Charlene Walker on Mt. Ephraim DoD Exercises: What Were Objectives?
Mount Ephraim police recently circulated and posted an announcement that from September 2 – 5 the Department of Defense would be conducting training excercises within the confines of the township. The township did not explain the purpose of the exercise but made the claim that it had nothing to do with current events or ICE or customs enforcement.
The notice tries to give the impression that the training is perfectly normal: “This type of training is frequently conducted numerous times a year in cities throughout all regions of the United States.” The notice warned residents of possible presence of emergency response vehicles, helicopters. gunshots and explosive sounds. The notice made clear that the public and media are not welcome to observe the operations – putting a veil of secrecy over them
NJ community organizer Charlene Walker is a veteran of many struggles and especially engaged in immigrant support. In this vid, she raises questions about the true purpose of these exercises and the possibility of a demonstration objective to try to normalize for the local suburbanites of Mount Ephraim the idea of military operations, military occupation and military repression against our own communities. Those are daunting thoughts – Trump released an AI generated meme with a pretty clear threat of lethal violence against our own people – in Chicago! So hopefully we can heed Ms. Walker’s concerns and prepare ourselves vs. the many threats on our rights from so many directions.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey y’all, buckle up. Let’s talk about Mount Ephraim police. They actually notified folks. Don’t be alarmed. The Department of Defense is going to be rolling through town with helicopters, a little gunfire, some explosions at night for like 3 days. And just chill out. Don’t worry.
See, here’s the thing. This town in Camden County is a suburb that is mostly white that makes pretty decent amounts of money. Well, why are the wargames being practiced there? See, this is actually how the state gets to normalize violence and militarization in our neighborhoods and tell us that it’s about safety, right? They condition us to accept helicopters and explosions and all other things, right? Meanwhile, we know how that plays out in Black and Brown communities, right? And immigrant communities.
We see it on the TV all the time. It’s more surveillance. It’s more raids. It’s all of this overreach. All while these suburbs that have privilege are being trained not to speak out against state violence.
So we should not just be alarmed. We need to be prepared. We need to know our rights. How do we deal with military occupation? How do we deal with ICE, DHS, and all of it?
We still have constitutional rights. Learn them. Build community. Keep each other safe. And also, we should be really concerned because if you go to Reddit, people are reporting that they were hearing things in Jersey City and New Brunswick also. So, what is the DoD actually getting prepared for? Buckle up. Build community.
