The Occupation of Wall Street Spreads

[Highlord Laan]

a respectable institution.

Such a thing exists?!?

[Ryan Thunder]

Ok, so how do we get this stuff dealt with if the changes that need (absolutely must) to happen are unpopular due to an overwhelming prevalance of stupidity?

[Rogue 9]

My brother posted this elsewhere, and I thought I'd throw it in here. The Guardian.

The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality

Naomi Wolf
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 November 2011 12.25 EST

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.

But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."

In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests.

To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.

I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors', city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.

Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.

That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.

The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.

The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women's wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).

In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.

But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential contender Newt Gingrich's having been paid $1.8m for a few hours' "consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies' profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.

Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists' privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can't suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organised Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.

So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.

Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.

Bolded in the middle of the article is for Chocula's benefit, but that's not the primary focus.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

While I don't disagree with the core of the article, the language is a bit... meh. 'Unparalleled' police brutality? Bullshit. Yes, it's bad, yes, it needs to stop, however it is anything but unparalleled. When the water-cannons are fired up, dogs are set upon the unarmed and live ammo is fired into crowds, then the brutality will have achieved equal standing to the worst acts of suppression in first-world countries in this century. But even then things would have to get far worse before they're 'unparalleled'.

[Count Chocula]

The author, presumably from the UK, did not cite the provenance of of those 100 replies. I can't say I disagree with them, but as I've said before the list of organizers/sponsors, the choice of targets, the offensive rhetoric and acts of OWS protestors in multiple cities, and oh yeah that fact that a UK reporter cites an online poll as proof simply aren't persuasive. I'll give 'em time. Maybe the shocking truth will help spur an organization with a platform to emerge. As for now, well I think John Stewart and his crew have hit the nail on the head:

The Daily Show

[thejester]

It's Naomi Wolf, dude, of The Beauty Myth fame. She's American.

[Stark]

Dude, I don't think that matters. He's open about the fact that he hates the movement simply because they say bad things about capitalists, ie him. This isn't the result of any in-depth political soul-searching. He'll just keep saying that there's 'no message' while saying the message offends him and demanding they fulfill his definition of 'successful'.

I think its great.

[SirNitram]

the offensive rhetoric and acts of OWS protestors in multiple cities,

This is quite a revealing statement, and should be considered beyond merely Chocula: But as part of the broader anti-OWS population. The rhetoric of OWS is 'offensive'. Pepper spray in the face for simply kneeling there? Not mentioned. Beatings of a former Supreme? Not mentioned. Certainly not with 'offensive'. And of course, the images of that most neanderthalic of practices: Dragging women by their hair.

Violence against peaceful protestors is not offensive to these people. The fact these nonviolent people are daring to speak out, apparently, is.

[Stark]

I like how he can dismiss anything he doens't like out of hand, but is instantly ready to accept things he does like (ie, 'this is what motivates OWS people' vs 'THEY WANT TO LITERALLY EAT THE RICH LOL').

[ThomasP]

Literally all the resistance I've seen in response to OWS has boiled down to framing their message as "no message" or, worst case, a blank-check "they hate capitalism!", and then using that to justify brutal crackdowns. Because hey, they're just filthy latte-sipping hippies that don't even realize their coffee came from a corporation.

Nevermind that the exact same people making that case will argue against police brutality and Big Gubment(TM) in other contexts. Power does a great job of hypnotizing the masses.

[UnderAGreySky]

It was only a matter or time before someone said this:

SUSSMAN: I wanted to ask you this morning, you wrote this book almost as if you knew this movement was going to break loose.

COULTER: Yes, yeah the FBI ought to be looking into me. I mean, I knew there would be mob uprisings again, it -- they are, they are demonic thus the title of my book. We will always have the demonic among us. There will always be evil in the world. I did not anticipate that it would happen actually while I was on my book tour. Because -- but, it's been awhile since there's been something at least as broad as this, fortunately so far not as frightening or threatening as the weathermen or SDS, and it's hard to imagine how it could be in today's America.

Maybe it's just my sunny optimism, but I just feel like there's so much -- America is in a much, much better place now than it was historically with the internets, with talk radio, with Fox News.

SUSSMAN: Right.

