Police State in Oakland? First Hand Report From Arrested Female Journo

I think the header should read Police State America, sans question mark.

The worrying thing about, not just Oakland, but demonstrations anywhere in the world, will be the readiness of states to put their agent provocateurs in place. No police force in the world is going to stand by when stuff starts going up in flames. It's all too easy and all too predictable.

But the story isn't all about what went down on the streets, the account by this female journo, one of twenty five women arrested, highlights the tactics of the cops, as they systematically belittle and humiliate the women in their charge.

It also mentions, although only briefly, something far more sinister, the issuing of press passes and the embedding of local journo's with the cops. And that is something to really worry about.

Police State in Oakland? One Reporter's Arrest Contradicts Official Story

Oakland has spent more than $1 million on Occupy policing, but nearly all of that overwhelming force has been used against innocent people.
By Susie Cagle
November 6, 2011

"Everybody on the ground, you're under arrest! Everybody on the ground, you're under arrest!" the officer yelled through his gas mask, gesturing with his baton.

As I slipped my camera in my pocket and dropped to the ground, I couldn't help but think: This wasn't part of the plan.

At least not my plan.

A series of escalations at Occupy Oakland following Wednesday, November 2nd's General Strike culminated in 101 arrests between 1 and 2 am on Thursday morning -- including my own.

Interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan called the arrestees "generally anarchists and provocateurs" in a statement later Thursday. Despite Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's claims that the city would not be calling for mutual aid--a call for supporting forces from surrounding police agencies to reinforce OPD--in future engagements with Occupy Oakland demonstrators, Jordan called in the order around 4 p.m., following the vandalizing of several large banks, a Whole Foods and a few smaller businesses in the downtown area.

While police from around the Bay Area geared up for a confrontation, Occupy Oakland was shifting strategies. Shortly after 10 p.m., occupiers descended upon the foreclosed Traveler's Aid Society building at 520 16th Street. It was a calculated escalation, at least in theory: forcing the police to defend the rights of the property owners or the people, effectively choosing loyalty to the 1 or the 99 percent. The scene was joyous but chaotic, a dance party punctuated by calls to "reinforce the perimeters." Just before 11 p.m., as local agencies led by the Oakland Police Department drove south toward the plaza, a banner was unfurled from the top of the building, declaring it a community center and free school.

At the same time, barricades were built up at either end of 16th street. Garbage cans, tires, wooden palettes and furniture were piled in a vain but aggressive attempt to protect the occupied building. A police helicopter circled lower and lower overhead, drowning out the arguments between peaceful protestors and those looking for confrontation. At 11:33 p.m., I tweeted, "nearly run over by black bloc pushing dumpster into growing barricade."

At some point over the 15 minutes it took me to make my way north to document the police mobilization, those barricades were lit on fire. As I stood at 17th and Telegraph looking south from behind the police line -- first held by Oakland police, then less hardcore troops from San Leandro -- a column of black smoke snaked up between the office buildings. 12:01 a.m.: "three minutes to leave, police: 'mask up!!'"

As police blocked streets leading to the plaza and began firing tear gas down Telegraph, I was not the only one tweeting with urgency. Mayor Quan was also on the soapbox, urging protestors to get in touch in the midst of the melee.




12:06 a.m. Reports that tires are burning and barricades set up on 16th. Protestors need to call my office now.

12:09 a.m. OPD has not taken action. Smoke is from burning barricade. I'll say it again, protestors need to call now.

She hasn't updated since.

At 12:25 a.m., as the flames continued to grow, a dispersal order was made from an LRAD (long range acoustic device) at 17th and Telegraph calling for demonstrators to "disperse down Broadway and Telegraph" directly to the south.

The skirmish line one block to the west at 16th and San Pablo seemed comparatively peaceful. At 12:45 a.m., reporters were clustered behind two lines of police at the intersection, just north of the entrance to Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza.

On the other side of the line, occupier Scott Campbell was filming the police just a few minutes later when one of them shot him in the thigh with a "less lethal" projectile. "The dispersal order I heard said, go south down Broadway," Campbell told me later. Go to page two

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Milliband Speaks Out (in Favour) Of Occupy

Ed Miliband: politicians must listen to the St Paul's Cathedral protesters

Labour leader says only 'most reckless' will ignore danger signals from Occupy London protest
Daniel Boffey and Mark Townsend
Saturday 5 November 2011

Ed Miliband says the protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral present a stark warning to the political classes and reflect a wider national crisis in confidence about the values of those in business and politics.

The Labour leader says that, while some have dismissed the cause of the protesters, they present a wake-up call, though they should not be allowed to dictate the terms of such a critical debate.

Writing in the Observer, Miliband describes the Occupy London protest and others around the world as "danger signals" that only the "most reckless will ignore". He says: "The challenge is that they reflect a crisis of concern for millions of people about the biggest issue of our time: the gap between their values and the way our country is run."

He adds: "I am determined that mainstream politics, and the Labour party in particular, speaks to that crisis and rises to the challenge". The Labour leader has until now made no comment on the furore around the protests, which have led to a debate about whether the camp should be forcibly removed.

