MEDIA ROOTS — On December 1, 2011, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Commissioner Michael J. Copps held a public forum, entitled FCC Forum: Information Needs of Atlanta, on Georgia Tech’s campus in order to “assess the needs of Georgia’s citizens in the current media landscape.” 

With the Occupy Movement putting economic inequality and financial corruption on blast, Black Agenda Report and Occupy Atlanta have focused attention on the corporate media obfuscation and whiteout of U.S. media policy, net neutrality, and FCC corruption.  In discussing with Davey D why we must Occupy the FCC, Bruce Dixon, Managing Editor at Black Agenda Report, noted, “The FCC is thoroughly captured by the industry that it purports to regulate.” 

A functioning democracy necessitates an informed electorate.  Yet, the FCC functions anti-democratically by facilitating media consolidation and privatisation, which stifles the free flow of information untainted by corporate interests.  Bruce Dixon reminds us the current FCC privatisation agenda is happening virtually in secret because corporate media, which people depend upon for most of their information, is not reporting it.  Whilst independent and public media is vital, it’s currently a sliver in comparison to the majority of print and broadcast media in monopolistic corporate hands reaching hundreds of millions of Americans. 

As Ron Allen of Occupy Atlanta testified before the FCC, “are the FCC Commissioners public servants or corporate servants?  The wealthiest 1% and corporations use untold amounts of money to lobby politicians and regulators, such as the FCC, to make policies that benefit the 1% and corporations, but harm the public and democracy.”  Yet, the airwaves and broadband bandwidth belongs to the people and must rest firmly in public hands.

The role of the FCC in undermining a healthy media system for a healthy democracy makes it crucial for the people to Occupy, or Decolonise, the FCC.

Messina

***

THE MORNING MIX WITH DAVEY D

Davey D (c. 7:53):  “It is KPFA, The Morning Mix, Davey D hangin’ out wit’ you.  And, that’s right, a lot of Occupy stuff goin’ on today.  Of course, Occupying foreclosed homes.  All that is jumping off at twelve noon [12/6/11] over at the Alameda County Courthouse [in Oakland], the steps there where they do the auctions—very sad if you’ve lost your home to see that being hawked off to the highest bidder.  Many who seem to just not really care [about] the hard times that many fell on.  Folks will be out there to Occupy those steps.  And that’s a good thing, in my personal opinion.  

“But we also wanna talk about other ways in which people are Occupying space, so to speak.  And one of the targets has been the FCC.  Here in the [S.F.] Bay Area, as you know, there’s been a lot of changes in radio with the consolidation showing its impact, as companies like [Cumulus] and Clear Channel have shown up and have decimated popular stations that are on the progressive-leaning side of things, wit’ more to come.  So, that’s gotten a lot of people up in arms, as they are now realising that some of this stuff that they once ignored are hitting them in places where it hurts.  We’re hearing these reports in Sacramento.  We’re hearing these reports down in Texas.  And one of the places where it’s been ground zero has been Atlanta, Georgia.  On the phone line wit’ us is a good friend of the station and the show.  His name is Bruce Dixon from the Black Agenda Report.  Bruce, how you doin’?”  

Bruce Dixon (c. 9:29):  “I’m doin’ better than a whole lotta folks, how about yourself, brother?”

Davey D (c. 9:33):  “Good.  You know, for a very long time.  You and your partner, Glen Ford, along with Jared Ball, have been talking about the impact that consolidation and how important it was to pay attention to the moves that were being made behind the scenes and, oftentimes, blatantly in our face when it came to, not only, the consolidation of media and radio, in particular, but also the syndication of it and all these other aspects that are now showing up on our front doorstep, as we have all these new laws coming into effect and no place to talk about them.  And as we’re seeing, as you talked about, the wholesale selling of stations that are on certain bandwidths with the public not even knowing.  So, maybe you can kinda clue us in as to where things stand in 2011.”

Bruce Dixon (c. 10:27):  “Well, it’s a matter, not only, of selling stations, but they are selling the very frequencies that stations might or might not be able to exist on.  The transition from analogue to digital TV, Davey, opened up thousands and thousands of new frequencies across the country that could potentially be brand new channels for community broadcasters like KPFA.  Or these channels could be used for municipal broadband or municipal Wi-Fi.  Those of us, who are old enough to remember the old days of analogue TV, know that with a pair of rabbit ears you could get a TV signal deep inside a building back in the ’50s and ‘60s.  And these are the frequencies that could be carrying community broadcasters now and could be carrying municipal Wi-Fi or municipal broadband.  But instead what the FCC is doing with these newly available frequencies, is instead of redistributing them to the public, redistributing them to the communities, so that we could have more diversity, more local voices, and more news on the radio and TV dial, what the FCC is doing is they are quietly, almost secretly, auctioning them off, privatising them, auctioning them off to the highest bidder, which as I’ve said will, essentially, privatise these vital and irreplaceable pieces of public property forever.”  

Davey D (c. 12:01):  “Now, this is interesting that this is happening because we’ve seen, as I mentioned at the top with my remarks, two companies, Clear Channel and [Cumulus], who are the largest at this point, have been on what they call a firing spree, taking off long-time broadcasters in popular markets or popular broadcasters in markets.  KGO is one example here in the [S.F.] Bay Area.  Green 960 is another one where that’s gonna be taking place.  But this is happening all over the country.  And when the call for consolidation came out the argument that was put forth by broadcasters, these corporate broadcasters, was that they would be able to ‘diversify the airwaves; this would be a good thing; it would open up the channels, communities would have a voice.’  But now what we see is that they are losing; I think Clear Channel is $18 Billion dollars in debt to a company that was started by Mitt Romney, an investment banking firm.  And the other one had promised shareholders that they would immediately get $50 Million dollars in savings and that $50 Million dollars in savings came from consolidating, firing, and syndicating, so you don’t have local content anymore.  Can you speak a little to that?  And are there more aspects to that we should know about?”  

