post #1106 on page 56 :)

Yes, bitch!! Right now there are many voter suppression campaigns going on in many states, mainly via the Republican party.

The OWS movement ought to be moving us all to action, including fighting these efforts. There is a part of me that agrees with Corkey about how many years the 98/99% did not remain active in our democracy. We do have to participate in a democracy in order for it to represent us.

As much as I hate to say it- the Tea Party has gained power because it decided not to stand by and allow government run without considering the core values of those that "belong" to it. It went right into our political system via our democratic vehicles of organizing and voting in blocks. It has redefined conservatism in the US to an extreme that big business simply loves.

The work we need to do is far beyond protesting in the streets.

I think maybe Nazi/Gestapo references don't translate well. I've been tossing this around in my head trying to put my finger on it. Nazi Germany is synonymous with genocide. I don't see genocide as an issue for the U.S. At least not in that a particular group would be targeted, other than dissenters. If the elimination of dissenting voices can be called a kind of genocide then perhaps we could worry about it.

I think what we are heading toward are police forces more like the Tonton Macoutes, the Haitian paramilitary force created by François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, rather than the Gestapo. That we are looking at evolving paramilitary police forces around the country cannot be denied. That they seek to silence us and make protesting extremely costly is also without doubt. As things worsen and as more people feel the need to point that out, we may see our newly evolving police state turn deadly. The more clearly those who control the paramilitary police understand how easily it is to to shut us down, the more they get away with, the more violence goes unanswered by our elected officials or by anyone at all really, the closer we come to living in fear of our very own Tonton Macoutes.

Actually there were 2 reported incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin in Aug of 64. The first one did happen and the second one did not happen. It was the second incident that resulted in Congress giving Johnson the power to really go to Vietnam. Years later it finally came out that the second incident never occurred.

So yes there was a real Gulf of Tonkin incident (North Vietnamese navy firing on a US warship in the Gulf) and a fabricated incident a couple of days later.

The Super Committee is deadlocked - no surprise there. The triggers that are set in place won't actually happen until 2013 - well after the 2012 election. So they have another year or so to fight over the budget and avoid the triggers. Talk about kicking the can down the road! *shakes head*

sorry if this has already been posted....looks like beating and arrests aren't just for dirty hippies, the unemployed, the eldery, and the homeless...

http://morallowground.com/2011/11/15...eviction-raid/

Yes, anyone out there protesting could be subject to the insane methods being used by police.

And students that have paid tuiton, will be in debt when they graduate into an economy in which there are few jobs available to them. They are being pepper sprayed on campus while they are demonstrating passively and without malice.

I know that because I teach community college students, I have a bias, but, in CA, the rise in costs for students throughout our college and university systems has doubled in 1 academic year!! New increases are in the works as well.

A huge number of college students that were key in electing Obama 3 years ago will be finishing college by the time of the general election. Will they be supporting him??? They don't exactly have a lot to look forward to starting out. I graduated during a recession and when Jimmy Carter was in office. I didn't have many options and knew I would not be employed in the area I just earned a degree in, but, there were many more jobs available to grads then that they could take and build experience in the workplace and later do what they studied for. This is not true for our young people today unless they are in science and math and even then, the competition is great.

So many of my students were laid off and are seeking new employment skills. They have kids and are often working part-time to make ends meet. Some are returning vets that are not finding work. Community colleges have high numbers of POC also and are often the heart of smaller towns.

I see so much depression and fear about the future in these students. Yes, I eventually was able to work in areas I wanted to, but I don't feel optimism about this for kids in college right now. I have never felt this negative about this.

Credo Action in Response to the UC Davis Pepper Spraying
 

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/...x&rc=confemail

Tell the University of California: Ban the use of chemical agents and physical violence against peaceful protester


Last week at the University of California at Davis, campus police dressed in riot gear sprayed nonviolent protesters with chemical agents. A dramatic video captures the scene. The protesters kneeling. Arms linked. They posed no threat to the officers. The officers standing above them. Dousing them with pepper spray.1

Social movements in this country have a long tradition of using civil disobedience to challenge injustice. Protesters with a deep commitment to social change peacefully disobey an order to disperse and the police must make mass arrests in order to end the protest.

What the authorities at the University of California have done is employ the use of chemical agents to stop protesters from exercising their First Amendment rights. They clearly fear that the size, commitment and growing power of the Occupy protests is so great that they will fill up their jails -- not on one day, but every day -- if they want to put a stop to the movement.

Tell Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California, and Sherry Lansing, chairperson of the University of California Board of Regents, to protect protesters' First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble, and ban the use of chemical agents and/or physical violence against nonviolent protesters on all University of California campuses.