His intervention will be regarded as a risky manoeuvre designed to hit home the theme of his party conference speech of a need to rid the country of "irresponsible, predatory capitalism". Miliband was widely praised after risking the wrath of some in the media by calling for Rebekah Brooks's resignation early on in the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and he will be hoping his comments today will chime with the wider electorate who he believes share some of the anger of those at St Paul's.

Miliband is careful to avoid endorsing the "long list of diverse and often impractical proposals" of the protesters. But he says their activities are a symptom of a wider crisis caused by record unemployment, rising inflation, squeezed living standards and turmoil in the eurozone which, he says, adds to the "sense that the economy is on the brink".

He says: "Certainly, few people struggling to makes ends meet and worried about what the future holds for their children will have either the time or the inclination to camp outside a cathedral. And many people will not agree with the demands or like the methods of the protesters. But they still present a challenge: to the church and to business – and also to politics."

The protesters settled on their current site three weeks ago yesterday after an initial plan to base themselves at nearby Paternoster Square, the private business and retail development housing the London Stock Exchange, was thwarted by an injunction. Since then the canon, chaplain and dean of St Paul's have all resigned amid confusion and indecision over whether the church should welcome the protesters or move them on.

Last Tuesday morning the Corporation of London was preparing to hand the camp a 48-hour eviction notice, but was forced to change its policy after the cathedral publicly backed the protesters. They have since been told that they will be allowed to continue to camp outside St Paul's until the new year.

While distancing himself from the methods and goals of the protesters, Miliband says this moment in time is similar to 1945, 1979 and 1997 in that a point has come where "business as usual is not an option". He says: "This is another of those moments because the deeper issues raised by the current crisis are too important to be left shivering on the steps of St Paul's."

The archbishop of York also criticised excessive salaries for top City executives, saying that large differences in income between rich and poor "weaken community life and make societies less cohesive". Dr John Sentamu said that excesses in the financial sector had helped to create big inequalities, "demonstrating how scandalously unfair our society is". He said: "If they [FTSE 100 chief executives] have a responsibility to their staff, it is hard to imagine a more powerful way of telling someone that they are of little value than to pay them one-third of 1% of your salary.

"Top pay has been found to bear little or no relation to company performance, but even if it did, isn't the performance of a company dependent on the work and wellbeing of all its staff?

"Among the ill effects of very large income differences between rich and poor are that they weaken community life and make societies less cohesive." gruniad

h/t Weissnicht

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Occupy and the Militarisation of Policing Protest

I don't really know if this is worth posting, it's not as though it's previously unknown. But no matter, if nothing else, I shall go with it if for only this. The people have become the enemy.

USA Patriot Act. Section 802 expanded the definition of domestic terrorism to include persons who engage in acts of civil disobedience to coerce or affect the conduct of government by intimidation of the civilian population.

And it's not as though we don't have some of the things mentioned in the article, happening here in Britain. Nothing on the scale of America of course; not yet.

Occupy and the Militarisation of Policing Protest

Why, when protesters are peaceably exercising first amendment rights, is the machinery of counter-terrorism being mobilised?

By Ayesha Kazmi
November 03, 2011
The Guardian

In our not-so-distant history, protest in the United States was handled by local law enforcement that treated demonstrations and marches as mere nuisance, mediating and directing as needed. Today, observing the interaction between Occupy movements and law enforcement suggests something different is afoot. Present Occupy protests are now being defined by a bewildering set of law enforcement strategies – and current practices display a worrying new trend.

While riot police are not necessarily an everyday feature at any given protest, the sheer frequency with which we are witnessing their presence on city streets throughout the United States is enough to give average citizens cause for concern; the excessive force being routinely deployed is alarming.

Within the first few days of Occupy Wall Street, protesters began to notice the presence of the NYPD's Counter Terrorism Unit at Liberty Plaza. Joanne Stocker, who has become a fixture since day one at Wall Street, recalls within the first few days waking up to a Counter Terrorism Unit van, parked on the fringes of Liberty Plaza, which was taking video of her and her friends while they slept.

Protesters at other Occupy encampments give similar accounts. Robin Jacks, a member of Occupy Boston's media team, relates being photographed multiple times by police. Dustin Slaughter, who has spent time both at Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philadelphia, attests to the presence of the NYPD Counter Terrorism Unit at Liberty Plaza, saying that the Counter Terrorism Unit have been at Liberty Plaza filming on a regular basis. Slaughter also comments: "Philadelphia Police Homeland Security Units have had a regular presence at the Occupy Philadelphia encampment."

Protesters are indeed correct to view the law enforcement they encounter at Occupy with a critical eye. The USA Patriot Act, which had its 10-year anniversary last week, gave the US government virtually unchecked powers to spy and track the activity of ordinary Americans without probable cause right after the 9/11 attacks. For that reason, it should come as no surprise that law enforcement agencies – thus empowered – have shown up at various Occupy protests armed with cameras, most certainly, to keep surveillance on protesters who are merely exercising their first amendment rights.

Reports of targeted arrests of informal "leaders" at Wall Street, Chicago and Boston indicate surveillance measures are operating. In Boston and Chicago, reports of extended and humiliating detentions of targeted occupy "leaders", typically from Direct Action, media, legal and medics groups, are disturbing. Dan Massoglia of the Occupy Chicago media team further reports that arrested individuals were deprived of their phone call, food and water, and that mattresses were removed from cells, while one woman was placed in solitary confinement.

