlement/

84-Year-Old Dorli Rainey, Pepper-Sprayed at Occupy Seattle, Denounces “Worsening” Police Crackdowns | Democracy Now!

Tear Gas or Lethal Gas? Bahrain’s Death Toll Mounts to 34

http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/blog/tear-gas-or-lethal-gas.html

“The woman in red” shows Ceyda Sungur, an academic at Istanbul’s university, who stood defiantly in Taksim Square, centre of the uprising that has swept across the capital and beyond.

06/06/2013 https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/05/turkey-uprising-ceyda-sungur_n_3388712.html

Two street stencils on walls in Istanbul Inspired by the protests in Taksim Gezi Park, Istanbul, the summer of 2013, when CNN Turkey aired a penguin documentary, while CNN International ran live coverage of the protests.

Ramadan Thawabteh, eight-months-old, died from asphyxiation after inhaling tear gas, fired by the Israeli army, that entered the house of his family. It was not immediately clear if a tear gas grenade had entered the house in the city of Bethlehem or if the gas had seeped in from outside. https://www.yahoo.com/news/palestinian-baby-dies-tear-gas-fired-israeli-army-165944094.html

Police fire tear gas at demonstrators protesting the shooting of Michael Brown on August 17, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Scott Olson / Getty

Kosovo opposition politicians release tear gas in parliament to obstruct a session in Pristina, Kosovo March 21, 2018. REUTERS/Laura HasaniReuters

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-03-21/kosovo-opposition-releases-tear-gas-in-parliament-over-border-deal-with-montenegro

Sites of protest and political contention are often shaped by ‘other media’. Anna Feigenbaum looks beyond taken-for-granted media devices and practices and returns to the foundational roots of Communication Theory’s ‘the medium and the message’.
In addition to smartphones, Facebook pages, political posters and live-streaming laptops, communication involves all kinds of other technologies. Such “other media” objects include the fences, walls, and barricades, that become sites of and for communication. This ‘other media’ also includes ‘container technologies’ like shoeboxes or sound grenades, which function as storage devices, as well as re-crafted objects that become transformed through practices of disobedient design.

#teargasID The Riot ID Project

Who are the World’s Heaviest Tear Gas Users? Our 2015 Mapping the Media project on Tear Gas is now live! Check out the maps on our BU Civic Media Hub website.

http://www.civicmedia.io/projects/tear-gas-maps-2015/

Anna Feigenbaum, author of Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of WWI to the Streets of Today, in conversation with L.A. Kauffman, Mark Bray, Ali Issa, and Ajay Singh Chaudhary. At Verso Books in Brooklyn, November 8, 2017.

Watch it here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gPqfSPikWA

*** Some of the articles referenced in this interview can be found here:

What happened when US Police teargassed protesters – a visual investigation https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2023/apr/17/teargas-effect-portland-police-investigation

Judge Says Columbus Police Ran ‘Amok’ Against Protesters; Restricts Use Of Force https://www.npr.org/2021/05/02/992890494/judge-says-columbus-police-ran-amok-against-protesters-restricts-use-of-force

Columbus police ‘ran amok’ during BLM protests last summer, federal judge rules as he orders officers to stop using tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets on nonviolent demonstrators https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9537969/Columbus-police-ran-amok-BLM-protests-judge-rules.html

Hundreds report abnormal menstruation after being teargassed during Portland protests https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/29/teargas-protest-menstrual-cycles-health-impact

Hundreds Reported Abnormal Menstruation After Exposure to Tear Gas, Study Finds https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/us/period-tear-gas-study-portland.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage

Teargas, flashbangs: the devastating toll of police tactics on Minnesota children https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/30/teargas-effect-children-police-minnesota-brooklyn-center

Federal Agents Used Toxic Chemical Smoke Grenades in Portland https://theintercept.com/2020/10/10/portland-tear-gas-chemical-grenades-protests/

A guide to the less-lethal weapons that law enforcement uses against protesters https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/05/less-lethal-weapons-protests/?arc404=true

Rubber Bullets Are Still Bullets https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rubber-bullets-deadly-protests-police-george-floyd_n_5eda9e47c5b68a90de7688de

How the ‘use of force’ industry drives police militarization and makes us all less safe https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/use-of-force-police-militarization-less-safe/

The profitable theatrics of riot control Militarized policing was designed to destroy the dignity of those who contest power

