“Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [of tyranny], and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up against us if we leave the people in ignorance.” Thomas Jefferson.
It’s Thanksgiving Day and when I think about what I am thankful for, in addition to the health and happiness of my family and friends, I am also thankful that I live in a society that is still free (enough) for me to be able to speak my mind, even if the content of my words are against my own government. With that said, when you turn on the nightly news these days, doesn’t a lot of footage seems interchangeable? I’m specifically referring to the populist uprisings happening now concurrently all over the world. We are truly living in historically significant times, my friends. It seems to be getting harder and harder to distinguish between video of uprisings against the authorities in Egypt, Greece, Syria, or yes, even here at home in Oakland, New York or UC Davis.
Astonishingly, despite all of this Sturm und Drang in our streets, our political leaders, save for a few innocuous comments here and there, have been completely distant, unwilling to align themselves with anything that may hinder either their re-election prospects or furl the brows of their corporate donors. Particularly at the federal level, our government it seems, is completely disconnected from the concerns of the majority of Americans. What concerns? Well, since 1997, the top 400 incomes in America have tripled, while their taxes have been reduced by 40%. Where has this added wealth come from? The systemic squeezing of the middle class and the poor to critical levels.
Wall Street has co-opted our democratic republic, corporate fascism reigns. Domestic protests have now become violent because corporate America, the super rich who are in control, the top one percent of wealthy in our country who will do anything to keep the profits flowing from their wars and their wall street and bank scams flowing into their greedy pockets have decided that these Occupy protests are not cost effective for their bottom lines. Frederick Douglas once said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” The corporate powers that be and their media lapdogs (see Fox News) tried to kill the Occupy movement in it's infancy by ignoring and then mocking it and that failed. And now according to a major PR firm’s internal memo that recently surfaced, their next tactic is a campaign of professional defamation. Wall Street has made it clear that they will do whatever takes to prevail. They will not go down without a fight and before it's over they will utilize every tool their limitless money can buy to try to destroy the nascent Occupy movement, and this includes exploiting the undue influence and power of their bought politicians on both sides of the aisle.
They’re getting a lot of help, too. Unfortunately, it’s from those who have somehow deluded themselves that they are on the same side as the richest one percent. Disturbingly, the super rich billionaires are also getting help from those who have sworn to “protect and serve” us. Who guards the guards when their power, too, can be bought? Recently the NYPD received a $4.6 million "gift" from Goldman Sachs to "help.” Help who? The corporations? Help what? Eradicate opposition? In 1998, the Giuliani administration created the first police "Paid Detail Unit" in the nation (other cities have since followed suit) which is a privately funded detail within the NYPD that permits the NYSE and other Wall Street institutions to order up a flank of the NYPD's finest upon request. These corporate behemoths pay an average of $37/hour (no benefits) for the services of an NYC officer who is paid directly from the City and then the corporations indemnify the city. These are the police you see in the white shirts (brown shirts?), it was from this detail that we got Officer Anthony “Tony” Bologna, the “peace officer” who pepper sprayed a group of young women who were all ready seated, secured and penned in during the initial days of the Occupy movement.
That was just the beginning of the police abuses as it has turned out. About two or so weeks ago there was a surprise 1 a.m. raid on Occupy Wall Street's Zuccotti Park encampment by the NYPD. Mayor Bloomberg claimed this forced eviction was because the encampment had become "a health and fire safety hazard” and was “not safe for multiple reasons." As has been pointed out: does the city traditionally take care of "health and fire safety hazards" under cover of darkness? And if the mayor is so concerned about the hazards posed by people sleeping on the street and is prepared to use immense city resources to take care of it, then what about the over 3,000 homeless people that reportedly sleep on the streets of New York City every night?
Perhaps one of the more disturbing aspects of this Zuccotti raid was the fact that not only were the media not allowed to report on it but many reporters were barricaded, blocked, manhandled and even arrested (Twenty-six so far. Freedom of the press, anyone?). Reportedly, the first thing the police did was to clear out the journalists so that they could not see what was going on (just as they routinely do in totalitarian nations). Why did the cops do this at 1am and not during daylight? Because the last time they tried to clear the park and give notice of eviction it was daytime and multitudes of protesters rushed to the park to stand together in a show of solidarity and thus made it impossible for the city to remove them without an embarrassing, politically damaging incident. Since the city wasn't going to let that happen again, they did the eviction when there would be the smallest chance of a repeat confrontation. And thought it worked in the short run, the park was cleared, it also had the unintended effect of galvanizing the movement.