Curfews placed on occupied city parks are equally perplexing. Legislative Plaza, the site for Occupy Nashville, was ordered to be shut down between 10pm and 6am, rendering its occupation impossible. The orders, however, did not follow standard procedure. Instead of being issued by Nashville municipality, the order came from the state of Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.

Nancy Murray, director of education at the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU, views the various signs of Department of Homeland Security involvement as important indicators that the federal government is orchestrating the policing of Occupy protests throughout the country.

"This would be a big concern because it would show that the federal government is possibly playing an active role in opposing people's rights to free speech and to peaceably assemble," says Murray.

Does this mean that protesters are being treated as terrorists? "It's too early to tell," says Murray. "But it's obvious the feds are watching and observing to get more information … It is possible that the Joint Terrorism Task Force is calling the shots."

"At the beginning of this movement, I could understand why there might have been a presence of Counter Terrorism Units operating at Liberty Plaza – because nobody knew who we were and what we represented," states Stocker. "Now, their presence is just overkill and antagonistic. What we stand for is clear and it is clear we are not terrorists."

Occupy protesters should make themselves familiar with the USA Patriot Act. Section 802 expanded the definition of domestic terrorism to include persons who engage in acts of civil disobedience to coerce or affect the conduct of government by intimidation of the civilian population. Furthermore, the US Department of Defence training manuals, until an amendment in 2009, equated protest with "low-level terrorism". Although the DoD changed the wording two years ago, human rights lawyers and activists have lingering concerns about whether the sentiment and intent has caught up with the change.

Finally, there is the disquieting issue of excessive force at Occupy. In the autumn of 2008, the Army Times reported that for the first time, the US Army planned to station an active unit under the control of Northern Command serving as an on-call federal response in times of both natural and man-made emergencies, including terrorist attacks. Training included a non-lethal package, elements of which the US Army has been using in Iraq, designed to subdue unruly individuals. "The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets."

Despite the existence of the National Guard, whose raison d'etre is to augment civilian law enforcement when its capabilities are exceeded, this additional unit, according to the Army Times, may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The excessive force exhibited at some Occupy locations – the use of tear gas; alleged use of rubber bullets and reported presence of sonic weapons – is becoming a pattern. A protester in California, who wished to remain anonymous, recalls experience of a long range acoustic device (LRAD) in Oakland last week:

"I had been tear gassed three times, so when I first saw the sound cannon, I panicked. When the cannon went off, I felt it pulse through me and I instantly felt dizzy and nauseated. At one point, I fell over. I noticed others around me had fallen over as well and some vomited."

Such anti-riot technologies were characterised as inhumane by human rights observers when they were used to subdue unarmed, peaceful protesters during civil unrest in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2007. They have no place in a democratic country. They may be characterised by authorities as "non-lethal", but they can all too easily become lethal if misused by reckless law enforcement agents. The Occupy movement is explicitly a nonviolent exercise of first amendment rights, yet its policing bears all the hallmarks of a chilling militarisation of law enforcement in the United States. Guardian

Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk

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We Definitely Don't Need No Oakland Yankies Mr Cameron

A follow up to: We Don't Need No Yankies Mr Cameron Written as a reply to Cameron's unstatesman like panic and knee-jerk reactions to the recent riots following the execution of Mark Duggan.

As you are probably aware, Oakland PD have been a tad enthusiastic in beating the shit out of it's citizens in dealing with the Oakland occupy protesters. I might have added: a tad enthusiastic beating the shit out of it's citizens in defence of corporate America. But I don't think that would have been entirely accurate, not judging by their past record and the sound of things. More a case of, because we can, and, because we like it, I would argue.

Oakland PD, having as it does, such a reputation for violence and systematic miscarriages of justice, it operates under the confines a Federal court order, telling it to behave itself.

Just the kind of role model we so desperately need to aspire to here in the UK, dontcha think?

Federal Judge Threatens Oakland Police Department With Court Takeover Over Ongoing Abuses
by Mark Karlin
Oct 1, 2011

Due to past law enforcement abuses, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) has been operating under the monitoring of a federal judge overseeing a consent decree since 2003.

Although it is difficult to set aside the deplorable record of the OPD in dealing with protesters for a moment - including Occupy Oakland advocates last Tuesday - it has a history of using excessive force on a daily basis. This includes the unnecessary drawing of guns, extortion and framing arrested individuals that is so egregious that the department may be put into receivership by the federal courts.

According to a September 11, 2011 article in the Bay Citizen, just a little over a month prior to the infamous Tuesday assault on Occupy Oakland, the federal judge overseeing the police department lambasted their conduct:

In a hearing that exposed the breadth of the problems facing Oakland, a federal judge blasted the Oakland Police Department Thursday for failing to make court-ordered changes designed to reduce police misconduct and abuse.

Before a courtroom full of city leaders and police department brass, U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson highlighted a series of issues that "indicate to me the city and the department still don't get it."

Shortly prior to the assault on Occupy Oakland, the superintendent of the OPD resigned - after the scathing report by the federal judge - and Howard Jordan was appointed as interim chief of police. What was Jordan's prior role as assistant chief of the OPD? According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Jordan:

has been the Police Department's top authority on bringing the force into compliance with a consent decree ordered after four officers were accused more than a decade ago of systematically beating and framing suspects.

