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Wall Street’s Second Occupation: The Police Move In
These last weeks, there have been two “occupations” in lower Manhattan, one of which has been getting almost all the coverage -- that of the demonstrators camping out in Zuccotti Park. The other, in the shadows, has been hardly less massive, sustained, or in its own way impressive -- the police occupation of the Wall Street area. 
This massive semi-militarized force we continue to call “the police” will, in the coming years, only grow more so. After all, they know but one way to operate. (photo: vandalog / RJ)
On a recent visit to the park, I found the streets around the Stock Exchange barricaded and blocked off to traffic, and police everywhere in every form (in and out of uniform) -- on foot, on scooters, on motorcycles, in squad cars with lights flashing, on horses, in paddy wagons or minivans, you name it. At the park’s edge, there is a police observation tower capable of being raised and lowered hydraulically and literally hundreds of police are stationed in the vicinity. I counted more than 50 of them on just one of its sides at a moment when next to nothing was going on -- and many more can be seen almost anywhere in the Wall Street area, lolling in doorways, idling in the subway, ambling on the plazas of banks, and chatting in the middle of traffic-less streets.
This might be seen as massive overkill. After all, the New York police have already shelled out an extra $1.9 million, largely in overtime pay at a budget-cutting moment in the city. When, as on Thursday, 100 to 150 marchers suddenly headed out from Zuccotti Park to circle Chase Bank several blocks away, close to the same number of police -- some with ominous clumps of flexi-cuffs dangling from their belts -- calved off with them. It’s as if the Occupy Wall Street movement has an eternal dark shadow that follows it everywhere.
At one level, this is all mystifying. The daily crowds in the park remain remarkably, even startlingly, peaceable. (Any violence has generally been the product of police action.) On an everyday basis, a squad of 10 or 15 friendly police officers could easily handle the situation. There is, of course, another possibility suggested to me by one of the policemen loitering at the Park’s edge doing nothing in particular: “Maybe they’re peaceable because we’re here.” And here's a second possibility: as my friend Steve Fraser, author of Wall Street: America’s Dream Palace, said to me, “This is the most important piece of real estate on the planet and they’re scared. Look how amazed we are. Imagine how they feel, especially after so many decades of seeing nothing like it.”
And then there’s a third possibility: that two quite separate universes are simply located in the vicinity of each other and of what, since September 12, 2001, we’ve been calling Ground Zero. Think of it as Ground Zero Doubled, or think of it as the militarized recent American past and the unknown, potentially inspiring American future occupying something like the same space. (You can, of course, come up with your own pairings, some far less optimistic.) In their present state, New York’s finest represent a local version of the way this country has been militarized to its bones in these last years and, since 9/11, transformed into a full-scale surveillance-intelligence-homeland-security state.
Their stakeout in Zuccotti Park is geared to extreme acts, suicide bombers, and terrorism, as well as to a conception of protest and opposition as alien and enemy-like. They are trying to herd, lock in, and possibly strangle a phenomenon that bears no relation to any of this. They are, that is, policing the wrong thing, which is why every act of pepper spraying or swing of the truncheon, every aggressive act (as in the recent eviction threat to “clean” the park) blows back on them and only increases the size and coverage of the movement.
Though much of the time they are just a few feet apart, the armed state backing that famed 1%, or Wall Street, and the unarmed protesters claiming the other 99% might as well be in two different times in two different universes connected by a Star-Trekkian wormhole and meeting only where pepper spray hits eyes.
Which means anyone visiting the Occupy Wall Street site is also watching a strange dance of phantoms. Still, we do know one thing. This massive semi-militarized force we continue to call “the police” will, in the coming years, only grow more so. After all, they know but one way to operate.
Right now, for instance, over crowds of protesters the police hover in helicopters with high-tech cameras and sensors, but in the future there can be little question that in the skies of cities like New York, the police will be operating advanced drone aircraft. Already, as Nick Turse indicates in a groundbreaking report “America’s Secret Empire of Drone Bases,” the U.S. military and the CIA are filling the global skies with missile-armed drones and the clamor for domestic drones is growing. The first attack on an American neighborhood, not one in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, or Libya, surely lurks somewhere in our future. Empires, after all, have a way of coming home to roost.
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050. His other most recent book is The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books). Previous books include: The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond, The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.