These shady, recent tactics of the police have just been the tip of the iceberg. In the last month, the incidents of abuse by the authorities have been steadily ratcheting up. In Oakland, two military veterans, Scott Olsen and Kayvan Sabehgi were both hospitalized, the former after being shot in the head with a teargas canister and the latter suffered a lacerated spleen after his police beating. Further, former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass, age 70, was beaten at a protest in Berkeley, Dorli Rainey, an 84 year old activist, was pepper sprayed in the face at a protest in Seattle, Jennifer Fox, a young pregnant woman who also attended a Seattle protest, miscarried several days after police pepper sprayed her and punched her in the stomach. It’s a total disgrace. Now, there are those who say it is their fault for being there in the first place, but in a free society, there shouldn’t have been any risk of anything that drastic occurring. None of these people put themselves "in the line of fire." They put themselves in a peaceful, Constitutionally protected demonstration.
These egregious examples of police violence have proven two things: that those in authority have become unaccountable and that they have lost any sense of human connection to we the people. These police, whether willingly or unwillingly, have chosen sides in this Second American Revolution. These cops, like the Redcoats before them, have revealed themselves as the Praetorian Guard of the ruling class, the enforcers of a new aristocracy which desires to subdue us financially and destroy our way of life by trampling on our rights. Of course to the police, they are "just doing their job" which is actually a true statement because their job is to intimidate, coerce, and beat up anyone in the way of their check signer's agenda (but the “just following orders” excuse didn’t work in the Nuremburg Trials and it won’t work now).
When these gun toting flunkies assault a protester, like for example, when recently those police officers at UC Davis casually and sadistically pepper sprayed those students who were sitting passively on the ground, exercising their Constitutionally protected freedom to peacefully assemble in protest, let's call what the cops did to them exactly what it really was: an assault under the color of authority. Where is it written that the government has the right to use violence against our own citizens who demonstrate the rights entitled to them by the Constitution of the United States? And since when is pepper spray a civilized and lawful crowd control method? Pepper spraying is violence and to use same against unarmed, nonviolent protesters is inexcusable.
Did you know that under Article 1.5 of the Chemical Weapons Convention the use of pepper spray is banned in warfare (but it seems to be OK to use it on our own people)? Did you know that that California law classifies pepper spray as a weapon? Or that it is outlawed under international law? Did you also know that military grade pepper spray, the kind sprayed at point blank range repeatedly directly into the eyes, nose and throats of the students is actually not supposed to be sprayed from a distance of less than 20 feet toward the intended target? The definition of torture is: The action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something. Why is pepper spray not considered torture? What those cops did was a criminal act that demands prosecution. The cops were the ones acting illegally not the students!
And finally, these students who were quiet, peaceful, American citizens exercising their rights are not insects! You cannot spray them away, like mosquitoes or gnats. Their discipline and restraint was commendable. I would’ve went fucking apeshit and I really don’t know how that would’ve ended but I can guess. That’s why I’m always very careful when I go to the Occupy protests. I have family in Europe and if I fuck up my visa with arrests that would not be something I would want to happen. I greatly admire non-violent leaders but if that asshole would’ve sprayed me in the eyes with that shit…
Anyway, this shouldn’t even be an issue. Doesn't the Bill of Rights allow for peaceful demonstration? The First Amendment of our Constitution clearly states that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
So you see? This pepper spray attack wasn’t just an attack on the students but by violating guaranteed, fundamental rights it was an assault on our very democracy itself! These rights of speech, assembly and petition guaranteed by the Constitution were designed by our Founders to provide for exactly the kind of protests now happening with the modern Occupy movement. We are democracy in action. We Occupiers are fulfilling what the Founding Fathers envisioned. Their goal, what they fought and died for, was to get the colonies out from under the King's control, the multinationals of today are the modern equivalent of the King of England and they have taken away, through graft and bribery of our political leaders, our right to be heard and represented by our government, the people's government and they have done this illegally. We Occupiers are restoring not destroying.