The consent decree is the most critical issue facing the department, as a federal judge warned last week that the city faces the possibility of having its Police Department placed in federal receivership due to its failure to fully comply with the court order. Such a move could result in the city losing control over its police budget, its biggest general fund expense.

Jordan, as interim superintendent, oversaw and directed the police action against Occupy Oakland supporters.

This federal consent decree is separate from the accord that the OPD was compelled to reach in 2004, which prohibits the use of potentially lethal and harmful suppression techniques against peaceful crowds, which BuzzFlash at Truthout pointed out they violated last week.

There's a thin blue line in law enforcement between enforcing the law and breaking the law. It's clear to US District Court Judge Henderson that the OPD keeps crossing that line. buzzflash.com

Little wonder then that: The search engine (Google) received a request from police in the US to remove videos it was alleged depicted acts of police brutality, it revealed. Second article in this post.

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Occupy Wall Street: Charlie Rose - Amy Goodman - Chris Hedges Watch

A discussion about Occupy Wall Street with journalist Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

A great little half hour, and interesting stuff from both participants, not just me girlfriend.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11961

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I Know it Must Be Shite Because I read it Dacre's Daily Mail

Not to be confused with: It's Absolutely True Because I Read It In Paul Dacre's Daily Mail

When visiting my mother yesterday I had the unfortunate experience of glancing at this highly partisan article from Paul Dacre's shitty little rag, the Daily Mail. My initial reaction was one of, don't be reticent, tell people whose side your really on.

And it is no small article, there are reams of the stuff; what a pity it's all bullshit. But hey, what are truth and facts to the Mail, it's not as though it comes as a surprise when they make shit up. No of course it isn't, it is after all the Daily Mail.

These are the damning images that prove the anti-capitalist protest that has closed St Paul’s Cathedral is all but deserted at night.

Footage from a thermal imaging camera taken late at night reveals just a fraction of the makeshift camp was occupied.

An independent thermal imaging company, commissioned by the Daily Mail, captured these pictures after similar footage from a police helicopter found only one in ten tents were occupied after dark. A host more shite here.

Yes, all very well, but herein lies a problem, it's all bullshit.

Following all the media hype (Telegraph, The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express) about 'empty tents' at OccupyLSX we decided to check out whether their thermal imaging evidence was true.

We got hold of *exactly* the same thermal imaging camera and showed that - surprise, surprise - you can't tell when people are in their tents.

So don't believe the lies - come down to OccupyLSX and join the vibrant community of people working for a better world. http://occupylsx.org

Oh! I almost forgot.

Surrender of St Paul's: Protest rabble force the cathedral to close, a feat that Hitler could barely manage The Wail

Nice headline.

But I do wish I had a nickel for every time the media have wheeled Hitler out. When all else fails, bring on Adolf

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Pete Seeger Arlo Guthrie Occupy Wall Street Sing Along: Watch

Details and a couple more bits here.

And no show without Punch Bill Maher. I quite liked the way he included Rick Santorum in this three minute clip.

"These people down there, they're not the counter-culture."

"They're the culture."

"They don't want free love, they want paid employment."

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Marine Sergeant - Honour and the US Military Occupy Wall Street

How I wish this big bad motherfucker had employed some other word than the one he has no right to use in the slightest; honour. Because... well I don't have to explain it do I? I will leave that to Bill Hicks in the third clip.

Other than that, I'm with him all the way.

Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas, of Roosevelt, NY, exercises his first amendment right to tell the NYPD to stop beating unarmed people who are exercising their first amendment rights:

Yes, you do just that Lord.

While I go and piss blood.

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A Tale From The Concrete Jungle Book

Thought For Today: A State of Emergency - Martial Law

Will this be the opportunity for the establishment, in their impatience or in their fear, to lash out as the fearful do, and impose a State of Emergency or Martial Law?

Because if they do, unlike previous occasions, their will be no coming back from the next decree. And the infrastructure for just such a situation, is after all, already in place.

A few lines of semi-surreal writing, if that's the right description for it, to go with my little bit of philosophising. It's funny sometimes what you write in the middle of the night. What made me draw the analogy between what is going on all around us today and the few featured lines from Kipling's Jungle book, I have no idea; and it's not as though I have opened the thing this fifty years past.

Have a go at it then, see what you think, there's not but a few lines in any case. If you don't like the writing, the two little photo essays speak plainly enough. Reminding us I should say, that if things don't change, they'll stop as they are.

I, the man, have brought here a little of the Red Flower which ye, dogs, fear
He flung the fire pot on the ground, and some of the red coals lit a tuft of dried moss that flared up, as all the Council drew back in terror before the leaping flames.

And real was the terror for the Council feared above all, those Red Flowers of democracy. Knowing once lit, the Red flowers would join with other Red Flowers to rage through the land unstoppable. Sweeping before it, all the Councils of Mammon, their overlords and all their lackeys alike throughout land, back to the foul swamps from whence they came.

