This morning news showed some of the protests around our country,
then Rome, it was very different...
violent with car fires, windows being busted out, protesters with hammers, riot gear
on military/police.
I wondered if this is what it escalates to when there is no change, when 'demands' aren't met.
yes this is what it escalates to. i don't want it to, but i have a feeling that some areas are going to have people going all "g20" if their demands are not meant. in rome is what happens when people want to change a system that can not be changed. kind of like the system we have here. big business and the banks are not going to allow things to change because the system is rigged in their favor. our system has become a corporate oligarchy. they are legally allowed to rob everyone blind, and if those laws are changed it is going to make things worse for the consumer. just like how bank of america is now charging people minimum $5 a month to use a debit card. so what are people doing now? they are closing their bank of america accounts and bank of america is angry about it so they are locking people in the bank like in the videos posted above.
like i have said several times, the banks ALWAYS get their money, and if they don't get it, they bilk it out of the people that have their money in that bank...
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Thanks for the report, gimmesometruth27. Going back tomorrow? Keep up posted!
Jeanwah- the video you posted is disturbing. That kind of action by the police is... it's just wrong.
i may be going back today. it is 10 minutes from my house and it is sunday so i have nothing better to do...
I'm doing nearly the opposite of demonstrating this week- I'm turning the place over to the step-kids and going camping--a much needed break. The way things are going, I'll have a ton of reading to catch up on here.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.
Waiting to see what the Mayor will do here in Atlanta,
council meeting today... deadline was set last week to disperse tonight.
Ours is a very small group without a permit, camping illegally in a city park.
I am for legal demonstrations that are peaceful and show strength
with numbers and clear purpose.
I hope they disperse and get a permit for organized marches, rallies,
informative public meetings, instead of camping in city parks.
They were given 3 week extension to carry on here in Atlanta,
not wanting to hurt our world image, is what the Mayor said...ok.
Probably waiting to see what the Feds say... no one wants to go first and arrest.
This is reminiscent of the sit ins back in the day ...
but more comfortable, I guess.
And not many are missing work or using vacation time so why not stick it out.
With very cold weather around the corner, I wonder what will happen then.
Maybe Occupy will converge to cities in the warmer climates. Hmmmm....
it gets very cold here in Atl ... burr very cold.... freezing cold.
That day, things changed (or perhaps just became more visible). I don't look at my city...my country the same after what went down those couple of day's.
Our happy smiling police, given the opportunity abused thousands of people, Violated the rights of so many.
(With the exception of a few Police officers who refused to follow orders and did the right thing)
Memorial Day—when we remember the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces— has come and gone. There were parades and there were speeches (some heartfelt and grieving, some pious and patriotic) made about the brave men and women who fought for “our freedoms”.
But most Americans no longer seem have any idea what those freedoms are.
American revolutionaries and soldiers didn’t sacrifice their lives at Lexington and Concord, at Bull Run and Gettysburg, or on Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima so that our government could spy on it’s own citizens, conspire with investment bankers and corporate lobbyists to swindle us, throw us out of our homes and eliminate our jobs—and then sic the police on us when we gathered to protest those crimes.
It’s a matter of national life or death—not just Memorial Day but every day—that we recall exactly what those men and women died for—in foreign countries and here in our own country. They sacrificed their lives fighting to protect and preserve our freedoms—most particularly the freedom to gather together and speak out against any attempt to take those freedoms away.
While we’re remembering… There is nothing new about hired goons and uniformed guard dogs committing violence against citizens when their lords and masters, and the system of institutionalized greed they represent, are threatened.
It happened in 1770 on Boston Common. It happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries at the railway yards in Chicago, in the coal and copper mines of Pennsylvania and Idaho, and in the sweatshops of The Lower East Side in Manhattan. It happened at the Bonus Marcher’s encampment in Washington D.C. in 1932. It happened in Selma in 1965, and at Kent State in 1970. And it’s happening right now in our cities and on our campuses. Ordinary Americans, gathering in protest, were—and are— beaten, shot, or thrown into prison without representation or trial.