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47 Comments so far
Show AllIMHO if you get a call from a police organization asking you for money for whatever reason maybe you should tell them they should be calling the 1% who they REALLY protect for money and not you.
Maybe you should tell them you don't support cops who pepper spray defenseless women, and arrest people who are doing nothing more than exercising their constitutional right to assemble. Maybe you should tell them when push comes to shove the cop on the phone would be grinding your face in the dirt when the crap hits the fan so why should you give them money.
Maybe you should just tell them to go F*** off...
A good thing to do, but there may be consequences. In my nearest metropolis, Denver, the police are notorious for keeping extensive files on anyone they don't like. I doubt this is an isolated practice.
The ones who call are NOT the police. They are the "Fraternal Order of Police", which is nothing but a SCAM organization that gives the LEAST amount possible to be considered a charity. They have ALWAYS been a scam.
I live in Longmont, and I keep getting calls for the ASPEN Frat order of Police. I have told them (and the local Lomgmont scum) to NEVER bother me again or I will call the state attorney general and press charges. I tell ALL of them that I KNOW they are a scam, I've KNOWN they are a scam for at least 30 years, and I would NEVER give such a bunch of scum a penny. I let them know in NO uncertain terms that they are the lowest of the low, and if it were up to me, they would be inhabiting a jail cell. When they try to object and make their pitch, I tell them that if they continue they are just making things worse for themselves, and I WILL remember their inability to take GO THE FUCK AWAY for an answer.
Don't be afraid of these vermin, they ARE vermin and deserve to be treated like it. I have been doing this for over 10 years, now, and have yet to be screwed with any more than usual. Tell these scum to leave you alone and NEVER bother you again. They don't deserve to be in existence.
I'll bet you that these are the same low life that used to call to collect for the Policemen's Ball. I enjoy telling all these guys to take a flying F&%k!
I've been telling them to fuck off for forty years. It just makes me feel good.
The security state is right up there with the Military Industrial Complex mentioned years ago by Eisenhower.
And now the banks are up there as well.
The word "industrial" needs to be changed to "corporations."
They have taken over. See the column by Chris Hedges today here at Common Dreams
The security industry is part of the military industrial complex. An ever increasingly large part.
I think we should have defined "terrorism" before we declared war on it. It would appear the poor police forces of this nation are confused about constitutional rights, and the fears of a "domestic insurgency" (whatever that means). I am thinking their privatized commercialized trainers aren't up on their constitution. They probably thought it had been repealed totally. I wouldn't expect the "new Pinkertons"/Xe and their ilk to be well versed in the constitution. But I would expect our commander in chief to be so. He ran on his constitutional scholarship.
Think back to the police overkill during Michael Jackson's funeral. What a waste of resources that was. This is going to make it look small in comparison. An aside: Who in their right mind would have classified Michael Jackson fans as combative?
Only slightly off from your topic. There are many definitions of terrorism. The FBI definition is typical:-
"Terrorism: the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."
As you can see, there is nothing in that definition that precludes the USA from being the worlds biggest terrorist (by a few orders of magnitude), except the dubious adjective "lawful". Take actions of whatever US invasion, occupation or overthrow that you will, and you will generally find that the definition fits. That is to say, there are terrorists, and then there are THE Terrorists.
That never once got in the way of our propaganda, however, where in nations being terrorized by us, the local populations are regularly referred to as terrorists.
Actually most of the US anti-terrorist actions - invasion of Iraq, use of torture, Guantanamo, etc. etc. are unlawful because they violate the Geneva Conventions. Since these are part of a treaty signed by the US, according to the Constitution they are the law of the land. Thus the double standard use of the word "terrorism"is complete.
Under US Law, the Constitution supersedes all treaties. Regardless of the supremacy clause. That means that if there is a variance between a treaty signed and national law, national law wins. Reid v Convert 1957.
Which Geneva Convention did they violate?
The U..S. subverted the Geneva Convention by changing the rules, from how war is governed and what the rules are. The U.S. does not abide by its treaties not just the Geneva Convention.
dia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fort_Laramie_(1868)
They still haven't settled this one after more than 130 years.
Of course, terrorism is a nebulous term because then it can be expanded.
Note the evolution of the "War"--first they screeched about muslim extremists, then about folks providing "material support" to same...
And now, the DHS is all booga-booga about the so-called "lone wolf", which justifies naked scans at football games, the mall, the courthouse...
And pretty soon, wherever they goddamn want.
