OCCUPY WALL STREET

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Corkey

Did you read the one I posted AtLast? There were others involved.

Hey, Corkey- now I have seen them and also (finally) I have picked-up more on the local TV here. Also a short phone interview with the UCD Chief (a "sister). Two of the officers involved are on admin leave and it is being investigated. i saw the holding up of a hood and spraying. Then the chancellor's statements.

What the hell is going on? I would think that that the admin and the Chief would go over what is going too far against students that are not armed and not challenging anyone physically at all. Yes, they were blocking a pathway and 60,000 people use the campus, but they could have been removed without spraying them. We would go limp and be carted away back in the late 60's and 70's. They posed no immediate danger to anyone.

I am wanting students to get some small groups together and meet with boards, however, and push for what the Peralta district has done. getting the entire U of C, state colleges and universities and community college districts to move bank accounts out of big banks and into smaller community banks would be millions of dollars - even billions. These are the kinds of things that will make a difference and are aimed at some of the real culprits. The movement needs to proceed with organized goals aimed at all of the institutions that contribute to income disparity- camping isn't going to do this. In fact, that aspect of the movement ends up taking public funds away from the very programs and people that are always suffer cut-backs. And there will be more of these unless we take back our political system and get the right-wingers out of office.

There was a point in my student activism that I realized that things needed to be more focused and all the marching in the streets was not going to effect change. And my generation brought about a lot of change. But we also has a US Congress that became over 65% Democrat at the time as were most of the states.

[dykeumentary]

Originally Posted by Corkey

So when the police spray pepper spray down a protestors throat, he wasn't actually trying to kill him? Or does this not qualify due to hospital care. Really people start opening your eyes. You are not that far from Martial Law being declared.

Ok, I was going to have a conversation about this, but I think you made my point for me.
That is: a university security officer who pepper sprayed an informed protestor (who chose to be at a demonstration), with witnesses, who was given warning of consequences that would befall him for refusing to move, and who can trust that there will be legal recourse, DOES NOT EQUAL "the tactics used by the Nazi secret police."
I choose to not continue this line of conversation. The situation is bigger than showing oneself to be "right" in some analogy.

What would be interesting and useful to me is to converse with people who post here, to increase our understanding what's going on, and to discuss responses that might improve our situation.

I don't think you need to convince anyone here that we are at a critical juncture, Corkey. When you write things like "really people start opening your eyes" to a forum of people taking time out of their day to thoughtfully discuss exactly this issue, it doesnt feel good. Martial law was declared when they passed the Patriot Act. These are new times calling for new tactics. Let's talk about that.

Now I really need that bourbon.

[Corkey]

What of the Police who shot the college student, or doesn't that one count either? The Brown shirts started beating people before they ever killed them, history repeats, let them with ears and eyes remember.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by dykeumentary

Ok, I was going to have a conversation about this, but I think you made my point for me.
That is: a university security officer who pepper sprayed an informed protestor (who chose to be at a demonstration), with witnesses, who was given warning of consequences that would befall him for refusing to move, and who can trust that there will be legal recourse, DOES NOT EQUAL "the tactics used by the Nazi secret police."

I may choose to participate in a peaceful demonstration and I may expect to be arrested for my choice but I never, until now, would i have expected to be pepper sprayed directly in my face from 6 inches away or have my mouth held open and be pepper sprayed down my throat. I might have expected to be arrested roughly, especially if i chose to peacefully resist arrest, but if I held my hands out to the arresting officer, I wouldn't expect to offer my wrists to be arrested and have the police instead pull me around by my hair. I wouldn't expect to be asking the cops if this was okay or if i was too close over and over checking with them constantly and have them just shoot me with a less lethal weapon. There are a hundred images, at least, of excessive force used on peaceful protestors. Choosing to peacefully demonstrate because you feel there is something wrong with your government does not give the police the right to brutalize you. It is not the fault of the peaceful protestors because they are taking a stand for what they believe. It is the fault of the abusive police who are denying the rights of citizens to protest peacefully.