The real point of this government violence is not that the soldiers and cops lost control, but that the rabble didn’t know their place. They—the wretched colonials, workers, blacks, women, gays, immigrants, the lower class—forgot for a moment that they were subjects of the King, President, Governor, Mayor or Robber Baron.
When the “rabble” (i.e., you and I) are roused the real owners of the country step in to remind us where our rightful place is—below them.
They say that the Occupy movement and anti-war protesters are breaking laws. That’s true; Occupiers and other protestors across the country are breaking laws. They’re trespassing, marching without permits, and, in some cases, violating local ordinances regulating noise and sanitation. Many of these “laws” have now metastasized—at all government levels—to meet the threat of “terrorism”—AKA, legitimate protest.
In the end, these trespasses are all minor offenses—and, of course, they fade to nothing when compared with the major crimes that are being protested.
Occupiers on some small patch of public park? Occupiers in the street? They are only the palest reflection of The REAL occupiers; the obscenely rich and corporate executives—the top few thousand of the population that controls most of the wealth of the country.
They and their army of lobbyists have occupied Congress, occupied The Supreme Court and occupied The White House.
The rich and their fake “grass-roots” political organizations and SuperPACS occupy every state capitol, most city halls, almost all broadcast and print newsrooms and most university executive offices. They are a colonial power that has taken over our land, our economy and our government.
“Give me liberty or give me death,” said Patrick Henry. A lot of brave people died for the cause of liberty—and we set aside a day to remember them. But do Americans remember or even understand what that liberty was?
Tea Partiers and their wind-up politicians are fond of making pious pronouncements about “The Founders” and the heroes of the American Revolution—Think of Paul Revere and his warning that the King’s troops had landed and were advancing to destroy people who were gathering to fight for liberty. Well, The Occupy movement and other activists are sounding the same alarm right now because they understand (along with millions of other citizens) that our country is more than half-way down the road to becoming a fascist state—where big business and state power are completely merged. That’s one of the main things all those soldiers died for—the right for people to sound that alarm without fear of reprisal.
Occupy lost most of it’s physical presence over this past winter but the movement has permanently injected it’s two primary messages—the evils of income inequality and the fact that the our essential right to free speech is in dire jeopardy—into the national consciousness.
Most of the encampments are gone, but the spirit of the movement endures and is thriving—despite the Government’s efforts at suppression and the media’s constant ridicule and disregard. The essence of the message endures for the simple reason that Occupy is just the latest incarnation of the original American revolution; we are, and of a right, ought to be, free. Free from the censorious, even fatal grip of the rich and powerful.
…George Carlin once said, “They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Well, Americans are finally awakening from a 40 year consumer-obsessed, entertainment-addled, political campaign rhetoric-induced coma. No one can say what will happen now—but one thing’s for sure; There is no neutral—either we evolve into an actual Democracy or become a nation of sheep.
The Founders knew what they were fighting for. And every generation we have to learn all over again—that the sacrifices of the American Revolution, The Civil War and World War 2 are not meant to be cheap fodder for hack politicians’ speeches or mere words lying inert in some history text.
The American Revolution is alive. It has no “sell by” date;
It doesn’t stop at red lights and it doesn’t pause for commercials. It’s happening right now and it will keep happening until the last free citizen has been silenced.
…Memorial Day has come and gone—we barbecued, got responsibly drunk and rushed to get great deals on plasma TV’s; and, incidentally, squeezed in a few tearful glances at the flag. But memories of struggle and death don’t just live in one official holiday—they don’t end when the clock ticks over into a new day… Every day of they year it behooves us to remember the freedoms American soldiers died for in the righteous battles they fought.
If we let those freedoms completely atrophy and crumble into dust, then all those deaths will have been without meaning and all our memorials will be nothing but a sad, empty joke.
Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy
New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent
Naomi Wolf
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 29 December 2012
It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.
