MacCruiskeen wrote:What does this sound like? To me it sounds like war. I can't think of a better word for it. Surely that's what it is.
When I hear "What are their demands?" I think, victory.
Obama pulling in Wall Street donations Published: Oct. 19, 2011
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Democratic President Barack Obama is blowing away his Republican challengers when it comes to soliciting donations on Wall Street, fundraising figures show.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday its analysis of contribution data reveals Obama has raised more from the financial and banking sector this year than all of the GOP presidential hopefuls combined.
Obama, the numbers show, received more money from fewer donors, the newspaper said.
The president even out-raised Mitt Romney at Bain Capital, a private equity firm in Boston the former Massachusetts governor co-founded. Romney pulled in $34,000 from 18 Bain employees while Obama took in $76,600 from three Bain employees, the Post found in its review of data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
The turning point: The moral example of UC Davis students, and Occupy Wall Street If America needs a moral turning point, this is it.
Published on November 19, 2011 by Michael Chorost, Ph.D. in World Wide Mind
The video is shocking. A line of students sits on the ground, heads bowed. A police officer dressed in riot gear walks up to them, holding a pepper spray gun. He theatrically raises his arm, as if about to carry out an execution, and presses the trigger. A foul-looking orange spray shoots out.
Methodically, deliberately, he walks to the end of the line, saturating each student. He might as well be casually spraying bug spray. When he reaches the end he begins walking back in the other direction, spraying each of them again. The students huddle in obvious pain. People in the crowd nearby gasp in shock and began chanting, "Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!"
This event is powerfully symbolic. It is about contempt from those in power and the wanton use of force against the powerless.
We have seen similar things over and over again in the past few years. We have seen it in banks lobbying for public handouts and then denying relief to millions of exploited homeowners. We have seen it in tax breaks and bonuses for the rich while millions of Americans are out of work. We have seen it in church and university officers abusing children and then covering it up. We have seen it in the censorship of climate science performed in the public interest. We have seen it in the absurd declaration that corporations are "people" and entitled to spend billions of dollars to elect representatives that they will then own. We have seen it everywhere we turn.
The police officer is Congress. Our banks. Our clerics.
The students are us.
...
But, as Gandhi and Martin Luther King so well understood, nonviolent resistance is extraordinarily powerful. It shows who holds the moral high ground. It reveals the thugs and bullies in high places for who they are. It creates sympathy and evokes principled action. It clears the way for thoughtful men and women of conscience and character to speak out for rational courses of action.
About Pepper Spray By Deborah Blum Posted: November 20, 2011
One hundred years ago, an American pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville developed a scale to measure the intensity of a pepper’s burn. The scale – as you can see on the widely used chart to the left – puts sweet bell peppers at the zero mark and the blistering habenero at up to 350,000 Scoville Units.
I checked the Scoville Scale for something else yesterday. I was looking for a way to measure the intensity of pepper spray, the kind that police have been using on Occupy protestors including this week’s shocking incident involving peacefully protesting students at the University of California-Davis. -- Those compounds are called capsaicins and – in fact – pepper spray is more formally called Oleoresin Capsicum or OC Spray. -- Until you look it up on the Scoville scale and remember, as toxicologists love to point out, that the dose makes the poison. That we’re not talking about cookery but a potent blast of chemistry. So that if OC spray is the U.S. police response of choice – and certainly, it’s been used with dismaying enthusiasm during the Occupy protests nationwide, as documented in this excellent Atlantic roundup - it may be time to demand a more serious look at the risks involved.
=== As the park has been raided, this ceremony did not happen-yet.
Uploaded by BelovedCC on Nov 17, 2011 The Council of Elders stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street
The Council of Elders is an independent group of leaders from the farm workers, sanctuary and human rights movements that shook the nation's conscience with public protests over the past 50 years.
"We see Occupy Wall Street as a continuation, a deepening and expansion of the determination of the diverse peoples of our nation to transform our country into a more democratic, equitable, just, and compassionate society," excerpt from the statement of solidarity by the Council of Elders to be read at each of the Occupy encampments.