In January 1933, when Hitler was appointed Chancellor, Germany was a democracy. There were various political parties and people had the right to vote in fair elections. 50% of those who held seats in the Reichstag were against the Nazi Party. It was highly unlikely he would have gotten anywhere. Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag building as an excuse to take control. He claimed a communist conspiracy and got the President to give him emergency powers playing on fear and the rest is history.

Doesn't sound that difficult to duplicate really. The United States of Fear, I mean America, is not going to roll over as quickly as Germany did, but then the U.S. is not in the condition Germany was in because of WW1. But fear is the tactic they use successfully against us. And you are right about Martial Law since the Patriot Act. So why would you think things aren't going to get worse, much worse? As the economy worsens, as unemployment continues to increase, as we become weaker and more vulnerable we will be even more susceptible to fear. I'm not saying the police will become the Gestapo exactly but they are definitely paramilitary already. I think it's scary.

And I don't think people deserve what they get when they choose to peacefully assemble and demonstrate to draw attention to the abuses our government has allowed the financial sector to inflict on the 99%.

[Cin]

Published on Sunday, November 20, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

OWS, Police Brutality, and the War on Terror: An Empire State of Mind
by Falguni Sheth

Over the last week, among the multiple images that horrified and angered the American public, two stood out: One is an image of Dorli Rainey, an 84 year old protester at Occupy Seattle with milk dripping from her face after being pepper-sprayed by a uniformed Seattle officer. Another is the video clip of a uniformed Davis, California police officer pulling out two cans of pepper-spray and directing it at the faces of non-aggressive, stationary student protesters at UC Davis. Both images have gone viral. I suspect this is because there is something so grotesque and terrifying about watching a uniformed officer pull out a can of chemicals that are designed to seriously, if temporarily, cripple and paralyze the its victims. Watching the lurid spectacle happen in real-time has the effect of paralyzing the viewer.

Occupy Seattle's Dorli RaineyOccupy Seattle's Dorli RaineyBesides the outrage that these events provoked, several questions have been raised, even by those who have followed most global political news over the last decade: “What are they thinking? Why these heavy-handed tactics? Why is it ok to assault people instead of arrest them?” And others, perhaps without knowing why, are horrified but not at all surprised. Why not?

These heavy-handed tactics should come as no surprise to any of us. The ability to assault people prior to—no, instead of arresting and charging them with crimes—has become an explicit staple of United States foreign policy since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, on Oct. 22, 2001. That bill, some 350 pages long and written over much longer than a month’s time, authorized the state police and army forces to wiretap, investigate, search and detain individuals as part of a pre-emptive strategy to seek out “suspected terrorists,” that is, before they could do damage to “US” (pun intended). Augmented to this was G.W. Bush’s presidential endorsement of torture and rendition strategies, along with the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan under the auspices of waging a “War on Terror” and the associated military bombings of thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (with President Obama’s continued support of rendition, the expansion of military drones targeted towards “suspected Al-Qaeda” buildings, and of course, civilians). Tack on Presidential Obama’s enthusiasm to assassinate suspected terrorists in lieu of a trial (Osama Bin Laden), even when they are American citizens (Anwar Al-Awlaki and Samir Khan).

What does any of this have to with police brutality in response to peaceful political dissent and protests in NYC, Berkeley, Seattle, Oakland, Davis, and elsewhere around the country? Everything. We are in an “Empire State of Mind,” with apologies to Jay Z and Alicia Keyes. We have become conditioned to accept and expect police brutality to be imposed on everyone but “US”: African-American men and women; Muslim men and women all over the world, including Western and Northern Europe; Latino migrants in the US. We have also become used to justifying police brutality as directed towards “people who deserve it.” This, at bottom, is an Empire State of Mind. An Empire State of Mind is one where those who order and those who carry out the brutalization and murder, can do so with the assurance of complete impunity because they have the approval of political and media elites, and through them, a widespread public.

Think about it: it is still laughable to consider the possibility of GW Bush and Barack Obama being put on trial for the torture, warrantless detention, or the innumerable murders that have been ordered on their watch. Was there ever a moment when someone thought that President Obama would order the punishment and reprimands of rogue bankers, or the arrest of CEOs who authorized their staff to push toxic mortgages or carry out irresponsible trades that eroded the pensions and life-savings of everyday working people? The evidence of widespread fraud and misconduct is widely available. But in an oligarchy, the prosecution of elites is left to the fantasies of action movies.