The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations' knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61).
As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the documents show that from the start, the FBI – though it acknowledges Occupy movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization – nonetheless designated OWS repeatedly as a "terrorist threat":
"FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country."
Verheyden-Hilliard points out the close partnering of banks, the New York Stock Exchange and at least one local Federal Reserve with the FBI and DHS, and calls it "police-statism":
"This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."
The documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the FBI and a "Bank Fraud Working Group" met in November 2011 – during the Occupy protests – to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its "domestic terrorism" unit. The Anchorage, Alaska "terrorism task force" was watching Occupy Anchorage. The Jackson, Michigan "joint terrorism task force" was issuing a "counterterrorism preparedness alert" about the ill-organized grandmas and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan, the FBI and the "Bank Security Group" – multiple private banks – met to discuss the reaction to "National Bad Bank Sit-in Day" (the response was violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state's Occupy members' details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis FBI tracked OWS under its "joint terrorism task force" aegis, too. And so on, for over 100 pages.
Jason Leopold, at Truthout.org, who has sought similar documents for more than a year, reported that the FBI falsely asserted in response to his own FOIA requests that no documents related to its infiltration of Occupy Wall Street existed at all. But the release may be strategic: if you are an Occupy activist and see how your information is being sent to terrorism task forces and fusion centers, not to mention the "longterm plans" of some redacted group to shoot you, this document is quite the deterrent.
There is a new twist: the merger of the private sector, DHS and the FBI means that any of us can become WikiLeaks, a point that Julian Assange was trying to make in explaining the argument behind his recent book. The fusion of the tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means that a huge area of vulnerability in civil society – people's income streams and financial records – is now firmly in the hands of the banks, which are, in turn, now in the business of tracking your dissent.
Remember that only 10% of the money donated to WikiLeaks can be processed – because of financial sector and DHS-sponsored targeting of PayPal data. With this merger, that crushing of one's personal or business financial freedom can happen to any of us. How messy, criminalizing and prosecuting dissent. How simple, by contrast, just to label an entity a "terrorist organization" and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing.
Why the huge push for counterterrorism "fusion centers", the DHS militarizing of police departments, and so on? It was never really about "the terrorists". It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens – it was always, that is to say, meant to be about you.
As early as August, while acknowledging that the incipient Occupy Movement was “peaceful” in nature, federal, state and local officials from the FBI, the DHS and the many Fusion Centers and Joint Terrorism Task Force centers around the country were meeting with local financial institutions and their private security organizations to plot out a strategy for countering the Occupy Movement’s campaign.
yet another example of the best "democracy" money can buy
The documents are heavily redacted. Nevertheless, they demonstrate that the so-called “war on terror” and the police-state laws and agencies established in its name are being employed to disrupt and suppress political dissent and protect the American corporate-financial elite against the growth of social opposition.
This direct attack on Constitutionally protected free-speech rights, begun under the Bush administration, has been expanded by the Obama administration, which treats virtually all forms of social and political protest as a potential criminal and terrorist threat. This confirms that the central target of the Homeland Security Department, the USA PATRIOT ACT, the Guantanamo gulag, the military tribunals, the gutting of habeas corpus rights and due process, and the policy of extra-judicial assassinations and torture is not Islamist terrorists, but the democratic rights of the American working class.
The Obama administration coordinated the police attacks and court actions taken at the state and local level to suppress the protests and end the occupations. Mass arrests, tear gas and constant harassment were all employed in the course of the months-long protests.
Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration in March approved a vast expansion of the power of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) to copy government databases on ordinary Americans, even if there is no reason to suspect them of criminal or terrorist activities. “Under the new rules issued in March,” the Journal wrote, “the National Counterterrorism Center… can obtain almost any database the government collects that it says is ‘reasonably believed’ to contain ‘terrorism information.’ The list could potentially include almost any government database, from financial forms submitted by people seeking federally backed mortgages to the health records of people who sought treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals.”
even thou this hasnt made much major news what im most impressed with is how mobilized we americans are...i mean whats worse than getting what little rights we have left trampled upon. this will have long lasting effects on us all, black white, brown, green yellow, rich, poor, freeloader, etc. so many are taking to the streets as one, so many are gathering to discuss our next course of action as one, the entire country has united to stop such blatant and egregious attempts to thwart free speech and our right to assemble. we truly believe that this is real democracy and we truly believe that it will get even worse if we arent moved to act. its great to be an american, its times like these that make me be proud to be american.
The rationale for this overkill was that OWS was a terrorist threat. That’s a striking contrast with the media depiction of the movement when it was in its encampment phase as a bunch of directionless hippies with no message. But the FBI response highlights how anything other than corporate or otherwise officially sanctioned assembly is no longer permitted in America.
“One identified redacted as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified redacted had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. redacted planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest group and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership by suppressed sniper rifles.”
The FBI, police, and the Department of Homeland Security even merged with banks into a “monstrous whole” called The Domestic Security Alliance Council, according to the report.
The Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC) is an American program created and operated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in December 2005. The program facilitates information sharing and cooperation between the FBI and over 200 of the largest American companies, which altogether account for over one third of the gross domestic product of the United States. In December 2012, released documents showed that the DSAC and counter-terrorism programs conducted surveillance of non-violent Occupy Wall Street protesters in 2011.
Authorities were “working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens”, the report added.
The mission statement of DSAC states that the program is "a strategic partnership between the FBI and the U.S. private sector," that it promotes the "effective exchange of information" between them, and that it allows the FBI to more easily detect and prevent criminal activity involving interstate commerce.[1] DSAC is also supervised by the Department of Homeland Security.[2]
then formulate a plan to kill the leadership by suppressed sniper rifles.”
This would suggest that OWS had leadership ....
not necessarily, maybe "redacted" learned that no leadership existed so thats why they didnt/couldnt carry out their "suppressed sniper rifles" plan...which Im assuming is a silencer
anyway, just who is "redacted"? why didnt the fbi, hls and etc investigate, capture and trot the "redacted" terrorists out and brag about how they foil a terror threat?
The privileged daughter of a prominent city doctor, and her boyfriend — a Harvard grad and Occupy Wall Street activist — have been busted for allegedly having a cache of weapons and a bombmaking explosive in their Greenwich Village apartment.
Morgan Gliedman — who is nine-months pregnant — and her baby daddy, Aaron Greene, 31, also had instructions on making bombs, including a stack of papers with a cover sheet titled, “The Terrorist Encyclopedia,’’ sources told The Post yesterday.
People who know Greene say his political views are “extreme,” the sources said.
Cops found the stash in the couple’s West Ninth Street home Saturday when they went there to look for Gliedman, 27, who was wanted for alleged credit-card theft.
A detective discovered a plastic container with seven grams of a white chemical powder called HMTD, which is so powerful, cops evacuated several nearby buildings.
Police also found a flare launcher, which is a commercial replica of a grenade launcher; a modified 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun; ammo; and nine high-capacity rifle magazines, the sources said.
Cops also allegedly uncovered papers about creating homemade booby traps, improvised submachine guns, and various handwritten notebooks containing chemical formulas.
The couple’s arrest Saturday was a sharp turn from their privileged backgrounds.
Gliedman, who grew up on Park Avenue, graduated from Dalton in 2002. Her dad, Dr. Paul Gliedman, is director of radiation oncology at Beth Israel Hospital, Brooklyn Division.
Paul Gliedman — who was included in New York magazine’s list of top doctors in 2011 — received his medical degree from Columbia University.
Morgan’s mother, Susyn Schops Gliedman, is a realtor with Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Greene attended Harvard as an undergraduate and did his graduate work at the university’s Kennedy School of Government.