Yes, critics pontificate about protesters getting their due because they didn't jump up on police order. Now I know that in virtually any state in the U.S., it is a crime, a misdemeanor to refuse to disperse when asked to do so by an officer of the law, regardless of the legitimacy of the order and that "failure to disperse" constitutes unlawful conduct, making the assembly an unlawful one, and thus subject to any force reasonable and necessary to compel compliance with the order to disperse, but consider this: do we actually have the rights to freedom of speech and assembly if "failure to disperse" can be used at whim as a catch-all rationalization to criminalize liberty? The right to peacefully assemble as the students had done is a right that is guaranteed by the highest law in the land, the U.S. Constitution and Constitutional rights trump campus police orders - get it? And don’t give me that crap about the protesters were taking away from the rights of everybody else to walk where they were seated. Nothing was blocked. Walking around a dozen seated college kids talking about income inequality seems preferable to a situation where civil rights were violated. As an aside, do you know who else acted illegally in this way in history? Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, MLK, Gandhi, Mandella. Martin Luther King, Jr marched without a permit down busy streets. Gandhi marched directly against the British government in India, as well as the Indian proxy government supported by the British. These rallies disrupted the lives of millions but it also brought the issues to the forefront and over time enacted real, necessary change.
Americans seem to be ignorant of civil disobedience these days. If a protesting group keeps out of everyone's way, then who will notice them and hear their protests? What then is the reason to perform civil disobedience? If you armlock yourself to somebody else on a sidewalk and people just walk around you all day and ignore you, you are basically being stupid. You are supposed to get ready for when the cops come to move you. You want the confrontation and the attention that arrest calls to your cause. Hear me CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX. What you have to say at that point (either spoken or by the obvious symbolism of your act) is practically the whole reason why you do it. That’s civil disobedience, non-violent protest designed to peaceably break the law in protest.
Henry David Thoreau wrote about civil disobedience during the 1840’s. Inspired by our Founders, he said that it was handed down to us as a solemn duty. Thoreau warned that governments are always a little corrupt, and even inalienable rights can be restricted or abolished. When normal remedies fail, our conscience dictates objection. Thoreau’s wise council to us was to remain non-violent while resisting corruption when it tries to govern us (or we will become corrupt ourselves). These are high principles. And it has it’s costs. Non-violence is not always met with non-violence when the status quo comes to confront the objectors. In fact, history shows us too many instances where sacrifices were made in human life so that principles would not be compromised: the civil rights struggle in the South during the 1960’s, India (with Gandhi teaching that to strike back is to lose), Iran, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, China, and countless places around the globe.
In any event, who wouldn’t agree that this could’ve been handled with a lot less cost (in many ways) by simply picking the students up (yes, by physically pulling them apart) and removing them that way for arrest? These college kids, including some female, even if they were interlocking arms, posed no threat to these officers, themselves or anyone else. The spraying was not some desperate attempt by these police to protect themselves or others. It was clearly deliberate punishment, 1st amendment right denied and then punished. Those students could’ve been disengaged without these draconian and excessive measures.
Seeing the extreme reactions of these police that we have seen reveals a festering cancer on our system. The police forces know how to deal with violence, that is what they trained for and are expecting to see but when they come upon a non-violent protest, they really do not know what to do so they have been trying to make it turn ugly. Thankfully, the protesters have not, for the most part, taken the bait. Thank God. If they had, then the police would be able to say they were justified in declaring martial law and respond with even more violence. But the protesters are "not cooperating" by returning the assault, so these police are looking bad and are being seen for what they really are, paid thugs. As long as the protesters are nonviolent, the police will not be able to justify brutal, martial law tactics.