Why then are we surprised that the chickens have come home to roost? We have become accustomed to police and army brutality around the world. We have stopped protesting it to a large extent, in part because our sentiments have been mocked (witness the most recent endorsement of the president by the SEIU, with its promiscuous cooptation of OWS rhetoric). We have stopped, if we ever did, seeing the connections between the gluttonous disemboweling of the economic security and safety nets once available to the lower and middle-classes, and the war on immigrants. At a basic level, the latter is a distraction from the former: “Hey, look, a foreigner is taking your job,” says Congress, while they are being paid off by Wall Street bankers to prevent the passing of legislation that would protect pensions, salaries, and benefits of working folks from being plundered. Similarly, we have refused to make the links between the persecution and torture of Muslim men in the name of “fighting terrorism,” and the ever-greater harassment of US citizens: “We need to track devious elements for your safety.” We vote for these folks continually, and then are shocked when the same spurious logic is turned against American citizens.

We are shocked by the police brutality of Dorli Rainey and the Occupy Davis protestors because they are guilty of nothing but loud political dissent. Why then should we not revisit our suspicions of the unproven assertions of the criminal tendencies of millions of men and women around the world and here in the US? We need to see through the aspersions that have been unceasingly cast by the United States government, the 1%, and their minions in order to justify their assaults, brutality, and murderous actions? It’s an Empire State of Mind, not only abroad but increasingly here at home. And the way to dismantle an Empire State of Mind is to revisit our assumptions about the targets of violence and brutality. If brutality can be leveled at American students wrongly, then we need to accept that it’s been meted out unfairly in the Wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Terror, and Latino migrants, among others.

We shouldn’t be shocked. We should, however, continue to be outraged: the War on OWS, the War on Terror, and the War on Immigrants, are all part and parcel of an Empire State of Mind. We need to consider that each of these wars is equally dubious, intended to distract US by casting a spurious guilt on political dissenters, the working-class, the unemployed, the foreclosed, and other innocent civilians. This is the most basic step needed to resist those state officials, the 1%, and their minions who plunder the government coffers, our taxes, our bank accounts, our equity, our homes, and our livelihood and security, while pretending that their theft and their brutality is conducted for our protection.

[persiphone]

just for shits and giggles....here is what the religious right thinks about the similarities between America and the nazi regime.....

http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worl...articleid=4881

1. In 1935, under Hitler's rule, prayers ceased to be obligatory in schools. In 1962, The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed school prayer.

2. Hitler eliminated Christian holidays in the schools first by calling Christmas "Yuletide." Most American public schools now call Christmas vacation a "winter break."

3. Hitler took Easter out of schools and instead honored that time of year as the beginning of spring. It has likewise become common for schools in America to refer to time off at Easter as "spring break."

4. Hitler controlled the church using intimidation and threats. A half-century ago, U.S. Senator and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson, promoted a bill that included an amendment to use the Internal Revenue Service to remove the non-profit status of a church that speaks against the election of any specific political candidate.

5. Hitler enticed thousands of pastors to promote paganism in their congregations. Neopaganism is one of the fastest growing religions in America, doubling every 18 months according to a June 2008 article in The Denver Post. Many American church-goers practice paganism such as "Christian" yoga, contemplative prayer, and walking a labyrinth. As evidence that church doors continue to open further to aberrant beliefs, a 2008 survey found that 57% of evangelicals do not believe Jesus Christ is the only way to God.

6. Hitler was an environmentalist and vegetarian. Marriages performed by the Nazi state frequently included blessings of "Mother Earth" and "Father Sky." Today Americans increasingly accept radical environmentalism, pantheism, and the celebration of Earth Day.

7. Hitler was fascinated by eastern mysticism. Today an increasing number of American pastors encourage their followers to become "mystic warriors".

8. Hitler believed in reincarnation. He even convinced SS officers that by murdering millions of Jews and other "undesirables" they were allowing them to get on with the reincarnation process and come back more quickly in an advanced status. Americans increasingly accept the idea of reincarnation as well as good and bad karma.