He has five prior run-ins with the police, with the charges including, assault, and weapons possession, sources said.
if the "source" is accurate im not sure that one person (or 10 for this matter) defines a worldwide movement.
by your logic: arod cheated by using steroids, all baseball players worlwide are steroid using cheaters.
or if you want to take it further, derek jeter had steroids, syringes and instructions on how to use steroids but never actually used them, he is a cheater and all baseball players worldwide are cheaters.
The privileged daughter of a prominent city doctor, and her boyfriend — a Harvard grad and Occupy Wall Street activist — have been busted for allegedly having a cache of weapons and a bombmaking explosive in their Greenwich Village apartment.
This is a good example of taking politics too far. I guessing they will be happy when Daddy's 1% fortune saves them from a 20 year prison sentence.
then formulate a plan to kill the leadership by suppressed sniper rifles.”
This would suggest that OWS had leadership ....
From a spectators POV in Seattle, the occupy movement did not appear to have any real leadership. It was mostly the same people who come out for almost every protest 'event' held at Westlake Center. Judging from the May Day event, all it takes to make us disperse these days is a bit of rain. Streets went from packed to vacant in a matter of 20 minutes.
However, the police are always in their riot gear, posed with their batons, ready to strike in case another WTO busts out.
I had actually forgotten about the May Day thing, until I saw the massive line of police officers blocking people from crossing 4th Ave. Plus, the random group of police interspersed throughout the crowd being aggressive with people. Do police even realize how people watching are affected by this? I think sometimes the police incite riots. I was just going to continue through the crowd and make my way home, until I saw the cops picking on people. Suddenly, I felt like sticking around. At least, until it started raining.
The privileged daughter of a prominent city doctor, and her boyfriend — a Harvard grad and Occupy Wall Street activist — have been busted for allegedly having a cache of weapons and a bombmaking explosive in their Greenwich Village apartment.
This is a good example of taking politics too far. I guessing they will be happy when Daddy's 1% fortune saves them from a 20 year prison sentence.
Hopefully not, let them both spend the next few decades rotting away in prison.
Comments
like i have said several times, the banks ALWAYS get their money, and if they don't get it, they bilk it out of the people that have their money in that bank...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
council meeting today... deadline was set last week to disperse tonight.
Ours is a very small group without a permit, camping illegally in a city park.
I am for legal demonstrations that are peaceful and show strength
with numbers and clear purpose.
I hope they disperse and get a permit for organized marches, rallies,
informative public meetings, instead of camping in city parks.
And I pray for no violence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmEHcOc0 ... r_embedded
i saw that earlier & found myself applauding....loved his honesty.
www.cluthelee.com
www.cluthe.com
not wanting to hurt our world image, is what the Mayor said...ok.
Probably waiting to see what the Feds say... no one wants to go first and arrest.
This is reminiscent of the sit ins back in the day ...
but more comfortable, I guess.
And not many are missing work or using vacation time so why not stick it out.
With very cold weather around the corner, I wonder what will happen then.
Maybe Occupy will converge to cities in the warmer climates. Hmmmm....
it gets very cold here in Atl ... burr very cold.... freezing cold.
G20 Storm-Troopers and Commanders Charged in Toronto
http://theintelhub.com/2012/05/22/g20-storm-troopers-and-commanders-charged-in-toronto/
Still Not enough.
-
That day, things changed (or perhaps just became more visible). I don't look at my city...my country the same after what went down those couple of day's.
Our happy smiling police, given the opportunity abused thousands of people, Violated the rights of so many.
(With the exception of a few Police officers who refused to follow orders and did the right thing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feNsw8r196M&feature=youtube_gdata_player
But most Americans no longer seem have any idea what those freedoms are.
American revolutionaries and soldiers didn’t sacrifice their lives at Lexington and Concord, at Bull Run and Gettysburg, or on Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima so that our government could spy on it’s own citizens, conspire with investment bankers and corporate lobbyists to swindle us, throw us out of our homes and eliminate our jobs—and then sic the police on us when we gathered to protest those crimes.
