#OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign - September 17

[Nordic]

This was excellent:
Naomi Wolf’s ‘Shocking Truth’ About the ‘Occupy Crackdowns’ Offers Anything but the Truth

I see Joshua Hol being accused of "gatekeeping" and being a "DHS apologist" but that's such fucktard noise. To mine own eyes, Naomi is a celebrity liberal who is using #OWS, not supporting it. Hol lays out an objective case here. I know I'm always the skeleton at the feast when it comes to revolutions, but sweet Jesus, if you're going to overthrow the powers that be, be prepared to replace them. I definitely see an emerging strain of #Occupy that is serious and skilled enough to actually do that and I definitely don't see Naomi as a part of that. Michael Moore, either. These people are liabilities, not assets.

Hm, I would disagree here. Naomi Wolf's stuff, while perhaps not entirely factually accurate, is certainly right in spirit, while Joshua Holland's stuff is the opposite. I see Holland starting to engage in some serious "divide and conquer" tactics to preserve his status, while opening the gates (that he's perhaps keeping) for more "divide and conquer".

I don't want to take that bait, but the fact that Congress has this tidy little loophole to let them engage in insider trading is MOST CERTAINLY something for a movement called "Occupy Wall Street" to protest!

Also, the fact that DHS even consults with anybody on getting rid of domestic peaceful protestors is a frightening development, and proves that the DHS is on the side of the oligarchy and not on the side of the citizens, and is abusing its position as an anti-terror organization to turn on Americans.

Everything Wolf talks about is basically true in spirit, while perhaps off on its Complete Factual Accuracy.

Holland sounds like a right-winger to me, claiming that there's NO WAY that there's any coordination between the Mayors, that it's basically impossible because, well, each Mayor is autonomous. That's just a fucking stupid claim. That's like saying Halliburton is a corporation and the White House is a government entity so there's no way they would influence each other. Just silly.

I don't get the impression Wolf is trying to use the movement for her own end, but I do get the impression that Holland's in a bit of a panic trying to hang onto his position as "reasoned" "liberal" journalism. C'mon, he's at Alternet for chrissakes. They're to the liberal truth what IHOP is to fine homemade breakfast food.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Naomi Wolf's stuff, while perhaps not entirely factually accurate, is certainly right in spirit

Spirit? You sound like a branding consultant.

[Nordic]

Naomi Wolf's stuff, while perhaps not entirely factually accurate, is certainly right in spirit

Spirit? You sound like a branding consultant.

Okay, what other words do you recommend?

[Wombaticus Rex]

She's confirming your biases so you're willing to accept the fact she's making shit up and got caught doing it. Telling people what they want to hear is manipulation. She's agitating people with calculated hyperbole.

[Nordic]

She's confirming your biases so you're willing to accept the fact she's making shit up and got caught doing it. Telling people what they want to hear is manipulation. She's agitating people with calculated hyperbole.

Hm, well I'd say that's a stretch. It seems you're taking Holland's "divide and conquer" bait.

And I wouldn't say she's "making shit up" as much as she's speculating. We do a lot of that here.

Yes, her stuff quoted there is a bit hysterical, but Holland's approach is worse, IMHO.

The DHS and the Mayors and the police and members of Congress are ALL on the same side. We are all on the other. I think that's the point here. They all consult with each other, trying to figure out how to get rid of these pesky protestors.

Again, it's us versus them. It's not us against Naomi Wolf and Michael Moore.

[2012 Countdown]

Too late, and too far along in growth for the knats to have any effect. Too big to drown in the cradle and Its taken root, so sling your arrows at will.

[Wombaticus Rex]

^^Ed Zachary.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Again, it's us versus them. It's not us against Naomi Wolf and Michael Moore.

I'd say it's neither. It's a pitched battle for the attention and sympathy of the actual 99%, who are mostly quite apathetic and deeply ignorant. Waking up that vast sleeping giant seems like the only tenable strategy for successfully taking on the top 0.1%. I think that's why nonviolent actions drawing police brutality have been such undeniable wins for the movement -- they're powerful propaganda because it's simple and visual.