By bringing their voices to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the elders are addressing a litany of social grievances, including poverty, mass incarceration, and what they call a culture of war and violence. Dolores Huerta, activist with Cesar Chavez and the farm-workers movement, believes today's conditions create bitter divisions among peoples across the United States and throughout the world.
"We applaud the miraculous extent to which the Occupy initiative around the nation has been non-violent and democratic, especially in light of the weight of the systematic violence under which the great majority of people are forced to live," says Rev. James Lawson, leading theoretician, tactician and theologian of the civil rights movement.
The economic crisis which sparked the Occupy Wall Street movement also motivated the veteran protesters. They cite soaring unemployment rates, home foreclosures, and inadequate health care as issues that require public outcries.
The Council of Elders promotes compassion and non-violent action as the highest values to reverse trends that put profits ahead of people in its quest to contribute to the much-needed movement for a more just society and a more peaceful world.
The council members are urging elders from around the nation to join the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In New York City on November 20th, members of the Elder Council will spend time with those encamped at Zuccoti Park, beginning at 2:30 PM. They will lead a worship service in front of the "red structure" within Zuccotti Park at 3:30 pm. Elders will then host a dialogue with Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and other interested individuals at 5pm, at 74 Trinity Place. Both events are open to the public. Council of Elders Organizing Committee
Rev. James Lawson, Jr. Los Angeles, CA Dr. Vincent G. Harding Denver, CO Rev. Phillip Lawson San Francisco, CA Dolores Huerta Bakersfield, CA Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon Washington, DC Dr. Grace Lee Boggs Detroit, MI, Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons Gainesville, FL Sister Joan Chittister, OSB Erie, PA Marian Wright Edelman Washington, DC Rabbi Arthur Waskow Philadelphia, PA Rev. Dr. George (Tink) Tinker Denver, CO Rev. John Fife Tucson, AZ Dr. Mel White Lynchburg, VA Rev. Nelson Johnson Greensboro, NC Joyce Hobson Johnson --- http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/11/ ... =pulsenews
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The big question is whether this war (uniquely) can be won by peaceful means alone, especially when you look at the opposition, and their previous murderous form, and what they have to lose.
That preceding the ... was beauty and I thank you for it, but in answer to this last I'd say, they will make calculations and I have no doubt there is brainpower enough here, just in this forum, to be able to make fairly accurate predictions, as each point of escalation approaches.
The difficulty comes when escalation points outpace us.
National Lawyers Guild Files FOIA Requests Seeking Evidence of Federal Role in Occupy Crackdown Fri, 11/18/2011 - 15:40 — Anonymous by: Dave Lindorff
With Congress no longer performing its sworn role of defending the US Constitution, the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee and the Partnership for Civil Justice today filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) asking the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA and the National Parks Service to release "all their information on the planning of the coordinated law enforcement crackdown on Occupy protest encampments in multiple cities over the course of recent days and weeks."
According to a statement by the NLG, each of the FOIA requests states, "This request specifically encompasses disclosure of any documents or information pertaining to federal coordination of, or advice or consultation regarding, the police response to the Occupy movement, protests or encampments."
National Lawyers Guild leaders, including Executive Director Heidi Beghosian and NLG Mass Defense Committee co-chair and PCJ Executive Director Mara Veheyden-Hilliard both told TCBH! earlier this week that the rapid-fire assaults on occupation encampments in cities from Oakland to New York and Portland, Seattle and Atlanta, all within days of each other, the similar approach taken by police, which included overwhelming force in night-time attacks, mass arrests, use of such weaponry as pepper spray, sound cannons, tear gas, clubs and in some cases "non-lethal" projectiles like bean bags and rubber bullets, the removal and even arrest of reporters and camera-persons, and the justifications offered by municipal officials, who all cited "health" and "safety" concerns, all pointed to central direction and guidance. The police assault on Zuccotti Park led to the Occupation Movement's biggest rally yet on Nov. 17
As we reported, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan admitted publicly in an interview on a San Francisco radio program earlier this week that prior to her first order to police to clear Oscar Grant Plaza of occupiers on Oct. 25, she had participated in a "conference call" with 17 other urban mayors to discuss strategy for dealing with the movement. At the time of that call, her mayor's office legal advisor, who subsequently resigned over the harsh police tactics used against demonstrators, says Quan was, significantly, in Washington, DC.