It’s a matter of national life or death—not just Memorial Day but every day—that we recall exactly what those men and women died for—in foreign countries and here in our own country. They sacrificed their lives fighting to protect and preserve our freedoms—most particularly the freedom to gather together and speak out against any attempt to take those freedoms away.
While we’re remembering… There is nothing new about hired goons and uniformed guard dogs committing violence against citizens when their lords and masters, and the system of institutionalized greed they represent, are threatened.
It happened in 1770 on Boston Common. It happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries at the railway yards in Chicago, in the coal and copper mines of Pennsylvania and Idaho, and in the sweatshops of The Lower East Side in Manhattan. It happened at the Bonus Marcher’s encampment in Washington D.C. in 1932. It happened in Selma in 1965, and at Kent State in 1970. And it’s happening right now in our cities and on our campuses. Ordinary Americans, gathering in protest, were—and are— beaten, shot, or thrown into prison without representation or trial.
The real point of this government violence is not that the soldiers and cops lost control, but that the rabble didn’t know their place. They—the wretched colonials, workers, blacks, women, gays, immigrants, the lower class—forgot for a moment that they were subjects of the King, President, Governor, Mayor or Robber Baron.
When the “rabble” (i.e., you and I) are roused the real owners of the country step in to remind us where our rightful place is—below them.
They say that the Occupy movement and anti-war protesters are breaking laws. That’s true; Occupiers and other protestors across the country are breaking laws. They’re trespassing, marching without permits, and, in some cases, violating local ordinances regulating noise and sanitation. Many of these “laws” have now metastasized—at all government levels—to meet the threat of “terrorism”—AKA, legitimate protest.
In the end, these trespasses are all minor offenses—and, of course, they fade to nothing when compared with the major crimes that are being protested.
Occupiers on some small patch of public park? Occupiers in the street? They are only the palest reflection of The REAL occupiers; the obscenely rich and corporate executives—the top few thousand of the population that controls most of the wealth of the country.
They and their army of lobbyists have occupied Congress, occupied The Supreme Court and occupied The White House.
The rich and their fake “grass-roots” political organizations and SuperPACS occupy every state capitol, most city halls, almost all broadcast and print newsrooms and most university executive offices. They are a colonial power that has taken over our land, our economy and our government.
“Give me liberty or give me death,” said Patrick Henry. A lot of brave people died for the cause of liberty—and we set aside a day to remember them. But do Americans remember or even understand what that liberty was?
Tea Partiers and their wind-up politicians are fond of making pious pronouncements about “The Founders” and the heroes of the American Revolution—Think of Paul Revere and his warning that the King’s troops had landed and were advancing to destroy people who were gathering to fight for liberty. Well, The Occupy movement and other activists are sounding the same alarm right now because they understand (along with millions of other citizens) that our country is more than half-way down the road to becoming a fascist state—where big business and state power are completely merged. That’s one of the main things all those soldiers died for—the right for people to sound that alarm without fear of reprisal.
Occupy lost most of it’s physical presence over this past winter but the movement has permanently injected it’s two primary messages—the evils of income inequality and the fact that the our essential right to free speech is in dire jeopardy—into the national consciousness.
Most of the encampments are gone, but the spirit of the movement endures and is thriving—despite the Government’s efforts at suppression and the media’s constant ridicule and disregard. The essence of the message endures for the simple reason that Occupy is just the latest incarnation of the original American revolution; we are, and of a right, ought to be, free. Free from the censorious, even fatal grip of the rich and powerful.
…George Carlin once said, “They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Well, Americans are finally awakening from a 40 year consumer-obsessed, entertainment-addled, political campaign rhetoric-induced coma. No one can say what will happen now—but one thing’s for sure; There is no neutral—either we evolve into an actual Democracy or become a nation of sheep.
The Founders knew what they were fighting for. And every generation we have to learn all over again—that the sacrifices of the American Revolution, The Civil War and World War 2 are not meant to be cheap fodder for hack politicians’ speeches or mere words lying inert in some history text.