[justdrew]

come on wombat, that Holland guy is full of it, clearly attempting to fuck with the person who coined the phrase "another world is possible" [ wait, I may be confusing Naomi's there ] ... and he most certainly does not cause anyone cognitive dissonance.

he's parsing semantics (coordinated vs directed; etc)
"But there has not been a single report offered by any media outlet suggesting..."
calls a piece of Wolf's writing "bizarre" - haven't we talked before about how that is a favorite word to use to discredit
"But it’s the next paragraph that actually makes one’s head hurt…"

neat... here, let me try that...

... but here's the part of Joshua Holland's brown-nosing article that really makes one wince at the scent of shit...

I don’t find it in the least bit surprising that law enforcement officials communicate with each other, and such communication is in no way an assault on local communities’ autonomy. Every day professionals dealing with similar issues get on conference calls, send messages to list-servs or otherwise talk shop – it’s just part of our “interconnected world.”

and let's not forget this silly fib...

the fact that the word “coordinated” is too vague to offer any analytic value

really? no analytic value? Is that a fact? WTF

and so on. Reads like a tryout for the NYT. I see from the comments he's now also twitted that she seems "mentally disturbed"

from a comment there:

I personally know from first-hand experiences that the federal government has for years (FBI, CIA, BATF, and even the U.S. Military, etc...) participated with local law enforcement agencies in repressing activist movements.

Although I have not directly participated in the Occupy Wall Street Movement, the FBI and CIA and BATF have infiltriated peace with justice groups, have shadowed and attempted to disrupt peace movements against U.S. imperialism, have intimidated protesters, and have arrested several of my close friends, specifically those involved in the Tax Awarenes Movement.

It seems fairly absurd to attack Wolf for stating that the PTB are using their toolbox to go after the momentum of this movement. Of course they are. Even if there were no evidence for it, we would be OBLIGATED to assume they are doing so. For sure the PTB water army is out in force in comment sections all over the place.

Perhaps it's time for Joshua Holland to step down and spend some more time with his family.

[Project Willow]

.............
Thanks Justdrew.
.............
Wombat, If out of fear you engage in friendly fire, you're going to lose the battle.

The Alternet article is a fool headed waste of time and energy, at best. Rosie warned about this and so have many other speakers since the inception of OWS, check your ego at the door, don't make a public spectacle over minor disputes, and keep your sights on the real adversary.

99% is impossible if you're throwing out Wolf or Moore because they don't happen to see the world exactly like you do, you'll never get beyond 0.03% that way. That's how the left defeats itself, its insecurity and doubt eats at it, it is almost always on the defensive instead of the offensive. Its masses reflexively bicker themselves into tiny tattered groups led by pigheaded, shortsighted individuals who self righteously refuse to ally with anyone who has a slightly different set of ideals, or practices. The tendency is insidious and stupid.

Also, stop picking on women and fat people.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Fine with being alone on this. I don't know what kind of post-Occupy future y'all are seeing, but all the people you perceive as enemies now will still be alive and breathing no matter how sweeping the Great Victory is. All those cops will still be armed and trained...and raising families and looking for jobs...I dunno, this is the same reason I'm wary of Icke and the "political ponerology" stuff.

Occupy has been moving fast and we're all going get caught up narrative hypnosis, symbol fetishism, and acute apophenia. (See, that's me trying out for the NYT.) I get accused of being a fascist and a Fed quite a bit myself so perhaps I am too sympathetic with Mr. Holland -- though I do agree he should take more time to be with his family, simply because that's always true.

Naomi Wolf is just a commentator -- you might enjoy her handiwork more but she's no different from David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer or George Will. Or Joshua Holland.

Also: the "friendly fire" metaphor would work better if people actually died over this stuff, but both of the voices involved here have decades in the pubic eye ahead of them.

[JackRiddler]

.

