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 21^st 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

November 8, 2011

MEDIA ROOTS- As the pro-democracy ‘Arab Spring’ movement spread across North Africa and beyond, Euroamerican imperialists sent a stern message by responding with draconian violence. In Libya, US-NATO forces perpetrated crimes against humanity under the pretext of combating alleged crimes against humanity.

President Obama gloated as NATO advanced in Libya, then cheered the brutal assassination of Gaddafi, who was sodomised with a knife before being extrajudicially executed.  Soon thereafter, the U.S. corporate propaganda machine launched its coinciding media blitz selling the triumphalism of ‘humanitarian intervention’ in the country.  

In a recent article, “NATO’s War Crimes in Libya,” James Petras describes how Libya’s standing with the U.S. and U.K. suddenly soured without provocation.  In fact, Euroamerican imperialists were Gaddafi supporters up until the ‘Arab Spring’ revolution toward democratic, anti-imperialist, and independent governance became contagious.  

To reassert its muscle and send a warning shot to other nations aspiring independence,  Euroamerican imperialists, via the proxy rubric of NATO, claimed to support ‘rebels’ fighting against the Gaddafi government.  And, of course, support is an understatement– NATO brutally devastated Libyan infrastructure through sea and air attacks paving the way for the so-called ‘rebels,’ which otherwise wouldn’t have stood a chance. 

These ‘rebels’ could scarcely claim popular support.  As Petras notes, the “casting of the rag-tag collection of monarchists, Islamist fundamentalists, London and Washington-based ex-pats and disaffected Gaddafi officials as ‘rebels’ is a pure case of mass media propaganda.”

Libya was made an example of by Euroamerican imperialists for many reasons. Gaddafi pursued plans for a ‘Bank of Africa,’ alternative communication systems, and long supported African unity.  Under Gaddafi, despite any demagoguery, Libya maintained the highest standard of living for any African nation. However, now smouldering after NATO’s devastation, it’s projected Libya faces a decade of reconstruction to undo the damage of being bombed back to the Stone Age. 

To be certain, Gaddafi was a complex political figure, developing from a revolutionary to a self-styled symbolic figurehead.  But one simply needs to ask why NATO forces haven’t targeted nations such as Saudi Arabia or Yemen for similar ‘humanitarian intervention’ to see through the glaring hypocrisy.

As historian Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley has explained:

“Democracy is totally irrelevant to this. This is a cynical imperialist attack aiming at the two things that the US, the British, and the French value. On the one hand the oil and on the other hand the water. And the water may turn out to be more valuable than the oil… Libya will be under IMF conditionality and that will mean the Washington consensus, deregulation, privatization, the destruction of any state-sector that remains, the destruction of any social welfare system, or social safety net, and the destruction of all of those positive things that Gaddafi had done in his regime to distribute the oil revenue to increase the general welfare.”

As in Iraq, Euroamerican imperialists stand to benefit from ‘ruin and rule’ devastation, disaster capitalism, and the years of inevitable reconstruction contracts and continued obstruction of autonomous governance. 

Messina

***

JAMES PETRAS— The NATO assault formed part of a general counter-attack designed to contain and reverse the popular democratic and anti-imperialist movements which had ousted or were on the verge of overthrowing US-client dictators.

What caused the NATO countries to shift abruptly from a policy of embracing Gaddafi to launching a brutal scorched-earth invasion of Libya in a matter of months? The key is the popular uprisings, which threatened Euro-US domination. The near total destruction of Libya, a secular regime with the highest standard of living in Africa, was meant to be a lesson, a message from the imperialists to the newly aroused masses of North Africa, Asia and Latin America: The fate of Libya awaits any regime which aspires to greater independence and questions the ascendancy of Euro-American power.

NATO’s savage six-month blitz – over 30,000 air and missile assaults on Libyan civil and military institutions – was a response to those who claimed that the US and the EU were on the “decline” and that the “empire was in decay”. The radical Islamist and monarchist-led “uprising” in Benghazi during March 2011 was backed by and served as a pretext for the NATO imperial powers to extend their counter-offensive on the road to neo-colonial restoration.

For all the ruling class and mass media euphoria, the ‘win’ over Libya, grotesque and criminal in the destruction of Libyan secular society and the ongoing brutalization of black Libyans, does not solve the profound economic crises in the EU-US. It does not affect China’s growing competitive advantages over its western competitors. It does not end US-Israeli isolation faced with an imminent world-wide recognition of Palestine as an independent state. The absence of left-wing western intellectual solidarity for independent Third World nations, evident in their support for the imperial-based mercenary “rebels” is more than compensated by the emergence of a radical new generation of left-wing activists in South Africa, Chile, Greece, Spain, Egypt, Pakistan and elsewhere. These are youth, whose solidarity with anti-colonial regimes is based on their own experience with exploitation, “marginalization” (unemployment) and repression at home.