What’s wrong with these guys anyway? Did their Mothers not hug them enough? Where is the compassion for other people? Empathy is a human trait we need to survive. Without it, there’s no conscience to guide behavior and cruelty becomes easy. They remind me of the Stanford Prison Experiment. This phenomenon is called trickle-down tyranny, it’s a condition wherein ordinary people in positions of local power adopt tactics of tyrants. As of this writing, these would-be UC Davis Storm troopers have been placed on paid administrative leave and a commission is going to investigate what happened and why, etc. etc. etc. In a few weeks, if not sooner, all will be more than likely be forgotten and the jackbooted bullies will be back on the beat, terrorizing and brutalizing again to their heart's content. The people in charge will still be in charge, collecting their fat salaries (UC Davis President makes $400,000 a year) and bonuses. However I still have hope that this ends differently. I hope that the students sue the university and are granted the removal of the offending cops and their supervisors plus civil and punitive damages. I also understand that the Department of Justice is reviewing the police crime for possible federal civil rights violations.
But we should beware of any government which assaults its citizens who are engaged in peaceful protest. Remember Kent State. Every time I see police/military, dressed and equipped to injure, confronting campus protests I am reminded that in less than 15 seconds over 50 rounds of deadly bullets were fired which left four dead about nine injured at Kent State University in Ohio in 1970. (But whereas the Kent State shooting was generated by fear of the protesters by the National Guard soldiers, the UC Davis cops were just being pricks because they could.)
JFK said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." Until the police remember that they are also the 99%, you can expect more brutal attacks. This is further evidence of a government almost completely disconnected from those it purports to represent. And the more violent they become, the inevitable results will continue to escalate until we get into actual casualties and martyrs and then we will be on an entirely different level of revolution, one that could develop with violent rebel factions like Ireland had with the I.R.A. or Spain with E.T.A.
It’s inevitable as long as we have a government that is keeping the press out, ordering midnight raids, attacking peaceful demonstrators with batons, pepper spray, flashbang grenades and tear gas (How long before we see the police dogs and water cannons again?). If these tactics were done by any other country our political leaders would strongly pose and protest and then do what they do best - threaten! They would threaten the offending foreign country with this sanction and that one until the proverbial cows came home. And the reason things here look like a totalitarian government repressing their citizens is because that's exactly what this has become. We are indeed living in a surreptitious police state just like George Orwell predicted. (If you don’t believe me, just cross the line and find out for yourself because today it seems as though crossing that line is as simple as peacefully protesting while sitting on the ground.) Even Ron Paul, whom I generally don’t agree with but he’s spot on here, said, “You can prevent crimes by becoming a police state. You might prevent a crime but the crime then will be against the American people.” Hear, hear.
And as long as the majority of citizens go along with the charade and accept lower wages, more unemployment, dysfunctional healthcare, disappearing pensions, corrupt politicians and outrageous corporate profits, then everything is "fine.” Many "good" people don't speak up when injustice occurs or even cast a vote because of the diffusion of responsibility. They think its someone else's duty to do the right thing. That's why Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words ring prophetically true decades later, he said, "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
But if you dare to speak out and actually try to use your First Amendment rights, now it seems we have a problem. Suddenly as evidenced, groups of peaceful citizens exercising these rights are now considered "mobs" that must be beaten, pepper sprayed and arrested. George Washington said, "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."
But for every pepper spray canister they have, we have at least ten cameras. And that's why we'll win in the long run. This despite the fact state and local governments are arresting people for videotaping police brutality now. There is even a specific clause in the upcoming SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation that prohibits and criminalizes the filming of law enforcement officials in this bill that is now being discussed and will come to a vote soon. It has broad support by both Democrats and Republicans alike yet how close is this to fascism? Google the bill and read more. (Speaking of Google, they alone are standing against this bill and deserve credit.) But it’s ridiculous anyway. You can hide a tiny camera anywhere these days, the footage of police abusing the citizenry will always get out.
But why is it only "Class Warfare" when we fight back? Why isn’t class warfare what the super rich have been doing to us? Is this how its going to be then? Anyone standing up against the establishment is met with violence? This is outrageous! What country do we really live in? But you know what? The one percent never learn their history lessons. Such terrorist actions didn't stop the civil rights movement and it won't stop this one.
RISE UP!
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves,”
Abraham Lincoln
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