The NLG says the Occupy Movement, which is now in over 170 cities around the U.S., "has been confronted by a nearly simultaneous effort by local governments and local police agencies to evict and break up encampments in cities and towns throughout the country."
Veheyden-Hilliard says, "The severe crackdown on the occupation movement appears to be part of a national strategy," which she said is designed to "crush the movement," an action she describes as "supremely political."
She adds, "The Occupy demonstrations are not criminal activities and police should not be treating them as such."
The police conducting these coordinated raids look more like Imperial Storm Troopers than cops in their riot gear get-ups. The attacks show how the nation's local police are becoming more of a national paramilitary force, curiously akin to the widely despised and feared Armed Police or Wu Jing who do the heavy riot-control and repression duty in China. Equipped with federally-supplied body armor and military-style weapons like stun grenades, sound canons and of course assault rifles, domestic US police forces responding to even garden variety, peaceful protest actions often look more like an occupying army than police. Meanwhile their actions have even been condemned by the Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans who are increasingly coming to and supporting the occupation movement. These vets say the police are employing tactics that they themselves were not even permitted to use in dealing with unrest in occupied or war-torn lands.
The Guild and other observers strongly suspect that the 72 so-called Fusion Centers created buy the Homeland Security Department around the country, and the many Joint Terror Task Forces operated by the FBI in conjunction with local police in many cities, are serving as coordination points for the increasingly systematic attacks on the Occupy Movement.
It will be instructive to see how the Obama administration and the targeted agencies respond to the Guild's FOIA requests, and even more interesting to see what kinds of documents--if any--are forthcoming.
“We’re calling for expedited processing, because this is an urgent effort, and if we don’t get that, we can go to court over that issue,” says Verheyden-Hilliard. “Government delays in responding defeat the purpose of an open government law, with people in the streets and under attack by police now.” Normally, she says, government agencies have 20 days to respond to a FOIA request, but with an expedited request the agencies should have to respond even faster.
National Security and privacy are the only grounds for federal agencies to withhold information sought in a FOIA request, and clearly there is no national security issue involved in this protest movement, at least not in a strictly legal sense of the term. The Occupy Movement is protesting economic inequality, and the political corruption that allows the wealthiest people who run the nation's biggest banks and companies to run the country in their own interest and to run rough-shod over the broader public interest. Of course, from the perspective of the ruling elite, and from the perspective of their political lackeys in the White House and Congress, any protest movement calling for a reordering of the political system to make it more responsive to the public interest would be seen as a national security threat.
Meanwhile, the Occupy Movement is continuing to grow.
Ousted from their base in Zuccotti Park, where a New York state court judge has ruled that they can stay, but cannot sleep or bring in sleeping gear or protection from the weather, movement activists are switching to a decentralized strategy. Some 30,000 people rallied around New York City on Thursday (the two-month anniversary of the start of the Zuccotti occupation), to protest the police action two days earlier. Some hardy souls still keep Zuccotti occupied round the clock, and a General Assembly has been held there several times despite police efforts to limit access. Rallies in support of and solidarity with the New York Occupy Movement were held simultaneously in 30 other cities yesterday.
Kenny Clark, 32, dressed in military fatigues he said dated from his Army service (he was stationed in Korea) stood in Zuccotti Park in the pouring rain on Wednesday, more than a day after police had cleared away the tarps, the 5500-book library, and the free kitchen, and said, with a determined smile, "We're not going away!" A meat counter worker at A&P, where he has worked for 20 years, Clark said he and his co-workers were being asked to take a 20-percent pay cut by the firm, which is using a bankruptcy filing to try and break out of its union contracts. "We'll vote down their offer, and then we'll strike, and then they'll probably fire our asses," he laughed, "but with help from all these occupiers, we'll be marching in front of their stores and organizing a boycott like they've never seen! Nobody's going to shop there!"