And in their fear the Councils invoked Tienanmen, the great God of repression, who called for all the Red Flowers to return to their pots. And the Red Flowers rose as one, and with a voice singular cried, 'Democracy!' Thus causing the great Tienanmen to order his war chariots to roar down on the Red Flowers, to crush and maim and extinguish this Spring of peaceful blooms that they feared so greatly.

And lo, all the right wing gun nuts who had prepared for just such a day, rose up, and became the true patriots of the land. And they too did rise as one and cry: Over my dead body! If needs must, replied the great God Tienanmen.

Kent State University 1970 Wiki & in depth.

Supreme irony.

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Occupy the Tundra One Woman's Lonely Vigil: Good On You Girl

'Occupy the Tundra': One woman's lonely vigil in bush Alaska
Kim Murphy in Seattle
October 15, 2011

She is standing alone with her dogs with an early frost on the grass, staking her claim as part of the 99%. "Occupy the Tundra," says the sign she holds, hand-lettered on an old piece of cardboard.

Thousands of Americans are occupying Wall Street and various plazas, parks and squares across America. Diane McEachern has made sure that Bethel, Alaska -- a town of 6,400 way out in western Alaska -- is among them.

The picture she posted on the Occupy Wall Street Facebook page of herself in a musk-ox neck warmer, standing in the grass with her dogs in silent protest of corporate greed, has become the rural equivalent of a million-man march. The photo has been shared by thousands of people around the world.

PHOTOS: 'Occupy' protests

"I am a woman. The dogs are rescues. The tundra is outside of Bethel, Alaska. The day is chill. The sentiment is solid. Find your spot. Occupy it. Even if it is only your own mind," she wrote as a caption.

McEachern, an assistant professor in the rural human service program at the University of Alaska's Kuskokwim Campus, said she was following the Wall Street protests and wondering how they might be brought home to a town with one main street and no roads out.

"When I saw that it was growing and there was Occupying Portland and Occupying New Hampshire, I thought, for goodness' sake, what can I occupy? How can I get on this?" McEachern said in an interview with The Times. "And I thought, well, what's my context? What's important to me?"

The foreclosure crisis may not have hit bush Alaska in a huge way, but people in Bethel are paying $6.87 a gallon for gasoline, she said. Stove oil prices for heating homes are equally unaffordable. Cuts in social services to rural villages are pending.

"And right now, they're proposing here the largest gold mine in human history, the Pebble Mine, that's going to do catastrophic damage to the environment and the native community, in the premier wild salmon habitat in the world," she said. "So I'm not well-versed on the larger economic system, but I can relate to the idea of corporate wealth being lopsidedly in the hands of so few, when so many are struggling."

McEachern said she initially took the photo as a lark, inviting a friend to snap her picture with her dogs so she could post it on her own Facebook page. When she decided to post it on Occupy Wall Street's page as well, the image unexpectedly took off.

More than 4,100 people have shared it on their own Facebook pages; nearly 8,000 others have "liked" it. "If I found my way to the tundra, I would give you a hug for how awesome you are!" one person wrote. "Thank you for keeping your lonely vigil!" said another.

"I didn't think anything was going to explode like this," McEachern said. "I didn't really quite get a clue until I opened my Facebook one morning, and there's over 200 friend requests. I've got to tell you, I'm likeable, but not that likeable," she added.

"I think it may be the little dog with the piercing blue eyes, because there are so many comments about that dog piercing their soul," she added, referring to her dog Seabiscuit, one of three resolute-looking canines in the photo. "Either that, or we need to do an exorcism."

In response to the flood of comments, McEachern recently replied, announcing plans to go out on a tundra protest again on Saturday. She took the opportunity to answer queries, some from supporters, some who hadn't had anything nice to say.

"For those who ask about the [permanent fund dividend] that all Alaskans receive [based on oil revenues], I got mine and donated it to Greenpeace on behalf of Glenn Beck," she wrote. "To the suggestion I set myself on fire ...I AM on fire!" LA Times

h/t http://twitter.com/#!/brontyman

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Which side are you on boys, which side are you on?

Dedicated to all the uniformed lackeys of the global establishment.

Which side are you on boys, which side are you on?




Originally part of this post: Occupy Wall Street Protest: Democracy Now Video

Screenshot

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Occupy Wall Street Democracy Now! Daily News Digest October 14

I shall be looking at these myself, but somewhat later.

Democracy Now! Daily News Digest
October 14, 2011

NYC Withdraws Cleaning Evacuation Order in Face of Defiant Occupy Wall Street Protesters Occupy Wall Street protesters are celebrating in Manhattan’s Financial District today after successfully defying orders to evacuate the encampment they have held for nearly four weeks. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had said Zuccotti Park, renamed Liberty Plaza by protesters, would have to be cleared by 7:00 a.m. following a request by its owners that it be cleaned. Thousands of people began congregating in the square overnight amidst concerns the cleaning order was a pretext for evicting the protesters. Hours later, New York City officials announced the request to clear the park had been withdrawn. We go live to Zuccotti Park to speak with Democracy Now!'s Ryan Devereaux. We also speak with New York City Council Member Jumaane Williams, who is one of many local officials who have lent their support for the occupation. Watch/Listen/Read