9. Hitler's holocaust killed between 8 and 11 million Jews and non-Jews. Americans have killed an estimated 50 million babies since abortion was legalized through the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. According to a July 7, 2008 article on worldnetdaily.com "An abortionist who claims to have destroyed more than 20,000 unborn children and who once was Hillary Clinton's OB-GYN says he is doing 'God's work' when he terminates a pregnancy…He admits that abortion kills a human soul."

10. Hitler killed 270,000 handicapped people through active euthanasia.[1] America and the courts are rushing toward the same with the murder of individuals such as Terri Schiavo. Oregon voters passed their Death with Dignity Act in 1994 and re-affirmed it in 1997. Washington state voters legalized doctor-assisted suicide on November 4, 2008. In December 2008, a Montana judge ruled terminally ill residents of that state have the right to physician-assisted suicide, and "death with dignity" is gaining acceptance in other states as well.

11. By 1938, all private schools were abolished by Hitler and all education placed under Nazi control. There is constant pressure from federal and many state education authorities to require that Christian schools use state-mandated, humanistic textbooks. The Home School Legal Defense Association is fighting numerous battles at any given time to prevent parents from loosing the right to educate their children as they see fit. In August 2008, a federal district court ruled that the state of California university system may choose not to recognize the diplomas-and thereby deny college entrance to-students who attended a school using textbooks that express a Biblical worldview in the areas of history and science (i.e., Christian schools).

12. Hitler prevented dissenters from using radio to challenge his worldview. Many powerful liberals in America have made clear their intent to reintroduce the "Fairness Doctrine" that would require conservative and religious radio stations to offer equal time to anti-Christian, anti-conservative worldviews.

13. Pastors who spoke against Hitler's worldview and his murderous regime found themselves on trial and frequently imprisoned for "Abuse of Pulpit." In America, hate-crime legislation has the potential to criminalize Christians and pastors who speak out against the homosexual agenda.

14. Many Christians in Germany justified their allegiance to Hitler through a belief that "Their duty to God was spiritual; their duty to the state was political."[2] Many American Christians now have bought the lie that their worldview can be divided between the secular and the sacred-the politician has one area of responsibility, the pastor another, and never shall the two meet. Yet the Bible teaches that all issues are fundamentally spiritual.

15. Hitler outlawed the cross and replaced it with the swastika. Today many churches, Christian colleges, and universities have willingly removed the cross from their buildings. Numerous court cases sponsored by the ACLU have required the removal of the cross from public grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the Ten Commandments cannot be posted on public grounds for religious purposes.

16. Hitler was fascinated with Friedrich Nietzsche and distributed his writings to his inner circle. Nietzsche promoted Nihilism, the belief that life has no meaning, and he is best known for his position that "God is dead". Nietzsche is presently one of the most widely read authors by American college students.

17. Hitler exploited the economic collapse of Germany to take over as dictator and usher in his brand of socialism. America's financial crisis has given liberals in both political parties the opportunity to grow the size of government and implement freedom-robbing socialism at lightning speed.

18. Hitler was obsessed with globalism, and many of America's most powerful political leaders are willing to subjugate American sovereignty to contemporary globalism.

19. Many Germans responded to Hitler by retreating into neutrality. Today most Americans prefer to remain neutral on moral issues that they think don't affect them personally.

20. On trial after World War II, Hitler's henchmen used the defense that they had not broken any laws. True, they had not defied the laws of Germany since those had been re-written to fit the goals and objectives of Hitler. The Nazi leaders were nevertheless found guilty because the courts at the time recognized a "law above the law." Yet now the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the law of nature and nature's God by claiming that as society evolves, morals evolve, and so the law, too, must evolve.

21. Calling upon Darwinian evolution, Hitler convinced the German people that purging millions of people was acceptable because of the need to create a pure race; also referred to as eugenics. American students across the board have been educated in Darwinian evolution because the Supreme Court has ruled that creation cannot be taught in our schools-even if both creation and evolution are taught side by side.

22. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood in America became acquainted with the doctors and scientists that had worked with Nazi Germany's eugenics program and had no quarrel with the euthanasia, sterilization, abortion, and infanticide programs of the early Reich.[3] Sanger even published several articles in Birth Control Review that reflected Hilter's White Supremacist worldview. Planned Parenthood now grosses one billion per year.

23. In Germany, pastors often cited Romans 13:1-2 to encourage Christians to obey the Nazis. Today in America, many pastors have a false view of Romans 13:1-2 and have convinced millions that to disobey governing authorities is to disobey God. This poor training would facilitate Christians here doing just as the German Christians did if faced with similar challenges.

24. Germans accepted socialism to avoid pain. Today's Americans are rejecting capitalism in exchange for government-sponsored "free" healthcare, education, and countless other government handouts.

25. Many Americans accept what I call, One World Spirituality. This is actually an amalgamation of the three worldviews of evolutionary humanism, Hindu pantheism, and occultism. I noted earlier that Hitler embraced all of these.

26. America is rushing toward government-sponsored, national healthcare. We already have a form of this in Medicare and Medicaid. Hitler, too, expanded and centralized Germany's healthcare system. As Melchior Palyi explained, "The ill-famed Dr. Ley, boss of the Nazi labor front, did not fail to see that the social insurance system could be used for Nazi politics as a means of popular demagoguery, as a bastion of bureaucratic power, [and] as an instrument of regimentation."


wow this is .....special. and super creepy.

[persiphone]

this place makes valid points without the religious spin of doom in regards to America vs. nazis, but focuses on the Bush administration. LMAO

http://www.angelfire.com/az/sthurston/comparison.html

[Cin]

Originally Posted by persiphone

just for shits and giggles....here is what the religious right thinks about the similarities between America and the nazi regime.....

Are you quoting the religious right's ideas about what makes America like the Nazis because you think they are on par with the reasons people might see some similarity between the police state Germany was and the police state the U.S. is heading toward becoming?

[persiphone]

interestingly, here is a current comparison of America and Germany in present day

http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

Are you quoting the religious right's ideas about what makes America like the Nazis because you think they are on par with the reasons people might see some similarity between the police state Germany was and the police state the U.S. is heading toward becoming?

i posted it because of the above argument and i thought it would be interesting to view all sides of that argument. i have posted other links as well. *points up there*

[Diavolo]

First, I am consistently bothered by references to Nazi's, brownshirts and the Gestapo. While it could be argued that Martin Niemoller was right and we need to stop this at it's root, in deference to the 11-17 million murdered Jews, ethnic Poles, Soviets, homosexuals and people with disabilities, can we agree to not use that language?

Secondly, we have seen time and time again, police over reacting to these Occupy crowds. Not ok. Not ok by any stretch of the imagination. We cannot be excused away as dirty hippies. I'm a businesswoman. And I am the 99%. I am appalled by what I saw at the Davis campus. The Chancellor is in the middle of a horrific shit storm just like the Mayor of Oakland. I hope when this shakes out we will find that she is as horrified as we are with the the cops did to those students and professors and the cops are fired.

We have to be vigilant and we have to understand what this is about. It's about equality. It's not about socialism or even communism. It's about every body pitching in their fair share. Most of the ultra wealthy in this country pay less taxes than I do. And have way more influence. Shouldn't we have an equal amount of influence? Shouldn't corporations be legal entities, not "persons"? Shouldn't the people who screwed up this country, the bankers in particular, be held responsible for their actions? That's what I keep seeing from the OWS folks and I agree wholeheartedly.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by persiphone

interestingly, here is a current comparison of America and Germany in present day

http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html

So there is hope the U.S. may mirror present day Germany in some distant future.

Although Germany, as well as the rest of Europe, is not safe from Goldman Sachs and financial terrorism in general.

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by Diavolo

First, I am consistently bothered by references to Nazi's, brownshirts and the Gestapo. While it could be argued that Martin Niemoller was right and we need to stop this at it's root, in deference to the 11-17 million murdered Jews, ethnic Poles, Soviets, homosexuals and people with disabilities, can we agree to not use that language?