Read more about NATO’s War Crimes in Libyia.

© 2011 The Official James Petras Website

***

THE GUARDIAN— As the most hopeful offshoot of the “Arab spring” so far flowered this week in successful elections in Tunisia, its ugliest underside has been laid bare in Libya. That’s not only, or even mainly, about the YouTube lynching of Gaddafi, courtesy of a Nato attack on his convoy.

For the western powers, of course, the Libyan war has allowed them to regain ground lost in Tunisia and Egypt, put themselves at the heart of the upheaval sweeping the most strategically sensitive region in the world, and secure valuable new commercial advantages in an oil-rich state whose previous leadership was at best unreliable. No wonder the new British defence secretary is telling businessmen to “pack their bags” for Libya, and the US ambassador in Tripoli insists American companies are needed on a “big scale”.

But for Libyans, it has meant a loss of ownership of their own future and the effective imposition of a western-picked administration of Gaddafi defectors and US and British intelligence assets. Probably the greatest challenge to that takeover will now come from Islamist military leaders on the ground, such as the Tripoli commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj – kidnapped by MI6 to be tortured in Libya in 2004 – who have already made clear they will not be taking orders from the NTC.

What the Libyan tragedy has brutally hammered home is that foreign intervention doesn’t only strangle national freedom and self-determination – it doesn’t protect lives either.

Read more about If the Libyan war was about saving lives, it was a catastrophic failure.

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited

Photo by AFP/Getty

MEDIA ROOTS— Rhetoric aside, Obama continues to be the darling of Wall Street. In 2008, President Obama racked up $750 million dollars for his Presidential campaign, and is projected to take in roughly $1 billion dollars for 2012. Although the President appears to commiserate with the Occupy Wall Street movement and its dissatisfaction of Wall Street’s influence over politics, Obama has raised far more money this year from the financial and banking sector than any other GOP candidate combined. With such astronomical figures with which Obama’s been bought by the ruling-class, it’s no surprise he has broken virtually every campaign promise.  With this kind of financial sway, it must be fully expected he will do it again, should mass cognitive dissonance persist in 2012 granting him another four years.

MR

***

THE WASHINGTON POST— Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data. The numbers show that Obama retains a persistent reservoir of support among Democratic financiers who have backed him since he was an underdog presidential candidate four years ago.

Channeling ‘Occupy’ anger

Obama’s ties to Wall Street donors could complicate Democratic plans to paint Republicans as puppets of the financial industry, particularly in light of the Occupy Wall Street protests that have gone global over the past week.

In response to the protests, the Obama campaign and other Democrats have stepped up their attacks on Romney and other Republicans for their opposition to Wall Street regulations.

One top banking executive who raises money for Obama, discussing fundraising efforts on the condition of anonymity, said reports of disaffection with the president “are exaggerated and overblown.” He said a strong contingent of financiers in New York, Chicago and California remains supportive of Obama and his economic policies, even as some have turned on him.

But, this donor added, “it probably helps from a political perspective if he’s not seen as a Wall Street guy.”

Limits on GOP candidates

Obama retains a core group of supporters on Wall Street who are central to his fundraising efforts. About a third of his top 40 fundraisers, who have helped bundle together $500,000 or more in contributions, hail from the finance sector, including big names such as former New Jersey governor Jon S. Corzine of MF Global, hedge-fund manager Orin Kramer and UBS executive Robert Wolf.

Obama’s chief of staff, William M. Daley, was also vice chairman at J.P. Morgan Chase before coming to the White House this year.

Read more about Obama still flush with cash from financial sector despite frosty relations.

© 2011 The Washington Post Company

Photo by flickr user Osipowa

MEDIA ROOTS- The short film I’m Not Moving is an excellent representation of the astounding hypocrisy of the US government’s support for the Arab Spring uprising in the Middle East as compared to the Occupy Wall Street movement happening in America.

I Am Not Moving

Edited by Corey Ogilvie, Music by Hauschka

MEDIA ROOTS- Ralph Nader continues to be one of the most honest U.S. political analysts, despite being such an influential public citizen.

Too often, political pundits spin us with ‘horse race’ coverage that’s confined within a false left/right paradigm, and report under the assumption that U.S. voters are satisfied with the two-party system.  In recent interviews, Ralph Nader has critically analyzed controversial topics such as ‘corporate fascism’ and the ‘US two-party dictatorship’, confronting what many other public figures shy away from.  