The American Revolution is alive. It has no “sell by” date;
It doesn’t stop at red lights and it doesn’t pause for commercials. It’s happening right now and it will keep happening until the last free citizen has been silenced.
…Memorial Day has come and gone—we barbecued, got responsibly drunk and rushed to get great deals on plasma TV’s; and, incidentally, squeezed in a few tearful glances at the flag. But memories of struggle and death don’t just live in one official holiday—they don’t end when the clock ticks over into a new day… Every day of they year it behooves us to remember the freedoms American soldiers died for in the righteous battles they fought.
If we let those freedoms completely atrophy and crumble into dust, then all those deaths will have been without meaning and all our memorials will be nothing but a sad, empty joke.
- Mike Feder (New York City - May 29, 2012)
http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000152.html#more
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy
New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent
Naomi Wolf
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 29 December 2012
It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.
The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations' knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61).
As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the documents show that from the start, the FBI – though it acknowledges Occupy movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization – nonetheless designated OWS repeatedly as a "terrorist threat":
"FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country."
Verheyden-Hilliard points out the close partnering of banks, the New York Stock Exchange and at least one local Federal Reserve with the FBI and DHS, and calls it "police-statism":
"This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."
The documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the FBI and a "Bank Fraud Working Group" met in November 2011 – during the Occupy protests – to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its "domestic terrorism" unit. The Anchorage, Alaska "terrorism task force" was watching Occupy Anchorage. The Jackson, Michigan "joint terrorism task force" was issuing a "counterterrorism preparedness alert" about the ill-organized grandmas and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan, the FBI and the "Bank Security Group" – multiple private banks – met to discuss the reaction to "National Bad Bank Sit-in Day" (the response was violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state's Occupy members' details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis FBI tracked OWS under its "joint terrorism task force" aegis, too. And so on, for over 100 pages.
Jason Leopold, at Truthout.org, who has sought similar documents for more than a year, reported that the FBI falsely asserted in response to his own FOIA requests that no documents related to its infiltration of Occupy Wall Street existed at all. But the release may be strategic: if you are an Occupy activist and see how your information is being sent to terrorism task forces and fusion centers, not to mention the "longterm plans" of some redacted group to shoot you, this document is quite the deterrent.
There is a new twist: the merger of the private sector, DHS and the FBI means that any of us can become WikiLeaks, a point that Julian Assange was trying to make in explaining the argument behind his recent book. The fusion of the tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means that a huge area of vulnerability in civil society – people's income streams and financial records – is now firmly in the hands of the banks, which are, in turn, now in the business of tracking your dissent.
Remember that only 10% of the money donated to WikiLeaks can be processed – because of financial sector and DHS-sponsored targeting of PayPal data. With this merger, that crushing of one's personal or business financial freedom can happen to any of us. How messy, criminalizing and prosecuting dissent. How simple, by contrast, just to label an entity a "terrorist organization" and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing.
Why the huge push for counterterrorism "fusion centers", the DHS militarizing of police departments, and so on? It was never really about "the terrorists". It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens – it was always, that is to say, meant to be about you.
no mention of this on the sunday news programs...
The documents are heavily redacted. Nevertheless, they demonstrate that the so-called “war on terror” and the police-state laws and agencies established in its name are being employed to disrupt and suppress political dissent and protect the American corporate-financial elite against the growth of social opposition.
This direct attack on Constitutionally protected free-speech rights, begun under the Bush administration, has been expanded by the Obama administration, which treats virtually all forms of social and political protest as a potential criminal and terrorist threat. This confirms that the central target of the Homeland Security Department, the USA PATRIOT ACT, the Guantanamo gulag, the military tribunals, the gutting of habeas corpus rights and due process, and the policy of extra-judicial assassinations and torture is not Islamist terrorists, but the democratic rights of the American working class.
Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.
docs located here:
http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary ... s-ows.html
What a crock of shit.