Bruce Dixon (c. 13:25):  “Well, the main aspect you should know about it, well, the main two aspects is that Clear Channel being in debt comes from the fact that Clear Channel, Cumulus, Radio One, and lots of other big operators borrowed money heavily to be able to buy up those hundreds and hundreds of stations that they own.  And now the people that they borrowed that money from are extracting loan shark interest from them to repay those debts in addition to them having to pay this big debt service that has nothing to do with operating a radio station.  Clear Channel, Radio One, Cumulus may be deep in debt, but their officers are still getting paid.  Their officers and top consultants are still getting paid, or are still paying themselves, billions and billions of dollars.  A company, don’t forget, in the way the United States is running right now can pay its CEOs and its top board members millions upon millions and still be deep in debt and still be virtually going out of business.  That’s just one of the pieces of financial trickery that we engage in here in the United States.  We allow companies to run themselves into the ground and go deep in debt, or even go bankrupt, as long as they pay their executives millions and millions of bucks.  So, we shouldn’t shed any tears for Clear Channel.  They’re still getting paid.”

Davey D (c. 14:57):  “Talk a little bit about what took place in Atlanta ‘cos you said this was a last minute meeting, people didn’t know about it.  What was goin’ on?”

Bruce Dixon (c. 15:04):  “Well, first of all, FCC is composed of five members appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate—five members, including an FCC Chair.  The last four FCC Chairs have gone straight to work for broadcasters, for the cable industry, or for telecomm with the exception of William Kennard who’s now the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.  What William Kennard is doing for a living now as the Ambassador is he is putting his foot in the door on behalf of AT&T and Verizon, trying to get European countries to privatise their internet backbone like the U.S. has and trying to let U.S. cell phone companies into their markets, which, so far, the Europeans have not done.  So, the FCC is thoroughly captured by the industry that it purports to regulate.  This is Commissioner Michael Copps’ last month in office and so what they’re doing is they had this meeting with only a week or ten day’s notice in Atlanta.  And people from the community in Atlanta found out about it maybe five days before the meeting happened.  And, so, what we did is we came out, and Occupy Atlanta brought a crowd out, and what we did is we demanded that the FCC redistribute these channels, that they stop privatising these precious and irreplaceable broadcast channels, and hand them out to community stations to create the real diversity that it says it’s about, diversity, not only, in the colour of faces in station management, but diversity in programming, diversity in news, and diversity in arts.  You’re one of the people who talk all the time about rappers who can’t get Sony contracts and can’t get Heineken contracts can’t be heard.”

Davey D (c. 17:02):  “Right.  If you’re just tuning in, we’re talking wit’ Bruce Dixon from the Black Agenda Report down in Atlanta.  He’s talking to us about Occupyin’ the FCC, some of the moves that are being made.  As we are focusing on the Herman Cains of the world, a lot of extra bandwidth and stations are being auctioned off to big corporations, leaving us in a position where we will not be able to have those community voices the way we ideally would want to.  Bruce, you picked up some sound.  Maybe we could play a couple of clips, so people can get an idea of what was spoken about.  The first one is from Heather Gray, I believe, who is with WRFG.”

Bruce Dixon (c. 17:45):  “She is.”  

Davey D (c. 17:46):  “And that’s the sister station—”

Bruce Dixon (c. 17:47):  “Radio Free Georgia.”

Davey D (c. 17:48):  “—that’s right, and we”   

Bruce Dixon (c. 17:49):  “It’s a Pacifica affiliate.”  

Davey D (c. 17:50):  “That’s right. We’re on—”

Bruce Dixon (c. 17:51):  “In Atlanta.”

Davey D (c. 17:51):  “—the air out in Atlanta.  Why don’t we play just an excerpt of what she was talking about?”

Audio of Heather Gray at Atlanta FCC Meeting (c. 17:57):  “We have this concentration in media as well, of course.  Today, we have four corporate giants controlling vast numbers of radio stations and reaping billions of dollars at the expense of independent news.  Where’s the clap for that, you all?  Media in America represents corporate America.  But it does not have to be this way.  The public spectrums that commercial interests use to transmit their signals are owned by us, the people.  Yet, the government has allowed these interests to use the spectrums for free to then monopolise and make billions of dollars while offering next to no public service.  It’s payback time.  This cannot continue.  Democracy demands informed voters.  With corporate media, however, we have a population tainted by information delineated by commercial interests robbing them the breadth of views and opinions of an independent public media system.  Given that the FCC has failed to regulate media in the public interest, the situation cries for integrity and independence.  What does Atlanta need?  It needs more non-profit community media and the existing non-profit media needs financial support in an on-going basis, rather than teetering on the edge by consistently having to go its listeners for funds like a bake sale.  Alternatives need to be adapted and planned for immediately.  Here are three recommendations to support and build community media.  For one, the government auctions off frequencies and there are plans to do more of this.  This is the ultimate of gross privatisation.  Yet, these frequencies are owned by us, the public.  Instead of auctioning them off, they should be given to communities across America for public and non-profit broadcasters and public television.  They are ours, after all.”  

Davey D (c. 20:10):  “So, that’s just one of ‘em.  What are the other couple of points that she made, Bruce?”