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/5/the-profitable-theatrics-of-riot-control.html

The profitable marriage of military and police tech War technologies aren’t just adopted by domestic law enforcement; they’re created with policing in mind

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/police-militarizationswattechnology.html

The National Guard protects Ferguson’s police, not its people Backing a militarized police force with civilian soldiers makes a mockery of the right to protest

This weekend, a one-stop-shop to militarize your town

https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/weekend-one-stop-shop-militarize-town/

Former UC Davis police lieutenant receives $38,000 workers’ compensation settlement http://www.dailycal.org/2013/10/23/former-uc-davis-police-lieutenant-receives-38000-workers-compensation-settlement/

Israeli Drones Tear-Gas Gaza Protesters in Latest Unmanned Weapons ‘Experiment’

https://www.mintpressnews.com/israeli-drones-tear-gas-gaza-protesters-latest-unmanned-weapons-experiment/238915/

Tear gas was banned for warfare in 1993 but police still use it, viral meme says http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/aug/26/facebook-posts/tear-gas-was-banned-warfare-1993-police-1997/

Seven years to the day, after the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daichi plant in Japan, on March 11, 2011, French President, Emmanuel Macron, visited India to seal a deal to sell what at least 2 international groups are calling, “untested, expensive and technically troubled French EPR reactors”.

We speak with Kevin Kamps, a staff member of one of those groups, Beyond Nuclear (http://www.beyondnuclear.org/). We update the national and international situation regarding all things nuclear.

What about the sailors of the USS Ronald Reagan, who were exposed to radiation while engaged in Operation Tomodachi, the humanitarian relief effort responding to the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster? Some of the 4500 sailors have already died. Many more are suffering from radiation specific illnesses. What happened to them, and the lawsuits survivors have brought in the United States against reactor owner/operator, TEPCO? How about Trump administration revisions to the Nuclear Posture Review, expanding first use of nukes, or efforts to prioritize reviving and expanding nuclear power generation in the United States, not to mention efforts by Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, to sell Westinghouse nuclear reactors to Saudi Arabia? What about the unsolved – and many believe unsolvable – problem of safe disposal of ensuing radioactive waste products?

Kevin Kamps is a longtime leading opponent of government and industry efforts to dump nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. He is an expert about the risks of radioactive waste generation and storage at reactor sites, as well as transportation through communities across our country. In addition, he focuses on eliminating federal subsidies for new reactors and reprocessing facilities. Kevin Kamps has traveled to Chernobyl in the Ukraine. He founded a Michigan chapter of the international Chernobyl Children’s Project, which brings child victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to the United States for medical help. He has addressed communities in the US & overseas, as well as governmental forums & federal, state and local government agencies.

Rows of trash bags containing radioactive waste from the Fukushima nuclear disaster now litter the area. (courtesy beyondnuclear.org)

Some of the articles cited in today’s interview can be found here:

7 Years on, Sailors Exposed to Fukushima Radiation Seek Their Day in Court https://www.thenation.com/article/seven-years-on-sailors-exposed-to-fukushima-radiation-seek-their-day-in-court/

Injustice At Sea: the Irradiated Sailors of the USS Reagan https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/07/injustice-at-sea-the-irradiated-sailors-of-the-uss-reagan/

Japan Plans to Expose Its People and 2020 Tokyo Olympians to Fukushima Radiation http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41280-japan-plans-to-expose-its-people-and-2020-tokyo-olympians-to-fukushima-radiation

A Tale of Two Vogtles: Georgia Reactors are Nuclear’s Last Stand, and the End of the Road https://www.nirs.org/a-tale-of-two-vogtles/

Trump Administration Rushing Bailout for Nuclear and Coal Market Rules Could Reshape U.S. Energy Policy, Block Renewables https://www.nirs.org/trumps-dirtyenergy-bailout-really/

Pentagon to Allow Nuclear Responses to Non-Nuclear Attacks http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43460-pentagon-to-allow-nuclear-responses-to-non-nuclear-attacks

The Race to Win Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Reactor Bid Raises Fears of Proliferation https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/24314/the-race-to-win-saudi-arabia-s-nuclear-reactor-bid-raises-fears-of-proliferation

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry with Saudi Energy & Industry Minister, Khalid Bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih (courtesy beyondnuclear.org)