Constitutional Rights Lawyer Michael Ratner: Failed Occupy Wall Street Evacuation Order is Illegal Speaking from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, attorney Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights says New York City’s efforts to displace Occupy Wall Street protesters in order to clean the park violates their First Amendment rights and would have led to a major confrontation. We also speak with an Occupy Wall Street organizer about plans for a global day of action tomorrow, October 15, called "United for #GlobalChange." Watch/Listen/Read

Alleged Inhumane Conditions for Post-9/11 Suspects Sparks Global Scrutiny of U.S. Detention Policies Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, detention policies in the United States are facing increasing scrutiny both here and abroad. American citizen Tarek Mehanna is set to stand trial this month on charges of "conspiring to support terrorism" and "providing material support to terrorists." He was 27 years old when he was arrested in October 2009 and has been held in solitary confinement since then. Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights is hearing a case on the legality of extradition of terror suspects to the United States on the grounds that inmates are subjected to inhumane conditions of confinement and routine violations of due process. To discuss detention policies since 9/11 in the United States, we’re joined by Tarek Mehanna’s brother, Tamer, and Gareth Peirce, one of Britain’s best-known human rights attorneys. Watch/Listen/Read

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Amy Goodman Democracy Now On Occupy (Wall St) Lots of Cities

Protests inspired by the "Occupy Wall Street" encampment in New York City continued to expand this weekend with protests taking place in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, San Francisco and Oakland, among others. Many of the protests have led to arrests. After about 500 protesters gathered during the day in front of the Iowa Statehouse in Des Moines, renaming the capitol complex "People’s Park," police arrested 32 people after they spent the night in the park. Also over the weekend, in Washington, D.C., the National Air and Space Museum was closed Saturday afternoon after security guards used pepper spray to repel more than 100 demonstrators protesting an exhibit on drones. Afterward, an assistant editor with the conservative publication The American Spectator wrote online he had infiltrated the group and provoked guards to pepper spray the crowd. Back in New York City, thousands of protesters marched from their base in the Financial District, where the "Occupy Wall Street" encampment is entering its fourth week, to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek addressed demonstrators Sunday at Zuccotti Park. "They tell you are we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers," Žižek says. "We are the awakening, from a dream which is turning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself." Transcript

As the "Occupy" movement expands from the "Occupy Wall Street" protest in New York City throughout the United States, we look at its historical significance. "This is an incredibly significant moment in U.S. history," says Dorian Warren of Columbia University. "It might be a turning point, because this is the first time we’ve seen an emergence of a populist movement on the left since the 1930s." We also speak to Firedoglake blogger Kevin Gosztola, who has been reporting from the occupations in Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Transcript

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Martin Luther King: A Time to Break Silence

A fine speech in seven parts one part.

A Time to Break Silence
By Rev. Martin Luther King

By 1967, King had become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

Time magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi," and the Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."

Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,
Off'ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.

James Russell Lowell

Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence

h/t ICH and transcript h/t zzahier for the uploads.

It's not hard to appreciate, particularly with the benefit of hindsight, that this, along with others I imagine, was an extremely dangerous speech, contributing no doubt to King's subsequent assassination one year later. I thought to look into King's assassination and see if there was any light shed on who ordered his execution. Although too late for me to take in the details tonight, I shall leave this link to more or less the first sight I dropped on that might elucidate things a little.

Unread then. http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/king.htm

Update: Democracy Now Special: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in His Own Words Includes a good proportion of this and other speeches.

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The Peasants Are Revolting Occupy Wall Street Roundup

Map: Occupy Wall Street Spreads Nationwide (Updated)

Explore MoJo's interactive map of the anti-Wall Street protests spreading across America. Plus: inequality charts, an NYC timeline, a roundup of top coverage, and more.

Various clips at Democracy Now.

Occupy Wall Street: 'We're Mad As Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Anymore'

10 Things to Know About Wall Street's Rapacious Attack on America

'We Can't Afford Not to Be Here': Occupy DC Takes Off

Occupy Wall Street Spreads to 853 Cities: Arrests in LA, New Orleans Protests, Bernie Sanders' Support -- Latest Updates From the 99%

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Police Tactic ''Trap and Detain'' Multi-Million Dollar Payouts in The Past

Occupy Wall Street Mass Arrest Resembles Infamous, Costly Police Tactic, Critics Say

WASHINGTON -- Ben Becker, 27, sat in the back of a police-commandeered transit bus on Saturday night, his hands placed tightly behind his back in plastic cuffs. He'd been marching on the Brooklyn Bridge as part of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. And like hundreds of other activists railing against the inequities of the financial system, he had been swept up in a mass arrest by the New York Police Department.

Becker was one of the first placed in custody. His bus filled up fast. They waited, tied up for hours, and did not know their charges, Becker said. For many, this was new: the march, the chanting, the arrest.

"Some of the teenagers on the bus were extremely nervous," Becker said.

But this was a scenario Becker knew well. He was the named plaintiff in the Partnership for Civil Justice's 2001 federal class-action lawsuit against the District of Columbia, known as Becker v. D.C. That case stemmed from the D.C. police department's mass arrest of anti-IMF/World Bank demonstrators on April 15, 2000. Becker was one of nearly 700 people arrested during that march. He was 16 at the time.

On Tuesday, the Partnership for Civil Justice filed yet another class-action lawsuit -- this one again on behalf of Becker and others arrested on the bridge.