Bruce Dixon (c. 20:13):  “Well, there were three points that she made.  The first one is to stop the privatisations of these irreplaceable resources.  [And] to hand these frequencies back to communities, so that they can create new and diverse community broadcasters.  [The second one is ‘commercial media should be required to pay for the right of making use of the frequencies owned by us that they use for their own financial benefit.’]  And the third one is to guarantee the funding of community media.  KPFA is hurting for money.  WRFG is hurting for money.  Black Agenda Report is hurting for money.  It’s hard doing community media because we have no stable and set funding system, while at the same time the commercial broadcasters who pay nothing for their licences are able to rake in trillions of dollars every year.  So, what we want to do is two things.  What Heather said is the same suggestion that was mentioned in Robert McChesney and Bob Nichol’s book of a couple of years ago, The Death and Life of American Journalism, to grant a $300 dollar income tax credit to all Americans, so that there is a check-off on the tax forms where they can say that, either, my $300 dollar tax credit goes into the general community media fund or I can name four community media outlets, in particular, where it will go to.  So, the people can have a check-off on their tax forms, so that KPFA can have a regular source of income.”

Davey D (c. 21:50):  “Right.  Now, one of the things that might have just rolled over a lot of people’s heads was talking about the money that comes in to the corporate outlets.  And much of that centres around these election cycles.  And now that there’s unlimited money that can be poured in, many of these outlets, even though they owe $18 Billion dollars and $50 Million and all these crazy numbers to the people who loan the money, they do rake in a lot of money thanks to the Citizens United situation.  Can you expound upon that, how that all is connected?”

Bruce Dixon (c. 22:25):  “Well, what that is, the election cycle is definitely a cash cow for broadcasters.  Broadcasters are able to reap additional billions of dollars.  The Obama Campaign directly, itself, is supposed to raise and spend $1 Billion dollars-plus.  Most of that will be on radio and TV advertising.  And although they rake in a large amount of money during the election cycles on advertising, the stations do very, very little to inform the public.  If you don’t have the money to buy airtime, then your message doesn’t get across.  It’s just that simple for you.  At the same time that they’re broadcasting lots and lots of political ads and raking in lots and lots of money, the stations are covering very, very little in the way of actual news about the candidates, the campaigns, and the issues.  So, what we’d like to see is we’d like to see that turned around.  The question is how are we gonna get news in the 21st Century when corporate America has withdrawn its willingness to sponsor news departments.  And that’s the question.”

Davey D (c. 23:48):  “You know, if you can speak on a couple of points, Bruce.  We’re talkin’ with Bruce Dixon from the Black Agenda Report, usually when people here these conversations, the first thing they say is, ‘Well, if the public really likes it then they’ll support it and then that will, you know, show up.’  You know, the free market theory.  And maybe you can speak [to] that.  Ratings have nothing to do with this at the end of the day.  The other thing is, if you can just talk, in particular, with the Black community, the decimation that’s come in the news departments.  I know you all have covered this for a very long time and shown how some of these outlets have gone from like hundreds of reporters to like four for the entire country.  So, maybe you can speak on those two scenarios.”

Bruce Dixon (c. 24:29):  “Well, nationwide, the number of broadcast reporters and print reporters is something like a quarter of what it was 30 years ago.  What we’re actually well past the beginning of now is a golden age for corporate crime and local and national government corruption because there are no investigative reporters to speak of covering anything on the local level or on the national level.  There are very, very few.  Without a news media to keep government and powerful corporations in check, there is a corporate crime wave that nobody is reporting on.  And corporate America has withdrawn its support for news, so the news as we used to know it is not coming back any time soon.  And you cannot have democracy without news.”  

Davey D (c. 25:28):  “And it’s also not only this ongoing scenario of what I call product placement where all of a sudden your news headlines are really glorified advertisements for the newest iPad or the newest Nike sneaker.  You know, they have the reporter there, ‘We’re standing in front of the store. The crowds are lined up. What are they there for? To get the latest computer!’  And, we know, just from sitting in the back room—”

Bruce Dixon (c. 25:51):  “Or the latest iPhone.”

Davey D (c. 25:52):  “Right, right.  But those things don’t happen because it’s news, they happen because they’re ad buys.  In case people don’t know, when I used to sit in those meetings, that’s what it was.  You know?  The company bought a bunch of advertisement.  ‘We’re gonna send our morning reporter out there to cover the opening of the store.’  That’s how that works and it’s not always revealed.  But the other thing that I think comes to mind is these conflicts of interest.  For example, one of the reports that we now know is that Fox News in New York is guarded by the NYPD to the tune of half a million dollars a year, 24/7, New York Police Department.  And people are goin’, ‘Well, why is that?’  But very few people knew that one of the anchors on the local Fox stations in New York, his dad is the Police Commissioner.  His name is Greg Kelly.  His father is Ray Kelly, the Police Commissioner.  And, so, you sit there and you watch the news and they’ll sit there and they’ll talk about the police beating the Occupiers on Wall Street.  And he’s making jokes.  And he’s trying to find all the propaganda tools to make you turn against them, is being put forth, and most people don’t make that connection.  ‘Hey, his dad is the one that runs the police department.’  You see those types of unholy alliances all throughout the news media.  Can you speak on that a little?”  

Bruce Dixon (c. 27:16):  “Yeah, news is, indeed, what you said, product placement a lot.  Not only is it product placement, if you wonder what happens to people who go to journalism school, most of the J-school graduates nowadays are going to work for public relations firms.  And what public relations firms do is their job is manufacturing corporate friendly news, manufacturing corporate statements and then inserting them into the news.  So, that a lot of what you see as news broadcast on TV and sometimes on the radio, the little radio news that there still is, turns out to be stuff that has been manufactured by public relations agencies.  When you see a report in the news about some new miracle drug:  that was often put together by a public relations firm working for the drug company.  So, even a lot of the news that we do see that’s branded as news, like you’re saying, it’s very, very directly product placement.  And, so, the remedy for that is we need new, now, KPFA doesn’t do that.  WRFG, here in Atlanta, doesn’t do that.  Black Agenda Report doesn’t do that.  So, the remedy is to have more and more not-for-profit broadcasters, not-for-profit community media.  And what the FCC is doing now is they could be handing out these new frequencies to communities all over the country to create new broadcasters, but the communities don’t know about it, the people don’t know about it.  So, this agenda of privatising these frequencies, auctioning them off to the highest bidder, is happening virtually in secret because corporate media, which people depend upon to get most of their information about the world is not reporting it.”    