Despite low voter turnouts, tens of millions of U.S. citizens will still take to the ballot boxes in 2012.  So, we may as well speak plainly about the reality of our electoral system. As in past U.S. Presidential elections, millions of progressives will admit to holding their noses as they cast a ballot for the ‘lesser-of-two-evils’, instead of voting their consciences or demanding free and fair elections.  Yet, such topics remain taboo. 

As Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country increasingly express disaffection with both corporate-driven political parties, it’s remarkable how difficult it is for our national discourse to lay bare the false left/right paradigm that is propped up by the establishment.  OWS protesters have been photographed with signs rejecting the two-party system.  Yet, amorphous anti-greed or anti-inequality complaints, rather than fundamental structural issues, such as our broken electoral system, are disproportionately featured by the mass media.  This seems as much a cognitive question of mass psychology or taboos associated with appearing partisan, as it is one of mass media complicity in the perpetuation of the two-party system.  However, younger generations see through this false dichotomy, and we can credit those same younger generations for energizing the mass political awakening we are witnessing with the OWS movement. 

In an exclusive interview with Ralph Nader, Media Roots asked, “Do you think the game is rigged?”

“Well, of course,” Ralph Nader candidly admitted, ”two-party dictatorship, completely rigged, right down to the Presidential Debate Commission, which is a fancy phrase for a private corporation created in 1987 by the Republican and Democratic parties to get rid of the League of Women Voters, which supervised Presidential Debates up to then, and to exclude anyone who they think should not reach tens of millions of Americans.”

It may seem an obvious question.  But it’s very empowering to hear it asked plainly and answered so candidly by one of America’s greatest public citizens.

Without broadcasting meaningful discussions about the regressive consequences of perpetuating a restrictive two-party system, which groups like MoveOn, Global Exchange, Code Pink, and even A.N.S.W.E.R. seem to shy away from, progressives are held captive by the Democratic Party. 

Ralph Nader also makes an important distinction in pointing out the Koch Brothers’ astro-turfing of the original Tea Party ideals, because it demonstrates the model by which the same may occur to the grassroots OWS movement by well-funded media darlings like MoveOn. 

It’s important to not only take into consideration the hopes and aspirations of protesters on the ground, but also to follow the money back to who inevitably funds Left organizers, such as billionaire George Soros’ subsidiaries or MoveOn (which although no longer a 527, stands upon a pro-Democratic Party track record).  It may be impossible for organizers to avoid grants from funders with a vested interest in preserving the two-party system, but at least an informed citizenry can better navigate the uphill struggle toward representative democracy.  Most, including Nader, will argue it doesn’t matter from where organizing funds originate, as long as it doesn’t corrupt the message.  However, if the message emanating from mass demonstrations seems to avoid critical electoral analysis, progressive activists may be playing into pro-Democratic influences unwilling to confront such fundamental structural problems.

For example, the Keystone XL protests in D.C. earlier this year was funded in part by the Rockefeller Brothers– the No Tar Sands Oil campaign was funnelled financially through Corporate Ethics International.  This money trail may help explain why none of their spokespersons, including Bill McKibben, ever really slammed Obama or the Democratic Party beyond supplicant appeals, much less threatened withholding mass electoral support if their environmental demands went ignored.

Since well-funded groups like MoveOn (and its charismatic leaders like Van Jones) do not question the two-party system, they thereby function to perpetuate it under the pretence of grassroots transformation.  This illusion in which such groups operate only hurts real activism, progress, and change in the U.S. Even with mass protests reaching historic proportions, we still must confront the reality of a captured electoral system.

By contrast, groups like US Day of Rage, which co-organized the OWS actions from the outset, focus on electoral reform and propose an Article V Constitutional Convention outlining concrete steps, such as restoring representative democracy, abolition of corporate personhood, and the overturning of the Citizens United case. 

Critical electoral analysis is not a partisan issue– it is a question of free and fair elections. The people of this country deserve to have an electoral system which truly reflects the popular will of its people, rather than one which locks them into a false choice between two increasingly identical versions of the same thing.

It’s up to honest journalists, to citizen journalists, to resident journalists, to look beyond symptoms and to causality.  It’s up to the dialectic between independent journalists and a candid Left to broadcast critical, empirically-based, electoral analysis, to cut through the false left/right paradigm, to expose uncomfortable truths, and to help raise the consciousness of the masses toward breaking out of our restrictive two-party dictatorship paradigm. 

Written by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

Photo by flickr user Nick Bygon