Outrageously, the chancellor of the University of California at Davis, Linda P.B. Katehi, initially defended the actions of the officers but today finally placed the chief of the campus police on administrative leave pending a review. The UC Davis faculty association is calling for Katehi's resignation. 2

This is not just happening at the campus in Davis. In Berkeley, Robert Hass, a 70-year-old former poet laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner, described how he and his wife were beaten by police while peacefully assembling in solidarity with campus Occupy protesters.

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Hass notes that the violent actions against peaceful protesters on the Berkeley campus are thrown into particularly high relief as the protests there are taking place where the Free Speech Movement was launched almost 50 years ago, quoting Mario Savio's famous call to action: "There is a time ... when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part." 3

The University of California Board of Regents has ultimate responsibility for the actions of authorities at all University of California campuses, including Davis and Berkeley. The president and chairperson of this board must take decisive action to protect the First Amendment rights of student, faculty and the campus communities -- rights that are so clearly under violent attack.

Tell Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California, and Sherry Lansing, chairperson of the University of California Board of Regents, to protect protesters' First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble, and ban the use of chemical agents and/or physical violence against nonviolent protesters on all University of California campuses.

From Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr. to Mario Savio, nonviolent civil disobedience is an time-honored form of protest. If authorities allow police in riot gear to simply use chemical agents and violence, instead of arrests, to remove peaceful protesters respectfully decline to follow an order to disperse, then they will not only be taking away our fundamental rights, they will implicitly be encouraging more violent forms of resistance.

The community response to the events in Davis have been overwhelming. In the coming days we may see resignations at the highest level. But what's at stake is not just the job of the chancellor of the University of California at Davis or its campus police chief. It's about whether the right to free speech on campus will endure. That's why we need the President and the Chairperson of the UC Board of Regents to protect the rights of protesters on every UC campus, and to set a precedent for universities not just in California but nationwide.

Back when I first went to a community college (1989), tuition was $5 per unit.

For anyone who thinks that the protestors don't know why they are protesting:

No, apparently they are also for poet laureates as well. Robert Hass, former poet laureate of the United States, tells about his experience at Berkley.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/21-5



But you know we could post article after article, we could fill this thread with pictures, videos and stories about peaceful protestors being attacked, shot with less lethal weapons, clubbed, gassed, pepper sprayed and otherwise brutalized but to what end? The most important question of all is what can we do about it. How can we stop this? How can we make our elected officials protect our right to speak out and to engage in non violent protests? What can we do to stop them from silencing our voices? And why have we heard nothing at all from our president?

Here are quotes from the president and the secretary of state that are filled with concern for the peaceful protestors in Egypt. What about United States citizens? In the words of Obama the U.S. will stand up for human rights everywhere. Everywhere apparently but here at home in the place where he is president.

It's kind of scary to realize that these two people are considered to be liberals. They are two politicians that we would expect would defend human rights. And they do. Just not ours.

President Obama:
"I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors.
The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton:
"We are deeply concerned about the use of violence by Egyptian police and security forces against protesters, and we call on the Egyptian government to do everything in its power to restrain the security forces."

Here at home not a word. They are as silent as they wish us to be.

Yes, the Obama administration's silence about police violence against protestors here at home really irks me. It clearly shows who side he is on. I am sad that I supported him in 2008.

Something that concerns me about all the press and uproar about police brutality is that having all the focus be on that takes the focus off of the reason people are protesting in the first place, with respect to national media coverage. However, I doubt the national media cares much to cover the reasons for the protests. In fact, their favorite way to deal with that is to say it's unfocused and there is no real message. Which is bullshit of course.

Did you expect anything different? The media is corporate owned. They aren't going to support OWS. They aren't going to allow them to wake up the sleeping masses.

Well, I don't want to see Newt Ginrich as president- yesterday when asked about OWS he said he thinks all the protesters should get a job- then added, "First they should take a bath and then get a job." Frankly, since I began voting back in the early 70's there has never been a viable candidate that totally aligned with my political convictions. Not one. And Al Gore would have won in 2000 if not for Ralph Nader, it was so close. And I couldn't get behind Nader even though I was registered Green back then.

I have heard Obama speak in support of the issues OWS is bringing to the surface, many times. And to be honest, I am much more upset with Governors not speaking up and out about the police within their state- they are the ones that have more direct power what is going on in their state. What the hell can Obama do on a state level with police? I am quite upset with Gov Brown here in CA.

Al Gore would have won if the conservative Supreme Court would have upheld the constitution and allowed the recount to happen. Ralph Nader had nothing to do with that.

As for what Obama can do about violence by state police against peaceful protestors? Well, he can speak out for one thing. He hasn't said one damn word about it.

Yes, I left the first one out because we went to war over the second one, which didn't happen. But I got a lot of butch on butch love for your history schoolin'