You assume, I suggest incorrectly, that the folks who've been in charge the past thirty years [corporations and their owners] have anything but their own interests at heart.
They don't see death and maiming and impoverishment and enslavement as bad things if the profits are there.
And, oh baby, the profits are there. Ask Xe, eh?
"Their stakeout in Zuccotti Park is geared to extreme acts, suicide bombers, and terrorism, as well as to a conception of protest and opposition as alien and enemy-like. They are trying to herd, lock in, and possibly strangle a phenomenon that bears no relation to any of this. They are, that is, policing the wrong thing, which is why every act of pepper spraying or swing of the truncheon, every aggressive act (as in the recent eviction threat to “clean” the park) blows back on them and only increases the size and coverage of the movement.
Though much of the time they are just a few feet apart, the armed state backing that famed 1%, or Wall Street, and the unarmed protesters claiming the other 99% might as well be in two different times in two different universes connected by a Star-Trekkian wormhole and meeting only where pepper spray hits eyes."
I've been critical of Englehardt in the past, but I burst out laughing when I read this bit--
It's tough to find humor anywhere as the police state emerges, without blinking, into the sunlight...
I jumped in as a Legal Observer for the local occupation. It's all been very peaceful so far, with demonstrators hi-fiving bike cops, but the camping-in-the-heart-of-downtown has just begun.
Get out there--or, if you're unable to, contact your local Occupy movement and send them food, water, blankets, tarps, cookies--or a nice card with a note of support.
Time to join in and help. Winter is coming, and it will only get harder for the next few months even if the police don't start cracking heads as they have already at OWS, Denver, Seattle, and elsewhere--
Peace.
The po'lice are the long arm of the law, and the law is the long arm of the controlling powers, so the po'lice are the long arm of the controlling powers.........
Looking ahead: even if the protest movement were to suffer severe attrition throughout the cold and icy snows of winter (not an unrealistic probability given the lack of housing and heating), it may be possibly 'reborn' far stronger in the springtime. This is a movement only in its infancy.....optimal growth may come when conditions are most favorable.
This movement is screaming its arrival to those most threatened by its birth. . . .
they will hunt ways to try to drown it in the East River, no doubt.
The po'lice will be the aggressors: the rationale will be that protests are a security threat and some quasi-logical excuse tendered to what that fictional threat is.
I suspect that NYC and other cities will next pass 'anti-loitering' edicts specifically targeting such protests, and parade/protest permits will equally be denied on "security" pretense.
The next step for the citizenry will be massive disobedience assemblies, and it doesn't take much to envision at some point a Kent State redux.
We have seen this pattern before.
History is filled, as Howard Zinn reported, with tales of citizens beseeching unresponsive rulers/owners for a greater share in the process of governance and the profits of labor. Usually, protest accomplishes some reform, but not enough.
This time, "some" is no longer satisfactory to anyone in the movement.
Good article by Tom.
I suspect he's right about it's just a matter of time before armed UAVs patrol american cities. It's like Orwell must have lived in the future?
Remarkable! Should I be happy or sad? While the protests going on in NY and elsewhere, the cops are making a killing "OVERTIME.” I bet you they want this goes on indefinitely.
OWS boosting our GDP
Hahaha yep, this is something I love to say too :-D And they are thus fulfilling the ultimate mission any human being can take - because this is what Life is about. Forget Heaven and Hell, the World Spirit or the spirit of History, gods, knowledge or self-fulfillment. Forget Jesus and Marx, forget Goethe and Thoreau, Cincinnatus and Cicero, Bacon and Newton. Meaningless bullshit, all of them. GDP must be increased.
it has to be pointed out that many, if not all, North American Police forces and departments are the de facto 'Praetorian Guard' of the Elite.
This was proved damningly by the JP Morgan Chase 'donation' of 4.6 MILLION dollars to the NYPD, who has a special 'Paid Duty Detail' that can be hired to protect Corporate interests using the publicly paid for Police uniforms, badges and weaponry, along with relevant laws (not always legally) to support Corporate aims and interests EVEN THOUGH doing so violates the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. All to protect the Corporations from rightful public criticism and scrutiny.
Does that sound like 'Democracy' to you?
Or more like a totalitarian Police State?
"The first attack on an American neighborhood, not one in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, or Libya, surely lurks somewhere in our future. Empires, after all, have a way of coming home to roost." Guaranteed. Count on it.