Secondly, we have seen time and time again, police over reacting to these Occupy crowds. Not ok. Not ok by any stretch of the imagination. We cannot be excused away as dirty hippies. I'm a businesswoman. And I am the 99%. I am appalled by what I saw at the Davis campus. The Chancellor is in the middle of a horrific shit storm just like the Mayor of Oakland. I hope when this shakes out we will find that she is as horrified as we are with the the cops did to those students and professors and the cops are fired.

We have to be vigilant and we have to understand what this is about. It's about equality. It's not about socialism or even communism. It's about every body pitching in their fair share. Most of the ultra wealthy in this country pay less taxes than I do. And have way more influence. Shouldn't we have an equal amount of influence? Shouldn't corporations be legal entities, not "persons"? Shouldn't the people who screwed up this country, the bankers in particular, be held responsible for their actions? That's what I keep seeing from the OWS folks and I agree wholeheartedly.

actually we use this language already in the sense that Bush created "Homeland" Security....a term only used by nazi germany and yet no one has mentioned that. that being said, i'm quite undecided on my position in this specific argument. i think it's a slippery slope. i'm just not sure if we're already on it or if not...do i wanna go there?

[persiphone]

yet another comparison. i don't have words for this one,

http://www.hermes-press.com/germany1930.htm

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Diavolo

We have to be vigilant and we have to understand what this is about.

Yes, I agree we have to be vigilant. And as I mentioned in 1933 when Hitler became chancellor of Germany it was a democracy.

It doesn't hurt to pay attention to history.

I certainly don't expect to have someone with Hitler's ideology become President and make himself a dictator. However, I am saying Germany's economic vulnerability brought about by WWI left it susceptible to fear tactics. Which is how Hitler rose to power. I don't think it is beyond the realm of possibility that human rights in the U.S. will continue to deteriorate over time if conditions continue to worsen. And while I wouldn't expect the U.S. to fall prey to the same kind of ideological crap that Hitler spewed, it is an unarguable reality that we have an unlimited amount of ideological crap just waiting for it's time in the sun. No harm in noticing the changes in our basic human rights.

That's all I'm saying.

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

Yes, I agree we have to be vigilant. And as I mentioned in 1933 when Hitler became chancellor of Germany it was a democracy.

It doesn't hurt to pay attention to history.

I certainly don't expect to have someone with Hitler's ideology become President and make himself a dictator. However, I am saying Germany's economic vulnerability brought about by WWI left it susceptible to fear tactics. Which is how Hitler rose to power. I don't think it is beyond the realm of possibility that human rights in the U.S. will continue to deteriorate over time if conditions continue to worsen. And while I wouldn't expect the U.S. to fall prey to the same kind of ideological crap that Hitler spewed, it is an unarguable reality that we have an unlimited amount of ideological crap just waiting for it's time in the sun. No harm in noticing the changes in our basic human rights.

That's all I'm saying.

also i keep seeing people repeating the "history repeats itself" mantra in terms of genocide and yet we forget that it's already repeating itself in Africa. just cuz it hasn't happened in America yet, doesn't mean it's not happening anywhere. because it is and has been.

[Corkey]

http://morallowground.com/2011/11/17...rotesters-mom/

Just in case someone thinks it can't happen here.
She should have taken the cops names instead.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by persiphone

yet another comparison. i don't have words for this one,

http://www.hermes-press.com/germany1930.htm

Everybody and his brother uses the Nazi comparison. Maybe we need a fresh one.

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

Everybody and his brother uses the Nazi comparison. Maybe we need a fresh one.

i just think it's worth looking at. some are crazy some are not so crazy. i think there are valid points amidst the noise.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by persiphone

also i keep seeing people repeating the "history repeats itself" mantra in terms of genocide and yet we forget that it's already repeating itself in Africa. just cuz it has happened in America yet, doesn't mean it's not happening anywhere. because it is and has been.

Yes, but it's so surprising when it happens to you. The U.S. government has been doing it to everyone else for years but when they turn on you it's always a shock.

I posted an article entitled "OWS, Police Brutality, and the War on Terror: An Empire State of Mind" that talks about when them chickens come home to roost.