Clark noted that the Occupy Movement is developing plans for a national occupation of the National Mall, the big park that runs between the Capitol and the Lincoln Monument that has been the scene of many historic rallies and occupations in decades past. A national General Assembly is being planned for April 1, which will focus on " the failure of the Democrats and Republicans in Congress to represent the views of the majority of people, the Supreme Court for allowing the Constitution to be perverted and for ignoring the rule of law and the Chamber of Commerce and lobbyists on K St for dominating the political process in favor of the 1% at the expense of the 99%."
This thing ain't over. It's just getting going.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Why I walked Chancellor Katehi out of Surge II tonight by Kristin Stoneking on Sunday, November 20, 2011 at 4:46am
At 5pm, as my family and I left Davis so that I could attend the American Academy of Religion annual meetings in San Francisco, I received a call from Assistant Vice Chancellor Griselda Castro informing me that she, Chancellor Katehi and others were trapped inside Surge II. She asked if I could mediate between students and administration. I was reluctant; I had already missed a piece of the meetings due to commitments in Davis and didn’t want to miss any more. I called a student (intentionally not named here) and learned that students were surrounding the building but had committed to a peaceful, silent exit for those inside and had created a clear walkway to the street. We turned the car around and headed back to Davis.
When I arrived, there was a walkway out of the building set up, lined on both sides by about 300 students. The students were organized and peaceful. I was cleared to enter the building along with a student who is a part of CA House and has been part of the Occupy movement on campus since the beginning. He, too, was reluctant, but not because he had somewhere else to be. For any student to act as a spokesperson or leader is inconsistent with the ethos the Occupy movement. He entered as an individual seeking peace and resolution, not as a representative of the students, and was clear that he had called for and would continue to call for Chancellor Katehi’s resignation.
Once inside, and through over an hour of conversation, we learned the following:
* The Chancellor had made a commitment that police would not be called in this situation * Though the message had been received inside the building that students were offering a peaceful exit, there was a concern that not everyone would hold to this commitment * The Chancellor had committed to talk with students personally and respond to concerns at the rally on Monday on the quad * The student assistants to the Chancellor had organized another forum on Tuesday for the Chancellor to dialogue directly with students
What we felt couldn’t be compromised on was the students’ desire to see and be seen by the Chancellor. Any exit without face to face contact was unacceptable. She was willing to do this. We reached agreement that the students would move to one side of the walkway and sit down as a show of commitment to nonviolence.
Before we left, the Chancellor was asked to view a video of the student who was with me being pepper sprayed. She immediately agreed. Then, he and I witnessed her witnessing eight minutes of the violence that occurred Friday. Like a recurring nightmare, the horrific scene and the cries of “You don’t have to do this!” and students choking and screaming rolled again. The student and I then left the building and using the human mike, students were informed that a request had been made that they move to one side and sit down so that the Chancellor could exit. They immediately complied, though I believe she could have left peacefully even without this concession.
I returned to the building and walked with the Chancellor down the human walkway to her car. Students remained silent and seated the entire way.
What was clear to me was that once again, the students’ willingness to show restraint kept us from spiraling into a cycle of violence upon violence. There was no credible threat to the Chancellor, only a perceived one. The situation was not hostile. And what was also clear to me is that whether they admit it or not, the administrators that were inside the building are afraid. And exhausted. And human. And the suffering that has been inflicted is real. The pain present as the three of us watched the video of students being pepper sprayed was palpable. A society is only truly free when all persons take responsibility for their actions; it is only upon taking responsibility that healing can come.
Why did I walk the Chancellor to her car? Because I believe in the humanity of all persons. Because I believe that people should be assisted when they are afraid. Because I believe that in showing compassion we embrace a nonviolent way of life that emanates to those whom we refuse to see as enemies and in turn leads to the change that we all seek. I am well aware that my actions were looked on with suspicion by some tonight, but I trust that those seeking a nonviolent solution will know that “just means lead to just ends” and my actions offered dignity not harm.