The Plutocracy - the corporations and the rich 1% that guard their interests, as well as the politicians in power that do their bidding (many times the same people) - will use every means at their disposal to protect their grip on power, from which all their ill-gotten riches flow from us to them. EVERY means. The Posse Comitatus Act has already been killed - witness Waco, TX, for instance, or New Orleans after Katrina, or the North American Division of the US Army, on standby 24/7 in case any of us serfs rise up in significant numbers to threaten them. OWS is raising some eyebrows among the plutocracy - will it eventually go away, once all the pent-up anger and steam has been released? Or is it a harbinger of a threat to their power over us? They are watching very closely. If the latter ever takes place, you can bet your last penny that drones over Amereichan cities will simply be one of many horrific tools that will be used to put us down in our proper places.
Last Saturday, I stood in front of the capitol building in Lansing MI listening to Kat Sluka tell the story of her sexual assault, beating, and arrest at OWS in NYC. As I listened, my mind filled with the newsreel images of the police dogs and water cannons unleashed on the civil rights marchers in Selma. I heard from Kat the words of a citizen who had become radicalized by being on the wrong end of police power. I don't know what she did to deserve the abuse she experienced, but it doesn't really matter. Every concerned citizen ought to think hard about what the police presence at the OWS sights around the country really means. When I walked from my car to the rally and saw the line of Michigan State police cars fly by, I knew very well what it meant. The powers that be are more than willing to cow citizens by a show of and use of overswhelming force. Sadly, I have to agree with your assertion that police power will be used if the threat to the powerful rises beyond a tolerable level. Dogs and water cannons become pepper spray, tasers, rubber bullets, etc. What's next?
You are just now learning the extent of police corruption. As an American Indian, I have experienced this for many years. Every major ceremony or gathering of Native Peoples is photographed either in our presence or from the air. Our people are being held illegally in prisons and are being held after their sentences have been completed. Leonard Peltier remains a political prisoner, his life stolen from him as the FBI continues to retain evidence that would free him. These are the things you face. You better be up to it.
They have that crowd buster weapon all primed and ready to go if they think the OWS crowd has reached what they consider a critical mass. Until then it'll be the dogs, water cannon, pepper spray, batons, tasers, rubber bullets, etc.
Yep, and I bet that is why the police are beating and spraying people. They are trying to push them towards violence so they have an excuse to bring out the Big Toys. Resistence is Futile in the minds of the Elite's. I stand in awe of all those protesting in my name. I might be able to get to SL this week.
Yep, and I bet that is why the police are beating and spraying people. They are trying to push them towards violence so they have an excuse to bring out the Big Toys. Resistence is Futile in the minds of the Elite's. I stand in awe of all those protesting in my name. I might be able to get to SL this week.
The violence by the fascist amerikan police state against the people, will only increase ! But the violence will fuel the Rebellion ! The People WILL overthrow the oppressors !
Be sure to read http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/10/financial-giants-put-new-york-city-cops-on-their-payroll/ it brings perspective to this issue.
Off Duty cops paid for by corps are just as guilty of violent crime when they harm someone. So find a real cop when one of these jackshirts tries to mess with you.
Yes, but you're all right here, hammering away at your keybords instead of out there with the Occupiers. (no need to turn this on me - I've done my stint.)
How do you know that? Ever heard of IPads, netbooks, etc.? Anyway, what gives you the right to make judgments on other people as to the form and method of the protest actions they take and of their support - or not - of OWS?
Step down off your self-righteousness pedestal.
I bought two pizzas...
I also have a gift certificate for some dance lessons...
do any protesters need dance lessons?
how about an old computer that still runs Windows 97?
an extra VHS of Field Of Dreams? any one protesting that needs to watch it?
no, no, don't thank me...just doing my part...
if I protest in my area, who will buy my pizzas? actually, I prefer Sesame Chicken...
1.9 million in over time is nothing when new yorks julliana sold the police white shirts to wall street. Wall street wastes more than that in champaine and toilet paper, rent a cop is real, rent a politician is normal, corporations are people, isn't it time for congress to get a raise? Or at least the Roberts court?
When the police realize they are part of the 99% and many have the courage and decide to join the OWS protesters, like what happened in N.Y. when the Chief told the N.Y. police to back off, then you might see change you can begin to believe in.