COULTER: It was so easy for the liberals to control a large part of the country. I mean you always did have the silent majority as Nixon called it, but I just think it's easy for the silent -- easier for the silent majority to communicate with one another now. And thus, for example, instead of speaking in abstract terms, with the Occupy Wall Street, I mean I'm sure you've been online. All these kids with flipcams are out there filming the Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland, and I'm sure occupy -- I bet I can find a video of what you were just describing, which sounds horrible, and I'm sorry about your bank by the way, and people can see for themselves and get the news they want themselves.

So at the moment anyway, I mean I don't know what's going to happen in New York today, but at the moment I'm not really worried of a movement like SDS which really swept a lot of the college campuses --

SUSSMAN: Yes.

COULTER: -- taking over. Of course if it does, just remember the lesson from my book: it just took a few shootings at Kent State to shut that down for good. And despite the Neil Young song --

SUSSMAN: Right.

edited to bold relevant bits.

[K. A. Pital]

Coulter is the "nuke em killerize them in the name of God (then convert them to Christianity" person, right? She's crazy. That's just her being normal.

[PeZook]

How the fuck could anyone seriously support what happened at Kent State?

[Highlord Laan]

How the fuck could anyone seriously support what happened at Kent State?

RED BLOODED 'MERRICUN PRIDE!

[Lord Zentei]

Literally all the resistance I've seen in response to OWS has boiled down to framing their message as "no message" or, worst case, a blank-check "they hate capitalism!", and then using that to justify brutal crackdowns. Because hey, they're just filthy latte-sipping hippies that don't even realize their coffee came from a corporation.

Nevermind that the exact same people making that case will argue against police brutality and Big Gubment(TM) in other contexts. Power does a great job of hypnotizing the masses.

That's what I said when the movement started: if OWS don't deliver a clear, concise message and have some kind of plan then they will have their message defined for them by their detractors. Back then I was told rather sniffly that I didn't "get it", that a specific message wasn't the point - now it seems that when a laundry list of ideas has emerged from the bottom-up, its already too late to change people's perceptions.

Did people really think that the powers that be would play fair with regards to counter-propaganda? Seriously? Have people forgotten how Kerry was swift-boated and how that helped tank his campaign because he wasn't quick enough and aggressive enough on the counter-attack? Or how countless politicians have foundered because they lacked clarity of message? Why should OWS expect to be treated any differently?

And incidentally, before anyone asks: "yes" - it is appropriate to expect protestors to have a clear plan and a clear message prepared BEFORE they start protesting, not over two months later. If they want to be successful, that is.

[Count Chocula]

Oops! Sorry thejester, my mistake. I ASS U MEd because it was a British publication she was British. Do we have a smiley for "brain fart?"

[Simon_Jester]

Ok, so how do we get this stuff dealt with if the changes that need (absolutely must) to happen are unpopular due to an overwhelming prevalance of stupidity?

Keep agitating for them, and wait for the stupid to abandon their folly or die of old age. That happens, eventually- we are only a few years into this crisis, this conflict between corporate capitalism and democracy. It's not going to end quickly. So keeping up a constant pro-reform pressure counts for a lot.

Working at the local level is good too- there are some places that work to lower the 'misery quotient' of the recession quite well even as the federal government doesn't do much about the problem. And winning locally gives you a springboard of territory to win nationally.

That's what I said when the movement started: if OWS don't deliver a clear, concise message and have some kind of plan then they will have their message defined for them by their detractors. Back then I was told rather sniffly that I didn't "get it", that a specific message wasn't the point - now it seems that when a laundry list of ideas has emerged from the bottom-up, its already too late to change people's perceptions.

Did people really think that the powers that be would play fair with regards to counter-propaganda? Seriously? Have people forgotten how Kerry was swift-boated and how that helped tank his campaign because he wasn't quick enough and aggressive enough on the counter-attack? Or how countless politicians have foundered because they lacked clarity of message? Why should OWS expect to be treated any differently?

And incidentally, before anyone asks: "yes" - it is appropriate to expect protestors to have a clear plan and a clear message prepared BEFORE they start protesting, not over two months later. If they want to be successful, that is.

I think this would be inevitable no matter what "clear message" OWS presented. Of course they are going to be ignored and derided by the mainstream media. Of course they are going to be accused of simultaneously having no message and an evil message by the right.

If you do not want to admit that someone has a point, the first thing you do is pretend they aren't making one. OWS's "point" would not get transmitted through the mainstream media no matter what they do or say, because CNN has no interest in giving air time to people who want to weaken large corporations, and Fox has less than no interest in doing so.