"I was telling the young people -- the teenagers -- the people who had been protesting for the first time, when we were sitting on the bus for hours, I was telling them the similarities to April 2000," said Becker, who is currently an adjunct professor at City College of New York and a graduate student studying history.

The mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge resemble a clear, premeditated police tactic that has come to be known as "trap and detain," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice. The tactic goes something like this, she said: the police permit and escort marchers to proceed with their activities before suddenly corralling them into a closed off area and arresting everyone in one sweep.

The police will use a side street, a park, or, in the case of Occupy Wall Street, a bridge -- usually an area where the people trapped cannot disperse, and where they end up having to beg the police to leave, Verheyden-Hilliard said. Journalists, tourists and legal observers are often caught up in these dragnets. A reason for the arrests is crafted after the fact, she said.

The NYPD says its officers warned the activists not to take the motorway. “There were claims police had not issued warnings,” Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the police, stated in an email to The New York Times. “In fact, warnings were issued and captured on video.”

The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post.

Verheyden-Hilliard said the fact that the so-called warnings were videotaped shows premeditation. She added that the warnings were bad theater -- police were speaking inaudibly into a bullhorn; they were for show only, she said.

Police departments may have popularized the tactic of snuffing out and intimidating protests during the anti-globalization movement a decade ago that criticized corporate capitalism. But Verheyden-Hilliard said the method has gone international in the last couple of years.

"It's been used in London and in Toronto. They call it 'kettling' there in Toronto," she said. “It's a particular tactic, a refined police tactic -- you get boxed by police on all sides or, even easier, when there are buildings or a bridge and you block the front and the back."

The tactic has been deployed by police in Oakland and other cities as well, according to Verheyden-Hilliard. But it was D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department that made "trap and detain" infamous.

On April 15, 2000, according to court records, demonstrators had gathered in front of the Department of Justice on Pennsylvania Avenue NW and marched to a spot close to the International Monetary Fund on 19th Street NW. Police were very much a presence during the march. As the crowd headed toward Dupont Circle, where it was set to disperse, the activists were suddenly penned in on a side street by the police, according to Becker and court records.

The department at the time justified the arrests by arguing that the officers were trying to prevent chaos in the streets. "I apologize for nothing we did," the then-Police Chief Charles Ramsey said at the time. "They have the right to sue us just like they had the right to protest."

Along with the mass arrest, several plaintiffs in the Becker case alleged that they were beaten by D.C. cops. The court case produced a video that showed a police unit charging a group of demonstrators and beating them in the face with batons. The officers had obscured their badge numbers. Another plaintiff said he had been injured with pepper spray and alleged that the cop's attack had been unprovoked.

"There was a police line in riot gear," Becker remembered. "They refused to let us go. We turned around and the police line blocked. We were chanting for almost an hour, 'let us go!'"

Becker said he heard the same chants on the Brooklyn Bridge this past weekend. People were chanting their lungs out when the march started at 3 p.m. Saturday at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, he said. It soon passed City Hall. Only 15 minutes in, thousands of demonstrators had picked out a few favorites.

"Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!" they chanted.

"We are the 99 percent!"

And in honor of the recent execution of a Georgia inmate: "We are all Troy Davis!"

Throughout the march, the throngs stayed on sidewalks. If people spilled onto the streets, police were there within seconds to admonish them to get off the roadway, Becker said. Becker and Joshua Stephens, another demonstrator interviewed by HuffPost, said everyone complied without hassle. "It was a very closely-monitored and marshaled protest up to the Brooklyn Bridge," Becker recalled.

There had been a demonstration the previous day at One Police Plaza over a pepper-spray incident. A white-shirt cop had indiscriminately sprayed several women in the face; it had been caught on tape and gone viral. Becker said a thousand people showed up and said their piece without getting hassled by police.

The march became a bottleneck at the bridge, Becker said. The demonstrators first had to cross a street and then pass a narrow entranceway. Becker said he saw no cops as he passed on to the bridge.

When Marcel Cartier, 27, started marching on the bridge's motorway, he said the police only insisted on keeping one lane open for cars. "We began marching on the street with police right next to us not saying anything," he told HuffPost. "The most that was said -- 'Excuse me brother, could you move over?' They kept one lane open for cars. It was fine. It was perfectly okay for us to be on that street on the bridge."

After about 15 minutes on the bridge, the march came to a halt as the police formed a line and stopped the marchers, Becker said. Cartier and Becker both moved up to the front.

A police official took out a piece of paper and read from it into a bullhorn. "It was inaudible," Becker said. "I couldn't hear."

Cartier didn't get the message either. "I heard absolutely nothing," he said. "No announcement that they were going to arrest people." He didn't know he was in trouble until three others were hauled away. Then a cop pointed at him and a few officers pulled him out and cuffed him, he said. He was the fourth activist arrested that day.

Becker, before he was arrested, asked an officer: "Why are you doing this?" He pressed that the police were the ones blocking traffic. Another cop grabbed him and escorted him to the police bus, he said. It would be the second arrest in his life, the first being in April 2000.

"I certainly was not expecting or wanting to be having a repeat encounter," Becker said. "The arrests in 2000 were horrible for the people that went through them...There is still a lot of legal work to be done to correct that. This movement that's developing has to take this on as a major issue."

