MEDIA ROOTS – Felipe
Messina: On Thursday, November 17, 2011, I spoke with Russia Today TV (RT) about the violent mass
arrests by militarised platoons of local police, as they waged a coordinated
national campaign to crush the Occupy Movement. Images of bloodied
protesters flashed on the screen, as OWS 99-percenters chanted, “Show me what a police state looks like! This is what a police state looks like!!” Even journalists, such as RT’s Lucy Kafanov, caught some NYPD fury
against First Amendment freedom of the press.
Yet, Obama is nowhere to be found; his campaign promises withering in the
shadow of the absurdity of his future 2012 promises. The Obama presidency has been a
complete disaster thus far, as he has betrayed virtually every promise made on the campaign trail. Those who wept with joy at his inauguration
were likely unaware he was put in office by banksters and Wall Street, or that
he’d soon stuff his cabinet with them. To
date, Obama has received more money from the financial sector than any other
2012 presidential candidate combined.
And what about his piddly Jobs Bill? Did it drown in a
Democrat-controlled Senate on a technicality? Obama’s not trying to sell
that noise anymore; not that it was a New Deal for the 21st Century,
anyway. Obama is not, and never will be,
an ally of the Occupy Movement. It is on his watch the U.S. is witnessing the
most egregious police state repression against First Amendment activity.
As
I mentioned Scott Olsen on RT, left with a fractured skull after being shot by
rioting Oakland cops, a man named Brendan Watts was seen around the world
bloodied by NYC cops with a fractured skull.
However, at the moment both Obama and Biden are essentially MIA, as police
state repression unfolds across the U.S.
In conversation with RT, I pointed out the Federalised character of the coordinated
crackdowns against the Occupy Movement. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan had
recently admitted in a radio interview that she was on a
teleconference call with many other mayors across the country coordinating
their crackdowns against the Occupy Movement.
Once the Federal Government is involved, people can no longer ignore the
Obama Administration in this national travesty against the First
Amendment. So much for hope and change,
indeed.
On Tuesday (11/15), Mike Ellis of the Minneapolis Examiner reported:
“According to [one Justice Department] official, in several recent
conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal
reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing
curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of
police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI
reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that
any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the
least likely to be present.”
By Wednesday (11/16), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) worked on
damage control claiming worries over Federal involvement in the crackdowns
were overblown. Yet, DHS admitted taking an official role in at least
one Portland, Oregon crackdown. And, of course, this admission may be
attributable to the fact that DHS agents of the Federal Protective Service
variety were photographed in action at Occupy Portland, Terry Schrunk
Plaza, on October 31, 2011. So, it’s conceivable other DHS agents may
have been involved elsewhere.
It’s interesting to note how in Oakland the ostensibly liberal Mayor Quan,
initially tried to co-opt Occupy Oakland through photo-ops on October 15 with
establishment activists of MoveOn. But faced with the horizontal
principles of the Occupy Movement equalising Quan’s position of authority to genuine
cooperation, feeling snubbed or assenting to pressure from above, gave the
green light, before conveniently skipping town (in similar fashion to Obama’s
trip to the Pacific Rim), to the militarised police state platoon raids and
crackdowns.
It’s also striking how celebratory and supportive Obama and Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton are about democracy movements abroad and yet draconian
against grassroots pro-democracy activism toward socioeconomic justice within
the U.S. It’s even more striking how
little awareness we’ve had of Federal involvement in the crackdowns against the
Occupy Movement.
Last month, Naomi Wolf, author of The
End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, was
asked by Keith Olbermann about her rights being violated, as she described
the Orwellian involvement of Homeland Security in First Amendment repression at
OWS’ Liberty Plaza: “Did the Department
of Homeland Security have anything to do with this?”
Naomi Wolf: “Well,
I have no idea if they had anything to do with this phalanx of 30 or 40 police
officers surrounding me and my partner, and taking us in when we were
peacefully not breaking any laws on the sidewalks. But I do know that something very disturbing
happened after we were put into a police van. We were supposed to be taken to
the First Precinct and, that’s the one that governs what happens on Hudson
Street where we were arrested.
“But
they got a call that the protesters had gone to the First Precinct with the
lawyers of the National Lawyers Guild, who were gonna help us and meet us and
represent us. And so they detoured, the
police detoured, across town to the Seventh Precinct and misled the protesters
about our whereabouts, which is very disturbing. Because in America, you know, prisoners, even
for a little while, are not supposed to be unaccountable. Disappear.
“Even more disturbing, we learned that, when the protesters arrived at
Ericsson Street where the First Precinct is, it was blocked off. And they said, ‘What’s going on?’ They didn’t let any protesters or lawyers
through, but let people in business suits through. And NYPD said, ‘Homeland Security has frozen
Ericsson Street.’
“So, to me as an American, as a New Yorker, this is very big news for
reasons I don’t have to explain to you. A
Federal agency can, because two middle-aged, you know, couch-potato
intellectuals get arrested for not disobeying the law? They can freeze a New York City street?”
Keith Olbermann: “But even if they weren’t freezing it and the
name was merely invoked, that’s its own problem. If a city
police department is invoking this shadowy, national entity, that becomes its
own threat to the First Amendment and freedom of assembly and all the rest.”
Naomi Wolf: “Keith,
you’re completely right. And what
baffles me is: Where is The New York
Times investigating this? Where are our
local newspapers? Where is the national
newspaper? Because you block, you let
Homeland Security block off, or even say Homeland Security’s blocked off one
street, they could cordon off downtown Chicago tomorrow. And it’s not, like, weapons of mass
destruction or a natural disaster. It’s,
you know, two random people standing on the sidewalk being the excuse to close
down our civil society.