Jaysus, Wombat, no one here in this discussion so far is going to call you a fed or fascist and I doubt you're alone. In fact, I'm with you on several points.

First, I was also confused by Wolf's saying that a bit of press about the routine Congressional insider trading was a major motive for OWS (as opposed to about three dozen other things), or that it was a motive for the crackdown on OWS - which may have been coordinated by DHS, but certainly not ordered directly by "Congress" (or Peter King, whose function is oversight, not command).

Her curious, showboating column (see, I didn't say bizarre) makes her an easy target, as well as a prominent one, which is probably why Holland chooses her to demolish. He does not stop at exposing her mistakes but throws in the usual bedunker ad-hominems and pretends that a refutation of Wolf would diminish or discredit the idea of national coordination in the OWS crack-downs as a whole.

I find his approach disheartening, in the face of an obvious long-standing national, state and local police state with nowadays highly developed horizontal, vertical, and cross-sector integration, and increasingly one database of panoptic surveillance. It's almost as though he thinks showing the police state's operations over the last weeks to be business as usual somehow excuses it.

It almost doesn't matter if orders or only guidelines and advice are handed down to municipalities by DHS. Their authority as a federal repository of putative expertise, speaking to civilian mayors who don't want to appear weak or confused in the face of what they have defined as an urban safety crisis, will tend to yield the same results on the ground: the mayors will listen to DHS.

We have learned that in the local police response to a national and wired protest movement, there was coordination amongst many major cities and consensus building on strategy and tactics. Like-minded mayors entered conference calls and shared tips as they went about crushing free speech and free assembly on false pretexts of sanitation and security threats emanating from the protests. Is this kind of activity rendered more palatable by the idea that the mayors were still acting as autonomous authorities, who only voluntarily followed federal guidelines and/or the bad advice of their fellow mayors? Should I feel better if it turns out that the calls were not used to make actual decisions, but merely as cheerleading sessions to get up the nerve for doing nasty things that each municipality already intended?

Police have been militarized. They use equipment and technologies developed by DARPA and other federal agencies and generally tested by foreign tyrannies before they're rolled out here. Hundreds of fusion centers around the country bring together federal and state agencies with local authorities. They have discussed OWS, you can be certain. The CIA and DHS have their offices inside all the major police departments. If federal agents have not infiltrated OWS alongside local agents, that would make it the first such movement to be immune since the 1950s. The federals decide when and what intelligence to feed to local authorities. Locals and federals do not have a generally antagonistic relationship. (That canard only appears at times when something goes wrong and blame must be apportioned.) Across agency lines and to different degrees, they share the same ideologies of national security, counterterror hysteria, and the image of protests as a threat to the social order (while the high-level gangsters and economy-destroyers who give generously to election campaigns and "create business" in their cities are pillars thereof).

.

[2012 Countdown]

mtracey Michael Tracey
There are at least two officers here from the Philly PD's "Homeland Security" unit at @OccupyPhilly. twitpic.com/7ktmc4 #OWS

17 minutes ago

CHOPPER 6 OVER CITY HALL - OCCUPY PHILLY EVICTION
Chopper 6 is live over Dilworth Plaza where the city has ordered Occupy Philadelphia demonstrators to vacate the area.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/livenow?id=8446238

===

#OccupyPhilly eviction live now.
http://www.livestream.com/occupyphiladelphia

[dada]

Last NYPD Disorder Control Unit guideline: "Do not engage in unauthorized pursuits of looters/bottle throwers - let people escape unless your team is effecting arrests."

Wouldn't want to arrest the wrong looters/bottle throwers.

[operator kos]

Okay, on a different note... some good news!

Just ten minutes ago I ran into Scott Olsen (the marine who got shot in the head) in downtown Oakland. It's his first day back on the scene, and he seems to be doing quite well. He's wearing a neck brace but he gets around and is talking perfectly fine. And I say if he's rebounded from the crackdown on the Occupy movement, the rest of us can rebound and rebuild camps that are better than ever.