If you're paying enough attention to them to care what they are saying, rather than just making up a fake version of what they're saying, then you will know what they are talking about, and have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done.

Is this enough to cause major change? No. But then, a wave of spontaneous protests (no one planned for Occupy to get big; three months ago no one had a damn clue it would happen at all) is usually not the be-all and end-all of the political ideal that motivates it. Occupy is only the beginning; the big marches on Washington, the political manifestos, and so on are going to come later.

[Mayabird]

As Simon has said, so others have noted

Georgia state Sen. Vincent Fort, a Democrat who was among those arrested when protesters were expelled from an Atlanta park last month, said he is not troubled by the absence of any major tangible change.

“The Occupy movement is a relative baby. It’s just a few months old,” he said. “The most important thing it has done is to change the conversation in this country. You can’t have any policy change, you can’t have any legislative change, until the debate is changed.”

And apologies if that's already been posted and I missed it in the dozens of pages.

[Lord Zentei]

I think this would be inevitable no matter what "clear message" OWS presented. Of course they are going to be ignored and derided by the mainstream media. Of course they are going to be accused of simultaneously having no message and an evil message by the right.

If you do not want to admit that someone has a point, the first thing you do is pretend they aren't making one. OWS's "point" would not get transmitted through the mainstream media no matter what they do or say, because CNN has no interest in giving air time to people who want to weaken large corporations, and Fox has less than no interest in doing so.

If you're paying enough attention to them to care what they are saying, rather than just making up a fake version of what they're saying, then you will know what they are talking about, and have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done.

Is this enough to cause major change? No. But then, a wave of spontaneous protests (no one planned for Occupy to get big; three months ago no one had a damn clue it would happen at all) is usually not the be-all and end-all of the political ideal that motivates it. Occupy is only the beginning; the big marches on Washington, the political manifestos, and so on are going to come later.

This sounds like excuse making for bad strategy. As emphasized by this quote:

“The Occupy movement is a relative baby. It’s just a few months old,” he said.

Another way of looking at it is this: it's been a few months and still no manifesto. How long does it take to make one? Seriously.

[Stark]

It's almost as if your standards are not important, isn't it? Even without a 'manifesto' (ho ho) they've had a profound effect. The movement could collapse and die away quickly for any number of reasons, but so long as the authorities keep reacting so hilariously they'll have had a positive impact on American political discourse.

Even WITHOUT following the Zentai Flowchart.

[Lord Zentei]

It's almost as if your standards are not important, isn't it? Even without a 'manifesto' (ho ho) they've had a profound effect. The movement could collapse and die away quickly for any number of reasons, but so long as the authorities keep reacting so hilariously they'll have had a positive impact on American political discourse.

Even WITHOUT following the Zentai Flowchart.

There's plenty of reason to criticize them for not organizing better. As for positive impact on political discourse, it remains to be seen how long-term that is. And if the movement's popularity continues to wane, then it may well have been a wasted opportunity.

[Keevan_Colton]

“The Occupy movement is a relative baby. It’s just a few months old,” he said.

Another way of looking at it is this: it's been a few months and still no manifesto. How long does it take to make one? Seriously.

Shocking isn't it? I'm willing to bet they didn't bother doing any focus groups or market analysis before hitting the streets to protest either...such inexcusable lack of planning from the leadership...

[Lord Zentei]

^ Stating the truth with sarcasm doesn't change said truth.

[Stark]

A wasted opportunity for ... What? Your bizarre expectations? I'm not sure anyone but you thinks e movement is trying to topple the state/challenge the halls of power/become a viable third party or whatever. They're protesting. I know you're angry they're not doing it according to your plan, but constantly moaning about that isn't very interesting.

[Lord Zentei]

A wasted opportunity for ... What? Your bizarre expectations? I'm not sure anyone but you thinks e movement is trying to topple the state/challenge the halls of power/become a viable third party or whatever. They're protesting. I know you're angry they're not doing it according to your plan, but constantly moaning about that isn't very interesting.

Good gods, you are a fucking idiot. Doesn't it occur to you that it's possible to be for something and yet be critical of how it's done? Or that criticism can be constructive and that such criticism can be beneficial and necessary, as opposed to just mindless solidarity without a negative word being spoken? But of course, it must be I who am "moaning", instead of all the reflexive apologists.