The April 2000 lawsuit resulted in record settlement with the District of Columbia in 2009 agreeing to pay $13.7 million to those arrested. The litigation also resulted in a ban on the "trap and detain" tactic. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman wrote that it reminded him of the old discredited police responses to anti-Vietnam War protesters -- "when thousands of demonstrators were arrested on a theory of 'group' probable cause on the steps of the Capitol, in West Potomac Park, and on the streets of the District of Columbia."

A subsequent case was brought against the Metropolitan Police Department over the arrest of 400 individuals in Pershing Park in September 2002 for, once again, demonstrations involving anti-globalization activists.

Like the other "trap and detain" cases, the police surrounded the downtown-D.C. park and hauled away everyone inside -- including tourists and nurses who weren’t necessarily involved but were merely taking a break from a nearby convention. That case, also filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice, was settled with the city in late 2009 for $8.25 million. A second lawsuit stemming from Pershing Park has yet to reach a settlement.

The NYPD, Verheyden-Hilliard said, should expect a similar fight. "I think people have to recognize the police are acting deliberately and intentionally," she said. "It's not that they're reacting to some protest or misconduct or that they're overreaching or maybe they had probable cause to arrest someone. They did not have probable cause to arrest anyone. They have been engaged in a pattern and practice to suppress dissent for years."

"They ordered the arrest buses from Rikers," she added. "When you are ordering arrest buses, you are intending to make mass arrests." huffpo

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"Something Has Started": Michael Moore Occupy Wall Street : Democracy Now

Two segments from Democracy Now. The first, where Michael Moore discusses the implications of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The second and much lengthier piece, (link only) is a chat between Moore and Amy Goodman, where Moore talks about his formative years, his film making and his new book, Here Comes Trouble. Towards the end of the piece there is a clip of Moore accepting his Oscar for Bowling For Columbine, the ruckus his acceptance speech caused, and its consequent effects on Moore's life, and the threats to that life.

I posted excerpts from Here Comes Trouble that covered that period of his life in a post entitled Michael Moore Croissant-Eater.

"Something Has Started": Michael Moore on the Occupy Wall St. Protests That Could Spark a Movement

Oscar-winning filmmaker, best-selling author,and provocateur laureate Michael Moore joins us for the hour. One of the world’s most acclaimed — and notorious — independent filmmakers and rabble-rousers, his documentary films include Roger and Me; Bowling for Columbine for which he won the Academy Award, Fahrenheit 9/11, SICKO; and Capitalism: A Love Story. In the first part of our interview, Moore talks about the growing "Occupy Wall Street" protests in Lower Manhattan, which he visited on Monday night. "This is literally an uprising of people who have had it," Moore says. "It has already started to spread across the country in other cities. It will continue to spread. ... It will be tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people ... Their work ahead is not as difficult as other movements in the past ... The majority of Americans are really upset at Wall Street ... So you have already got an army of Americans who are just waiting for somebody to do something, and something has started." Democracy Now

"Here Comes Trouble": Michael Moore Tells The Formative Tales Behind His Filmmaking, Rabble-Rousing

For more than two decades, Michael Moore has been one of the most politically active, provocative and successful documentary filmmakers in the business. We talk to Moore about his new memoir, "Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life," which comprises 20 biographic vignettes that capture how his political and sociological viewpoints developed. He also discusses the numerous attacks and death threats he received after speaking out against former President George W. Bush, after winning a 2003 Academy Award for his film, Bowling for Columbine. He first discussed these fears and necessity to hire a security team on Democracy Now! last year, which ultimately encouraged him to write publicly about these incidents in his memoir. Watch Democracy Now

Having more respect for, than I had knowledge of, I rectified that shortcoming by reading Amy Goodman's bio on Wiki. Link here if you are of a like mind.

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More Stormtrooper Tales From The Streets of New York (Video)

Update: The Revolution Begins at Home AlterNet

Lawrence O'Donnell on Police Brutality at Occupy Wall Street
27 September 2011
by: Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC | Video Report

This weekend a few troublemakers turned a peaceful protest against Wall Street greed into a violent burst of chaos. The troublemakers carried pepper spray and guns and were wearing badges. Truthout

It was only Monday evening as it happens, that a friend was relating the story of her friend who was taking his first vacation somewhere in Florida. Having just arrived at the apartment that he was staying in, he wandered down to the grocery store to buy milk etc.

Taking a tourist's interest in things novel, he looked at two cops sat in a cruiser, the next thing he knew, he was slammed against a wall with a gun to to his head to the accompanying shouts of ''What the fuck are you looking at?'' Nice Huh?

Below is a post that was in progress, but now I shall post it as is. It was going to be, and still is for that matter, dedicated to all the men and woman around the world that find themselves behind the wire.

It's not designed to be Irish political specifically, the application of the songs is universal.

The Men Behind The Wire

Previous:

Occupy Wall Street Protest: Democracy Now Video

Don't Flush The Loo In Oceania

This Is What A Police State Looks Like

Indiana Official Police State

Tyranny In The Heartland. Amerika's Stormtrooper Police

There's plenty more under the Fascism tag, but I think you get the idea.

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