The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

Mon Nov 28 22:16:29 GMT 2011

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
 From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history 
shows there are certain steps that any would-be 
dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment

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
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy
Naomi Wolf -  Guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 November 2011 17.25 GMT

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.

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Fear not therefore: for there is nothing covered 
that shall not be revealed; and nothing hid that 
shall not be made known. What I tell you in 
darkness, that speak ye in the light and what ye 
hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Matthew 10:26-27

Die Pride and Envie; Flesh, take the poor's advice.
Covetousnesse be gon: Come, Truth and Love arise.
Patience take the Crown; throw Anger out of dores:
Cast out Hypocrisie and Lust, which follows whores:
Then England sit in rest; Thy sorrows will have end;
Thy Sons will live in peace, and each will be a friend.
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