(Funnily enough, these are the same people who have nothing to say about the erosion of civil liberties, and the persecution of whistle-blowers).
The Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC) is an American program created and operated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in December 2005. The program facilitates information sharing and cooperation between the FBI and over 200 of the largest American companies, which altogether account for over one third of the gross domestic product of the United States. In December 2012, released documents showed that the DSAC and counter-terrorism programs conducted surveillance of non-violent Occupy Wall Street protesters in 2011.
Authorities were “working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens”, the report added.
The mission statement of DSAC states that the program is "a strategic partnership between the FBI and the U.S. private sector," that it promotes the "effective exchange of information" between them, and that it allows the FBI to more easily detect and prevent criminal activity involving interstate commerce.[1] DSAC is also supervised by the Department of Homeland Security.[2]
not necessarily, maybe "redacted" learned that no leadership existed so thats why they didnt/couldnt carry out their "suppressed sniper rifles" plan...which Im assuming is a silencer
anyway, just who is "redacted"? why didnt the fbi, hls and etc investigate, capture and trot the "redacted" terrorists out and brag about how they foil a terror threat?
Morgan Gliedman — who is nine-months pregnant — and her baby daddy, Aaron Greene, 31, also had instructions on making bombs, including a stack of papers with a cover sheet titled, “The Terrorist Encyclopedia,’’ sources told The Post yesterday.
People who know Greene say his political views are “extreme,” the sources said.
Cops found the stash in the couple’s West Ninth Street home Saturday when they went there to look for Gliedman, 27, who was wanted for alleged credit-card theft.
A detective discovered a plastic container with seven grams of a white chemical powder called HMTD, which is so powerful, cops evacuated several nearby buildings.
Police also found a flare launcher, which is a commercial replica of a grenade launcher; a modified 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun; ammo; and nine high-capacity rifle magazines, the sources said.
Cops also allegedly uncovered papers about creating homemade booby traps, improvised submachine guns, and various handwritten notebooks containing chemical formulas.
The couple’s arrest Saturday was a sharp turn from their privileged backgrounds.
Gliedman, who grew up on Park Avenue, graduated from Dalton in 2002. Her dad, Dr. Paul Gliedman, is director of radiation oncology at Beth Israel Hospital, Brooklyn Division.
Paul Gliedman — who was included in New York magazine’s list of top doctors in 2011 — received his medical degree from Columbia University.
Morgan’s mother, Susyn Schops Gliedman, is a realtor with Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Greene attended Harvard as an undergraduate and did his graduate work at the university’s Kennedy School of Government.
He has five prior run-ins with the police, with the charges including, assault, and weapons possession, sources said.
http://m.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhat ... ZyfC1pLVXN
So this was a peaceful movement?
by your logic: arod cheated by using steroids, all baseball players worlwide are steroid using cheaters.
or if you want to take it further, derek jeter had steroids, syringes and instructions on how to use steroids but never actually used them, he is a cheater and all baseball players worldwide are cheaters.
From a spectators POV in Seattle, the occupy movement did not appear to have any real leadership. It was mostly the same people who come out for almost every protest 'event' held at Westlake Center. Judging from the May Day event, all it takes to make us disperse these days is a bit of rain. Streets went from packed to vacant in a matter of 20 minutes.
However, the police are always in their riot gear, posed with their batons, ready to strike in case another WTO busts out.
I had actually forgotten about the May Day thing, until I saw the massive line of police officers blocking people from crossing 4th Ave. Plus, the random group of police interspersed throughout the crowd being aggressive with people. Do police even realize how people watching are affected by this? I think sometimes the police incite riots. I was just going to continue through the crowd and make my way home, until I saw the cops picking on people. Suddenly, I felt like sticking around. At least, until it started raining.
Hopefully not, let them both spend the next few decades rotting away in prison.
So?
Are you suggesting that the fact that OWS may have had leadership means they deserved to be intimidated, beaten, imprisoned, and shot?