Listen to Kat Sluka's story about her encounter with police power on Wall Street and how it radicalized her. Then decide for yourself what might happen if this movement continues to grow. If it does it will be because of people like her telling their stories and becoming leaders and the rest of us standing with them saying 'we shall not be moved!!'. Let Kat's story be a caution and forewarning to us of how police power will respond.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcPE7MeTQR4
I suspect this overkill of police force when next-to-thing is actually going on and the people are protesting peacefully is because they are planning a very common tactic of planting police into the crowds to incite violence. A cop in plain clothes will throw a rock or worse, and then all this "overkill" which was just actually "waiting for the kill" will descend. This happened in Canada at a union strike when 3 plain clothes cops showed up and started trying to rev up the protesters to violence. They politely told the men they were not interested and that they never saw them before and asked them to please LEAVE. The guys kept is up but no one took the bait, so the cops came and HAD to make it look like they were arresting them and they put them face down on the sidewalk . ALL 3 b*s*rds had police-issued shoes which was so obvious when everyone saw the bottom of their feet. But, if one throws a stone or something, the cops could descend on the crowd claiming they don't know where it came from and claim the "crowd" became violent. Thankfully, with a million cameras running from everything and everyone, we can all see it wasn't the truth.
"The guys kept is up but no one took the bait, so the cops came and HAD to make it look like they were arresting them and they put them face down on the sidewalk . ALL 3 b*s*rds had police-issued shoes which was so obvious when everyone saw the bottom of their feet. "
that was the 2007 Quebec G-20 summit
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/248608
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow
great piece of "police work" there...
The Egyptian police thugs road camels into the crowds - what's Bloomberg use?
Horses and light motorcycles.
"It’s as if the Occupy Wall Street movement has an eternal dark shadow that follows it everywhere."
The shadow always follows the light. The parasite always follows the host. The predator always follows the prey. The elite always follows the people. Das kapitalist always follows the innovator. The exploiter always follows the exploited.
We see who leads who. So we see who is expendable. It has always been well-established that the predator is expendable. The top of the food chain, the top of the class hierarchy, may be lopped off without serious harm to the ecosystem.
"Right now, for instance, over crowds of protesters the police hover in helicopters with high-tech cameras and sensors, ": This is something so old and familiar to people of color in the USA in the ghettos, inner cities, reservations and now it is evidence that they--the "1%"-are coming after everyone else.
" the streets around the stock exchange bsrricaded and blocked off to traffic"... Now that is a good positive start. I have not seen it , but that sounds a bit disruptive. The 1 % must be looking out their windows and noting that things look a tad out of place. That must certainly be disquieting to them. So chalk up one for the 99%
It's an excellent tactic, making allies of the police. During the March 2003 antiwar protests in SF we occupied Market Street (a main street downtown where the Occupation is now) until the police arrived. Then they occupied the street, "to keep us out" or some such bogusity, blocking traffic even better than we had. All we had to do was keep a few potential protestors standing on the sidewalk nearby and 20 or 30 police did our protest for us. The rest of us could go elsewhere and block other streets using 8 of us and 30 of them.
Well Mr mayor where is the honor in renting cops to wall street to beat the American people, well? New York mayors just plain suck!
Lets take up a collection and buy us some NY cops!
What a good idea, where can we bid on the cops just like an auction. Wall street will out bid though, after all, they have all our money.
The sad truth is that no "American Revolution" can fully succeed today without the strong and honest support from all mainstream churches. By support I mean sermons every Sunday in support of the Occupations to millions of church-goers and active participation in the streets. We need to see thousands of priests and ministers out there. Would Jesus not be out there with the poor and downtrodden? Without that support this Revolution will achieve only a few tugs at the margins. A few more controls of bankers which they will soon learn to evade. Just like people continued to drink during Prohibition and some went to jail for it. The Volstead act became a joke because there was not enough investigative personnel. I seem to remember that the failure of Congressional oversight what the bankers were doing was a major contribution to the bank-crash of 2008. That cycle is going to repeated ad infinitum without a major societal re-arrangement.
I also seem to remember that the fall of the Berlin Wall began in a Leipzig church.
It will not happen here because most US churches have already chosen sides in the never ending class-struggle. It appears to me that most are on the side of the bankers without openly admitting it. Nothing will fundamentally change until our nation has eradicated religion from politics and the class-struggle. That is why some GOP politicians can use the word "mob". Translation: "Jacobin; Guillotine; Priest-killers".