“So,
there’s another really scary thing, if you want me to keep scaring you, but
this is scary for all of us. It’s not;
it is not what happened to me and to my partner that is the worrying thing, the
thing I’m distressed about. It’s that
people have got to understand that this could happen to absolutely anyone. For four or five years I’ve been saying, ‘You
start with Guantanamo; history shows they start with the other. It gets closer
and closer and someday they come for you when you were innocent and you have no
recourse.’
“When they were releasing us, the guy said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna let you go this
time with a summons. But if you go down
and rejoin your friends, the protesters, and you get arrested, it’ll be a real
arrest next time. Here’s the camera.’ He
pointed to a camera, ‘It’ll take your photograph. Here’s the fingerprint
machine. We’ll take your fingerprints. It’ll go into that database, a Federal
database. And it’ll follow you forever.’
“And then I said, ‘But officer, I got arrested tonight when I was obeying
the law. How do I avoid getting arrested in the future?’ And he didn’t dispute that I was obeying the
law. He said, ‘Well, the officers
decided it was a safety issue.’ And I
said, ‘But, then, what prevents any situation from being called a safety issue
and trumping the law and how people are obeying the law?’ And he didn’t answer, but referred me to a
section of the criminal code. But that,
too, is very scary.”
Keith Olbermann: “Of
course. We’ve given them the right to
make up the law as they go along.”
Naomi Wolf: “You know,
it’s interesting, we haven’t given them, well, we’ve given it to them by
sleeping on the job.”
Today, the 99% is waking up to the totalitarian nightmare the Obama
Administration is deepening after eight years of the Bush regime shredding the
Constitution, preceded by eight years of the Clinton Administration’s neoliberalism
and financial deregulation, which laid much of
the foundation for the economic collapse we are witnessing today. Under Obama, we have witnessed
similar grotesquely regressive politics, which have defined our national body politic since at
least 1981 with Reagan. Some of my
friends will undoubtedly set the marker further back declaring Kennedy the last
legitimate U.S. President. And, of
course, few of my Native American friends would accord much legitimacy to
any U.S. President.
Up until the ‘70s, when there was still something of a labour shortage and
wages still provided some modicum of working-class dignity, so many U.S.
citizens didn’t much mind U.S. imperialism, racism, corporate greed, or the
U.S. imposing its will around the world.
It hadn’t hit them yet. But
corruption left unchecked eventually comes home to roost.
At some point, the stink of graft in U.S. politics becomes inescapable. Never mind Citizens United. That was just the final nail in the coffin.
Take your pick. Democrat or
Republican, one ends up with the same corporate, one-percenter, puppet-masters
behind whichever candidate one chooses to head the two-party dictatorship. And the same applies to Congressional Democrats
and Republicans. It’s time to expand the
two-party system to include alternatives.
The real test for the Occupy Movement will be whether or not its supporters
can maintain its momentum and integrity long enough to impact the 2012
Presidential Election and usher in a new consciousness capable of toppling the
two-party dictatorship with a powerful left party challenge. Some of my friends will argue, even if that
were to happen that third-party would somehow get corrupted. Well, then, don’t allow that to happen, I’d
say. Stay involved, because the alternative to that would be much
more radical. For those who are, have at it.
But I just don’t see that at this stage of development for the U.S.
consciousness. Before OWS, it was pretty
safe to say progressives would either vote for Obama or not vote at all, with
less than five percent voting third-party.
But with the mass consciousness-raising effect of the Occupy Movement,
it’s not out of the realm of possibility that a huge upset may await
Obama. No small wonder, then, why he’d
quietly be allowing the nation’s worst police state repression of peaceful
First Amendment activity.
I put more faith in the electoral system, provided the people do what
nobody is stopping them from doing. People must vote their conscience rather than for the
least worst, as people have done in 2008 and as far back as we can remember.
As the Occupy Movement is teaching us, change won’t just be electoral. It will come from the 99% taking their destiny into their own hands with horizontalist vigour on the local and national level.
Only then will we see more desirable crackdowns, those on corporate and
banker fascism and police state repression itself.
Written by Felipe Messina for
Media Roots
Image by flickr user Donkey Hotey
MEDIA ROOTS — Felipe
Messina of Media Roots speaks with Vaquous of Occupy Montreal to get an
international perspective of the global Occupy Wall Street Movement, find out
what Canadians are saying and doing as they participate, and what lessons they
can share with their international counterparts about what can be done toward
socioeconomic justice through collective action and the taking of the public
square around the world, physically and digitally.
MEDIA ROOTS – Over the last two months I have witnessed an organic uprising take root in my backyard of Oakland, CA. Although it’s been emotionally tumultuous to incur the harsh police state crackdown on the First Amendment and witness the brutal Oakland PD assault against peaceful protesters, it’s always inspiring as hell to see thousands of people taking it to the streets to denounce police brutality and reject the two-party corporatocracy. 
MEDIA ROOTS – Felipe
Messina: On Thursday, November 17, 2011, I spoke with 
MEDIA ROOTS — In order to justify the so-called ‘War On Terror,’ the U.S. Government
state apparatus and its Federal Agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, have been caught engaging in gross cases of misconduct,
fraud, entrapment, and other heinous tactics to manufacture increasingly flimsy pretexts for furthering a police state within the U.S. and projecting imperialistic hegemony abroad.