Davey D (c. 29:17):  “What’s the position of President Obama on this?  Because there was a lot of hope and, in fact, he gleaned a lot of votes by stating that he was gonna reform the FCC, but it doesn’t seem like that’s happened.”

Bruce Dixon (c. 29:29):  “Yeah, like I said at that beginning of this segment here, the last four FCC Chair people have gone to work, after their FCC careers, for broadcasters in cable, virtually all the FCC’s top staff and Commissioners do the same.  The guy who President Obama appointed as FCC Chair is Julius Genachowski.  He is himself a former lobbyist for AT&T who helped write NAFTA and who helped write the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which made the government sell off the internet backbone infrastructure, which it had built at a cost of hundreds of billions of taxpayers for just pennies on the dollar, just a few billion, to AT&T, Verizon, and the other big telecoms.”    

Davey D (c. 30:24):  “Wow.”

Bruce Dixon (c. 30:25):  “So, that’s who is the FCC Chairman.  President Obama promised he would take a back-seat to nobody in network neutrality, but, of course, once he got into office he’s taken a back-seat to everybody because the wireless internet is not subject, according to Obama’s FCC, to any network neutrality regulations.  And it is the Obama White House, right now, that is privatising these brand new channels, instead of letting the American people know that they exist in the first place and that they could be handed out to community broadcasters to create new and diverse community broadcasters.  And the position of the Obama Administration and of FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who is the daughter of South Carolina’s esteemed Congressman Jim Clyburn, is that these things need to be auctioned off, so that we can use that money for the deficit.”

Davey D (c. 31:27):  “Wow!!  Wow!  Wow! Wow!  This is just, well; we shouldn’t be shocked I guess.  We just shouldn’t be shocked, but it’s just, when it’s so blatant and it’s so in-your-face, it’s just, you know, it leaves you—”

Bruce Dixon (c. 31:39):  “But it’s not in our face because corporate media won’t report it.  The only place that you’re gonna hear about this, so far, is places like KPFA.”

Davey D (c. 31:50):  “Well, that’s true.  I guess, yeah, I guess I take it for granted because I listen to us all the time.  So, we do stay informed that way.”
 
Bruce Dixon (c. 31:56):  “You, may see an excerpt video of this at www.BlackAgendaReport.com we’ve got it on the front page there, which is a 13-minute piece, a YouTube video, that includes the mic check segment, the entire five minutes that Heather Gray did, and a couple of minutes from Ron Allen of Occupy Atlanta.”

Davey D (c. 32:20):  “Well, why don’t we do this?  Why don’t we play what Ron Allen had to say and then we’ll flow into the mic check that you did at the end of your presentation, which was pretty good, you know.  If they don’t listen to what you have to say then they ain’t gonna listen to anybody, but I like the way you had flipped that with the mic check right there at the FCC hearing.  So, why don’t we start off with Ron Allen who is with Occupy Atlanta, hear his remarks and then we’ll go into your thing, Bruce.”

Audio of Ron Allen at Atlanta FCC Meeting (c. 32:45):  “The wealthiest 1% of corporations use media to silence the 99% through consolidation, threatening net neutrality, causing many to ask the question, ‘Are the FCC Commissioners public servants or corporate servants?’  The wealthiest 1% and corporations use untold amounts of money to lobby politicians and regulators, such as the FCC, to make policies that benefit the 1% and corporations, but harm the public and democracy.  How has media consolidation into five major companies helped the public and helped enhance democracy?  Where are the stories in AJC and other media discussing how corporate media conglomerates are corrupting our government?”

Audio of Bruce Dixon at Atlanta FCC Meeting (c. 33:34):  “At this point, mic check, mic check!  (Audience responds:  ‘Mic check, mic check!)  

“Here it is:  Stop the privatisations.  (Audience reiterates:  ‘Stop the privatisations!’)  

“The frequencies belong to the people.  (Audience, ‘The frequencies belong to the people!’)  

“Create new and diverse community broadcasters.  (Audience, ‘Create new and diverse community broadcasters!’)

“By giving people back their spectrum.”  (Audience, ‘By giving people back their spectrum!’

“Make the commercial broadcasters and cable operators  (Audience, ‘Make the commercial broadcasters and cable operators!’)

“Pay for the scarce public resources they use  (Audience, ‘Pay for the scarce public resources they use!’)

“By funding community broadcasting.  (Audience, ‘By funding community broadcasting!’)

“Thank you.  (Audience, ‘Thank you!’)

Davey D (c. 34:21):  “What, were they tryin’ to shut you down, Bruce?”

Bruce Dixon (c. 34:23):  “Yeah, well, they only give you two minutes to make comments from the floor.  Of course, we coordinated our remarks with Heather Gray earlier because she made the same demands as the panellists.”

Davey D (c. 34:37):  “Okay.  Well, you know, as we close out, what are two or three things that you want our listeners to absolutely start doing to turn this tide around?”

Bruce Dixon (c. 34:49):  “Well, the first thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to make the American people aware that the FCC is privatising frequencies that they could be using to create new community stations all over the country.  Go to Black Agenda Report, find that YouTube video at the top, and share that YouTube video with all of your friends.  And then what you’ve gotta do is you’ve gotta contact your member of Congress and your FCC person and your neighbours because the one thing these people do care about is they care about what you think.  That’s why they are withholding this vital information from you.  That’s why they are withholding news from you.  It’s because they care about what you think.  The fact that the FCC has frequencies available that could be used for community broadband, that could be used for wireless internet for everybody, or that could be used for community channels is news that you’re not being told.  What you’ve gotta do, listeners, is you’ve got to share that news with your friends.  Share it with your enemies.  Share it with everybody.  And, then, figure out what you’re gonna do about it.  We need to Occupy public spaces and we need to Occupy the airwaves because they do belong to us.”

Davey D (c. 36:15):  “Well, there you have it.  We’ve been talkin’ with Bruce Dixon from the Black Agenda Report out of Atlanta, Georgia, talkin’ about Occupyin’ the FCC and givin’ us an example of some of the work that they’ve been doin’ tryin’ to shed light on some of the happenings on that esteemed agency that we all should keep our eyes and ears focused on.  Bruce, thanks a lot.  I appreciate it.”

Bruce Dixon (c. 36:37):  “Thanks for the invite, Davey.”

Davey D (c. 36:38):  “No doubt.”

Transcript by Felipe Messina

Image by Black Agenda Report

MEDIA ROOTS — Seeing this reinforces just how brilliant it was for the global Occupy Movement to never have made demands.  One of the movement’s most powerful aspects is its indy cred putting the establishment Left, such as MoveOn and their salespeople like Van Jones, to shame with unfiltered handwritten signs. The Occupy Movement articulates what, neither, the establishment Left nor the establishment unions would ever say because of their complicity with, and funding by, the Wall Street paid-for Democrat Party. 

With the 2012 Presidential Election well underway, the government has moved to crush Occupy encampments across the nation.  In order for the two-party establishment to survive, they must control public messaging and ensure there is virtually no free speech in the public squares. Indeed, the last thing they want is to have free thinkers getting together to collectively re-evaluate society’s current structures.  And now, with many key Occupy encampments dismantled, the co-optation efforts continue.  As they say in Washington, perception is reality.

MR

***

TRUTHOUT — Did you hear the big news? The 99 percent released nine demands! After months of hectoring, we finally know what the movement is after: it’s all right there on a web site – 9 DEMANDS OF THE 99%.

Four problems immediately spring to mind:

Firstly, the whole “9 for 99″ bit smacks a bit of Herman Cain.

Secondly, this was not endorsed by Occupy Wall Street. Readers would be forgiven for the confusion, since the “99 percent movement” is used in many media outlets as a synonym for the nation’s various occupations, which are famous for chanting, “We are the 99 percent.”  The 9 Demands web site is registered to Working America, a coalition of labor unions and, somehow, Daily Kos, which, of course, never directly claims that it speaks for the occupiers. (The general assembly’s statement of autonomy  says, “SPEAK WITH US, NOT FOR US,” after all.) But the site does a lot of insinuating to create the impression that it does the latter and not much at all to clarify. Indeed, when you click the “Tweet” button, the automatic tweet has affixed to it the hashtag #ows, meaning Occupy Wall Street, which is unmentioned on the web site.

Thirdly, there aren’t actually nine demands. There are eight demands. The last demand is blank. “ADD YOUR OWN!” the web site commands you. Then it asks for your first and last name and your email address and zip code, and offers you the option to “Become a member of Working America” (default option: yes). This means building Working America’s email list. Of course. Working America is not actually interested in what your demand is. It’s not actually interested in what Occupy Wall Street’s demand is. It’s got an agenda to promote. And speaking of which …

Fourthly, it’s suspiciously close to the endorsing groups’ already existent agenda. The web site was registered more than a month ago at this point. Robin Hood tax, education funding, mortgage relief, Volker rule, tax the rich, banks should start hiring, unemployment insurance and campaign finance reform. It’s great stuff, all of it, but it’s not any different from the talking points of the more liberal Democrats in Congress. The message to Occupy Wall Street is, “Thanks for the iconography and energy and framing, we’ll take it from here.” Given the statement of autonomy’s principle, “Any organization is welcome to support us with the knowledge that doing so will mean questioning your own institutional frameworks of work and hierarchy and integrating our principles into your modes of action,” the message should really be, “How can we help your project? What can we learn from you?” Working America did not reply to requests for comment.

MoveOn is doing its part to contribute: Occupy Wall Street is a great excuse to continue what MoveOn is already doing and claim more support, sending out an email to members, encouraging them to “Take Back the Capitol.” (We once had the Capitol?) The email begins, “Last week, a committed group of 99 percent protesters, with tired feet and exhilarated souls, arrived in Washington after a 230-mile march from Occupy Wall Street. Next week these few marchers are getting some serious reinforcements, because we’re joining with a coalition of community groups, unions, occupiers, and more to ‘Take Back the Capitol’ from December 5 – 9.” See what they did there? Mentioned some really awesome thing Occupy Wall Street did and then invited themselves to the party. Just as they did when arranging a music video shoot for Third Eye Blind at Zuccotti Park. In 2011.

The actual demand of Occupy Wall Street, if anyone cares, is that other occupations start everywhere and, through the consensus to direct democracy, complete political equality, individual liberty and collective care, each occupation “create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.” See? Occupying public space to devise new solutions. MoveOn’s “The People’s Camp,” “where,” it reassures the more yellow-bellied among its membership, “a permit has been arranged,” does not operate in this spirit, however vociferously they insinuate that it is roughly the same as marching 230 miles, one marcher reportedly having completed this task barefoot. MoveOn claims the endorsement of Occupy DC.

Mary Kay Henry, president of SEIU, got arrested joining Occupy Wall Street for some civil disobedience on November 17. The day before, her union, without its members’ approval, endorsed President Obama. SEIU is instrumental in organizing “Occupy Congress.” She shrugged off the question about co-optation, talking to The Washington Post’s Greg Mitchell:

Of course, Occupy Wall Street is distinguished by its organic, bottom-up nature and its critique of both parties’ coziness with Wall Street. Does a coordinated effort by labor and liberal groups to channel the movement’s energy into pressuring one party risk compromising the essence of what’s driven the protests?

Henry said she wasn’t worried about that happening, noting that Occupy Wall Street had created a “framework” – which she described as “we are the 99 percent” – within which such activities would fit comfortably.

To be clear, Working America and MoveOn and SEIU should by all means be pursuing their agendas, and I’m sure they are grateful to Occupy Wall Street for creating the political space for their agendas’ mainstream appeal, and they want to signal to people that they are grateful, and they want to associate themselves with that energy. But these groups are not authorized to lobby on behalf of Occupy Wall Street or set up bogus camps on behalf of Occupy Wall Street or issue demands, which I have already addressed at some length, on behalf of Occupy Wall Street.

Next up for Occupy Wall Street: direct people-powered confrontation with financial interests in the form of foreclosure resistance. MoveOn says it is “organizing folks to show solidarity.” Just the way it always has.

[This article has been corrected to remove quotation marks which implied that MoveOn had made a statement which the organization had not.]

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Photo by Abby Martin

MEDIA ROOTS — On November 30, 2011, at the Arlene Francis Center for Spirit, Art, and Politics in Santa Rosa, CA, Alternative Radio founder David Barsamian gave a talk entitled “Media, Propaganda, and Censorship.” 

The event was sponsored by Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County, Media Freedom Foundation, Project Censored, and Media Roots.

MR

***

***

Photo by Shannonyeh Photography

MEDIA ROOTS — Yesterday, Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, discussed on Letters and Politics the Federal involvement in the coordinated nationwide repression of the Occupy Movement, evictions of OM encampments and the U.S. history of police state repression of dissent and First Amendment activities. He also talks about the recent disturbing provision, sponsored by Democrat Carl Levin, to the National Defense Authorization Act Bill S.1867, granting the Executive authority to order the Military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens without charge.

Ratner asserts:  “The governments of various cities, mayors, in conjunction with the Feds, wanted to see [the OM] come to an end.”  He also points out the false pretexts for evicting OM encampments, which, because of the visibility, functioned as powerful symbols of economic disparity.  Ratner confirms there are deep First Amendment issues with the Federal repression and evictions of the OM encampments and reminds people have the right to expressive protest:  “Even the use of tents can be a form of expressive protest, certainly sleeping outside, particularly when it’s related to the homeless situation, is considered a form of expressive protest.”

Messina

***

LETTERS AND POLITICS

Mitch Jeserich (16:09):  “Now for more on the evictions of Occupy encampments around the country, I’m joined by Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.  He’s also the co-author of the new book Hell No:  You’re Right to Dissent in the 21^st Century.  Michael Ratner, always good to talk to you.”

Michael Ratner (16:24):  “Mitch, it’s always good to be with you.”

Mitch Jeserich (16:26):  “Okay, so, reportedly more than a thousand police officers participated in evicting both Occupy Los Angeles and Philadelphia earlier this morning.  Most Occupations across the country have had one type of raid or another.  Here in the [S.F.] Bay Area, we still have two sizeable Occupations, one in San Francisco and one in Berkeley.  But what is your take?”

Michael Ratner (16:49):  “Well, we’ve seen over the last two weeks, it was really three weeks maybe, is a coordinated effort by the mayors, most likely, it appears, in conjunction with the Feds, start clearing the Occupied spaces all over the country.  And that’s worrisome because as long as they existed, I think, as a public symbol, we were really pushing this agenda in a positive, amazing way, both real democracy and economic disparities.  And the fact that they were all coordinated, you know, it makes you think this was a real threat to them.  It wasn’t just about, as they said, in the excuse in Los Angeles, something about health and safety.  The excuse in Philadelphia was they had to use a $50 Million dollar renovation of a plaza.  In New York, it was health and safety.  They come up with different excuses all the time.  But in the end, the bottom line is this visible symbol of economic disparity in the United States.  The governments of various cities, mayors, and, I think, in conjunction with the Feds, wanted to see it come to an end.”     

Mitch Jeserich (17:52):  “Do you think that’s what’s really behind this?  ‘Cos there’s a lot of people, at the same time, that would say, ‘Well, these are mostly plazas in front of city hall or whatever it may be. They’re not campsites.’  Issues like that.”

Michael Ratner (18:05):  “Well, there are deep First Amendment issues [here].  But, you know, we have won in New York in the past the right to sleep on the sidewalk.  And I think the big issue that comes in is, ‘Can other people use that space as well?’  That’s one issue.  But in New York, for example, we have Zuccotti/Liberty Park.  But we have 550 public plazas in New York, so the fact that the Occupy Wall Street people were dominating one and were willing, as far as I understand to negotiate how that domination would take place, it seems to me, and the answer to the question of, ‘Well, these are public for everybody,’ it does seem when you have an overriding issue like this and you have 550 plazas, the idea that you say, ‘Well, all of a sudden we have to clear this particular one,’ or in Philadelphia to make the renovations, or in Los Angeles, I’m not as familiar with the public space there, it does seem to me to be justified that you should allow the people under their First Amendment rights to continue those kinds of protests.” 

Mitch Jeserich (19:09):  “So, you think that people have the First Amendment right to form an encampment to protest?”

Michael Ratner (19:17):  “It’s called ‘expressive protest.’  And, you know, most people think of free speech as I have the right to speak to you now as I am.  But, in fact, the way social change happens and the way First Amendment protections are provided, it includes the right to assemble and to petition the government.  And expressive protest is permitted.  And that’s what you see when you wear, you know, a black armband in protest.  That’s what you see when you burn the American flag.  Those are all protected.  And we have won many cases saying that expressive protest is protected.  Even the use of tents can be a form of expressive protest, certainly sleeping outside, particularly when it’s related to the homeless situation, is considered a form of expressive protest.  So, I think we have a strong argument in many of these situations that, first of all, getting rid of the curfews, which [we] succeeded, in a number of cities.  We didn’t succeed as well on the sleeping part.  We succeeded on that in some cities.  So, it’s sporadic.  But I think it’s clearly protected by the First Amendment.  You have a right to protest by sleeping in a public space.  And that’s particularly tied in with the message of the protest, which is homelessness, housing, economic disparity.  Our view is that you have the right to do that.  As I said, the courts have been uneven on it.  But in some cases we’ve been winning.”

Mitch Jeserich (20:40):  “Again, we are speaking to Michael Ratner.  Michael Ratner is the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.  He is the co-author of the new book Hell No:  You’re Right to Dissent in the 21^st Century.  In your book, you, kind of, outline the policing of movements over the last decade or so, especially around some of the anti-globalisation movements.  Tell me about that and how Occupy Movements fit into this?”

Michael Ratner (21:05):  “You know, looking backwards, it’s interesting because everybody says, ‘Oh, where did this spring from? Where do we get all of a sudden Occupy Wall Street?’  If you look backwards to Seattle 1999, that was a protest against the economic disparities in this world.  If you look to the Free Trade [Area] of the Americas demonstrations in Miami, again economic disparities.  If you look to the G8 in Pittsburgh a couple of years ago, again economic disparities.  If you look at Montreal, again, against G8 and G20.  So, looking backwards, you see that there was a lot of bubbling up, and, of course, you look to North Africa.  But a lot of bubbling up of opposition to the economic division of the world and the way it was going.  Then you also look back to Seattle and you see what came out of Seattle.  It was the Seattle model of policing.  Even before 9/11, and as your listeners may recall, the demonstrators were actually successful in Seattle from blocking the delegates from getting to the World Trade Organization meeting that they were supposed to go to.  And, after that, they began to develop the governments, state, local, Federal, began to develop a Seattle form of policing. 

“And, of course, after 9/11 it got accelerated.  But some of the elements were there early on.  One is the Darth Vader-type outfits, which are militarised police that really send a message of, ‘You get out of here or we’ll use force and violence against you.’  You saw the use of penning.  You know, we had our march in 2003 against the Iraq War in New York.  We had tens of thousands of people, but none of us could really be in one place together.  They put us in pens on the blocks, so that we could only stay on those blocks and those pens.  That you’ve seen consistently.  We saw it in New York at Occupy Wall Street when they round up people on the Brooklyn Bridge.  We saw it at the 2004 Republican Convention in New York where they arrested 400 people by putting netting around them.  So, netting and penning came out of Seattle and came out of 9/11.  And, of course, tear gas, which you saw used in Oakland so outrageously is another form of policing.  Surveillance is another, is the beginning of that, trying to get information from people.  So, we’ve seen, really, what I would say is incredibly aggressive policing with Federal involvement, with huge amounts of money coming from Homeland Security into these local police departments, a huge amount of weaponry, really, a militarisation of the police that should just terrify us, really.”

Mitch Jeserich (23:41):  “Tell me about the 2008 FBI Guidelines, which I suppose regulate the Government’s domestic response to dissent.”

Michael Ratner (23:49):  “The FBI has an internal set of guidelines that were originally promulgated in [the] 1970s after all the exposures of what the FBI did to the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Movement, the New Left , Communist Party, etcetera, a number of dirty tricks and surveillance.  And they were never great, but the key thing was in ’76 and on, they required there to be some kind of, what they called, criminal predicate before the FBI could start an investigation and start intrusive surveillance techniques.  They’ve been watered down and watered down and watered down ‘til there was very little left and at the end of the Bush Administration, Bush 2, [Michael] Mukasey, the Attorney General, issued a new set of FBI Guidelines that, essentially, removed any criminal predicate.  It really gave open season to the FBI to walk into every mosque in the country, to infiltrate every Muslim group, to infiltrate every anti-war group, to infiltrate the Quakers, to start surveillance.  And those were passed.  They don’t need to pass the legislator; they’re just passed by the FBI or they’re promulgated by the FBI.  A new President, in this case, President Obama could have decided to have his Attorney General [Eric] Holder issue a new, tighter set of guidelines, but he refused to do that.  So, now the FBI’s operating, essentially, with no restrictions.  And the best recent example, or good recent example, was the G8 Demonstration in Pittsburgh where the FBI labelled certain Quaker groups as ‘terrorists’ and started infiltrating them.  The Inspector General for the FBI was asked to look into, ‘How could they do this? These are Quaker pacifist groups? What is this?’  And he concluded that, while he didn’t like it, that it was completely legal under the Guidelines.  That gives you an example of the fact that we have almost, what’s the way to say this, almost no way of, really, restricting the FBI at this point.  And, of course, in New York we have our City Police, which are broad authority.  Then we have the FBI, of course, domestic.  Then we have the CIA operating here, although, we claim it’s not the CIA actually doing work; we’re just giving them information.  And then, of course, on my last demonstration that I walked, after we were kicked out of Occupy Wall Street, you know Zuccotti/Liberty Park, we had a court order to walk back into the Park briefly and along the entire path there are Homeland Security people, again, indicating the Federal involvement in making sure the Occupy Wall Street Movement is suppressed.   

Mitch Jeserich (26:34):  “Michael Ratner, I wanna turn our attention to Capitol Hill where the Senate yesterday [11/29/11] rejected an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill that would have taken out language that would make law the indefinite detention of so-called ‘enemy combatants,’ have the Military take the lead in detaining people that are deemed ‘terror suspects’ regardless that they are apprehended in another country or even in this country and potentially even U.S. citizens.  This is Carl Levin, the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  He is a Democrat and he is the principal sponsor of [the provision within this S.1867 bill authorising a President to order the Military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens without charges].  He spoke about it on the Senate floor yesterday [11/29/11]. 

Audio of Democrat Senator Carl Levin (27:15):  “A citizen, the Supreme Court said in 2004, no less than an alien can be part of supporting forces hostile to the United States and engage in armed conflict against the United States.  Such a citizen, referring to an American citizen, if released could pose the same threat of returning to the front during the ongoing conflict.  And here’s the bottom line for the Supreme Court.  If we just take this one line out of this whole debate, it would be a breath of fresh air to cut through some of the words that have been used here this morning, one line.  ‘There is no bar to this nation’s holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant.’”

Mitch Jeserich (28:00):  “Again that was the Democrat Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin of Michigan.  He was speaking on the Senate floor yesterday [11/29/11].  And we are right now speaking to Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.  Michael Ratner, your response to these proposals.” 

Michael Ratner (28:18):  “It’s hard to believe that Senator Levin was a legal aid lawyer once.  And it’s harder to believe he’s a lawyer.  And it’s harder to believe, maybe not harder, than he’s a Democrat.  Maybe it’s harder to believe he’s a lawyer.  It’s an utter misinterpretation of the Supreme Court’s position on Hamdi.  And just to be a tiny bit, not technical, but precise, [Yaser Esam] Hamdi was an American citizen picked up in the actual war in Afghanistan on the battlefield that was initially authorised.  That is not what the Levin legislation is any longer talking about.  He’s using that.  Of course, an American citizen, if he’s fighting against your forces in an actual shooting war, he can be picked up and detained ‘til the end of that particular shooting war.  It doesn’t make any difference, American citizen or not.  What this new legislation is doing, I mean, it’s saying that anywhere in the world in the so-called ‘War On Terror,’ not the shooting war in Afghanistan that took place for a number of months after 2001, but an alleged terrorist anywhere in the world, U.S. citizen or not, even in the United States, can be picked up and sent and put in Military detention and held there for life.  And part of the [S.1867] bill makes that detention mandatory.  It doesn’t even give the President the right to take him out and try him.  I mean it’s such an outrageous—”

Mitch Jeserich (29:40):  “I thought the President would have the right to issue a waiver.”

Michael Ratner (29:43):  “Yeah, right.  There is a waiver in that section, a very difficult waiver.  And, of course, the President, if we know anything about waivers, rarely, if ever, has exercised such a waiver.  In the current situation, which has to do with whether the President can get people from Guantanamo into trials, get people from Guantanamo transferred to other countries, he has a waiver for that.  But have we seen any waivers?  No.  So, the waiver is not really a relevant part.  What’s relevant here is that Senator Levin is, essentially, putting into law, I mean, part of what he’s putting into law is what Obama is already doing, which is preventive detention in general.  But he’s going beyond that and saying a certain category of preventive detention, including U.S. citizens has to mandatorily be detained by the U.S. Military.  They can’t, except for this waiver we just mentioned, be brought into a civilian trial system.” 

Mitch Jeserich (30:38):  “We haven’t had such a law since the 1950s and that was never used.”

Michael Ratner (30:43):  “Right.  That’s correct.  We haven’t had a detention law like that since the 1950s.  It was never used.  This law, there was an objection, this new law, the Japanese-Americans, you know, put in a letter saying, just like they did with our Guantanamo litigation earlier, ‘Look what happened to us. Is this what you want to happen to people living here? Detention?  Just look at what happened to us during the Second World War.’  And they know.  It’s hard for me to believe that the country is going backwards much faster than it’s moving forwards, at least not the country; Congress, the President, I mean they just don’t get it.  In the similar way they don’t get Occupy Wall Street.  They don’t get that the world has changed.  And they don’t get that the Constitution still has a place in our democracy.”

Mitch Jeserich (31:35):  “Well, it seems strange that this is happening now.  Osama bin Laden is dead.  We’re planning to withdraw by the end of the year from Iraq.  There’s even plans to get out of Afghanistan.  Yet, here we are putting many of the practices that we’ve seen over the last decade and solidifying them.”

Michael Ratner (31:55):  “Ten years after and the ten-year Guantanamo anniversary, January 11^th.  If you had told me this, I was outraged obviously when they started Guantanamo, that I would be sitting here talking to you ten years later and these practices were becoming a permanent part of our law, I would’ve said, ‘It’ll never happen.’  And here it is.  And you have, really, remember, this term antediluvian, you know, before the flood.  These guys are operating in another theatre.  They’re ignoring the Constitution.  They’re looking at what they think is gonna sell on national security.  And you would think that Obama, after all of, you know, the killing of bin Laden and all those things that he would believe helping our national security, that they would stand up a little more for this.  There is one provision I don’t like, which is the one on the mandatory detention, but the rest of the preventive detention act they seem to be going along with just fine.”

Mitch Jeserich (32:52):  “Michael Ratner, thank you so much.”

Michael Ratner (32:54):  “Thank you very much.”

Mitch Jeserich (32:55):  “Again, Michael Ratner has been our guest, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-author of the new book Hell No:  You’re Right to Dissent in the 21^st Century.”

Transcript by Felipe Messina

Photo by flickr user Beverly and Pack

***