The Chancellor was not trapped in Surge II tonight, but, in a larger sense, we are all in danger of being trapped. We are trapped when we assent to a culture that for decades, and particularly since 9/11, has allowed law enforcement to have more and more power which has moved us into an era of hypercriminalization. We are trapped when we envision no path to reconciliation. And we are trapped when we forget our own power. The students at UC Davis are to be commended for resisting that entrapment, using their own power nonviolently. I pray that the Chancellor will remember her own considerable power in making change on our campus, and in seeking healing and reconciliation.
A US police organization can't seem to make up its mind about whether it is or isn't playing a significant role in crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street in cities around the US.
Above, a tweet from Chuck Wexler, the Executive Director of PERF, dated November 1.
He's referencing this document (PDF). The contents of the document aren't all that shocking, really, and some of the advice seems reasonable—engaging with large crowds in a non-confrontational way instead of coming out in "Darth Vader suits" (their words, not mine) and full riot gear.
But this is all very interesting when contrasted with a press release issued by PERF today, after last week's reports that PERF, local police chiefs, and mayors participated on a number of conference calls about OWS:
Over the last few days, the Police Executive Research Forum has been the subject of several false articles and blog postings alleging that we have been coordinating police crackdowns on Occupy protests. This is not true.
All of this, by the way, was the inspiration for the PERF website takeover and doxing of Mr. Wexler by Anonymous this weekend.
UC-Davis Student Describes Pepper Spray Attack on Occupy Campus Protesters
A video that spread rapidly online shows University of California, Davis campus police officers pepper-spraying student protesters at close range on Friday at point blank range as they sat together to protest the dismantling of the "Occupy UC-Davis" encampment. The two officers involved in the incident were placed on administrative leave, and the incident has sparked calls for the resignation of UC-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, who initially defended the actions of the campus police. Katehi has since said she wants an outside, independent panel to review what happened. We speak with Elli Pearson, one of the students pepper sprayed on Friday. “All I could see was people telling me to cover my head, protect myself, and put my head down. And the next thing I know, I was pepper sprayed,” says Pearson, who notes she was protesting in solidarity with students at UC-Berkeley who were beaten by police, and against tuition hikes at universities across the country. We also talk to Nathan Brown, assistant professor of English at UC-Davis, who wrote an open letter calling for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi following the pepper-spraying incident Friday. “In my opinion, the best way to go about these things as a junior faculty member is to speak up openly,” says Brown, who is not tenured. “In that way, you draw a lot of support, and I think that will be very helpful in protecting me and other people who speak out, if there is any effort of retribution by the administration.”
What I find is that "What do they want? They have no demands!" is the default position, but usually serves as the respectable cover (handed down as the universal talking point by the media, after all) for one of the following: 1) "I hate hippies!" (or other groups perceived as associated with OWS and uncool) 2) "I work and they're lazy!" (implying, work at any wage confers virtue on me, therefore I'm angry at my image of them as lazy bums regardless of who they actually are or what's right or wrong and let's not bother with talking about it) or 3) (not covered in the cartoon) "I don't want to know because then I'd have no excuse for not doing something myself." Usually this goes together with it's pointless, you cannot change anything, they're powerless, the corporations are all-powerful and eternal and irreplaceable, etc. etc.
Today, as is usually the case these days, someone initiated the OWS talk out of nowhere, so that they could be provoked by my answers and throw around the talking points. I swear, at the moment I never have to inject OWS into a conversation, someone always brings it up!
This one (at work) was basically a #2 on the above list, with the line of how anyone who works hard enough and is smart enough can make it unimaginably BIG in America and deserves every penny (even if he, personally, doesn't have that share quite yet!). His anecdote about some successful guy who used to be a communist but then worked hard and got rich trumps aggregate stats about declining wages and concentration of wealth -- or the real context of how it's even possible for some people to get rich (hint: it takes a civilization).
"I did it* - why can't everyone?!"
* (or imagined I did, or identify with someone who did it for me vicariously)
.
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We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.
To Justice my maker from on high did incline: I am by virtue of its might divine, The highest Wisdom and the first Love.
You may think it's making jokes of a police state, or you may think it helps people cope and fight violence with the laughter of the righteous. Either way, the pepper spray thug is now making his way through art history. This was the first, and most appropriate:
