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Police Crackdowns on OWS Coordinated among Mayors, FBI, DHS
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan let slip in an interview with the BBC that she had been on a conference call with the mayors of 18 cities about how to deal with the Occupy Wall Street movement. That is, municipal authorities appear to have been conspiring to deprive Americans of their first amendment rights to freedom of assembly and freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances.
Likewise, A Homeland Security official let it slip in a phone interview that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security had been strategizing with cities on how to shut down OWS protests. The FBI is said to have advised using zoning ordinances and curfew regulations, and to stage the crackdown with massive police force at a time when the press was not around to cover the crackdown.
Wonkette suggests that the PATRIOT Act is implicated here, but I’m not sure how that works. Actually the techniques discussed are standard for US police forces in dealing with peaceful protests (the only routine technique missing is that of putting saboteurs among the protesters who cause destruction and create an image of them as violent.
What these two reports show is a high-level conspiracy to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to protest peacefully.
When will we see Occupy Wall Street protesters hooded, dressed in orange jump suits, and sent to Guantanamo for military trials? When you let the government act without regard for the rule of law toward foreigners suspected of terrorism, you open yourself to be treated the same way if the rich decide to sic their police on you (it is mostly their police). This is why a rule of law has to be maintained. Anything less ratchets toward tyranny.
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53 Comments so far
Show AllSo now what?
We are talking about federal police, which means this is the Obama administration behind this.
The power and money know the problems. Climate change, oil running out, water growing scarce.
But, in order for you to be reading these words, certain supply chains must be in place. They require power and money.
You can't transfer goods needed to supply all the stores without supply chains, power and money.
A disruption of those supply chains could lead to more war, and famine.
And the population of the planet increases at three people per second.
So, now what?
I realize that if you're already on the streets with nothing, then protesting is the only viable option, and it is a protected right. But then what happens?
What is the plan to end this heterosexist consumer society and transfer into a socity that is democratic, but also realizes we live on a planet?
We live on a finite planet with finite resources and what you're witnessing is nothing but mathematics.
Actually, what I just witnessed in reading your post was a totally illogical and confusing string of sentences. You don't want supply chains, money and power to be disrupted? You want us all to realize we live on a planet with finite resources? And all this is nothing but mathematics? And your point would be?
Very strange to hear Juan Cole stand by the "rule of law," when he was such a huge supporter of Obama's bombing Libya without the approval of the US Congress (as in the "rule" that states that only Congress can declare war).
And let it be Remembered, Cole was an initial supporter of GW Bush's invasion of Iraq.
When I finally got around to challenging him in 2004, his response was: yeah, I supported it, but that was oh so 2003. I've changed my mind.
Stay tuned. Will Cole change his mind about regime change in Libya?
While his comments today appear to be appropriate, overall, I no longer trust his judgment. He's dangerous because many people look to him for direction and that has led us into two wars of choice.
Exactly. That was the first thing I thought of as well. He must be trying to "improve" his image amongst us, so he can be all the more effective of a propagandist the next time Wall Street launches another criminal war.
I think the police/fbi/dhs collusion is bigger than any one adminstration (i.e. don't blame Obama). This is a general trend toward a "security" state (read - police state) exacerbated by 9/11 (an excuse to curtail freedoms in the name of security - a BS argument).
To paraphase Ben Franklin - those who sacrifice freedom for security will have nieither.
So rather than just being silent and non-supportive, the Obama Administration is indirectly actually working to undermine the protesters.
The democrats and Obama have no interest in the protestors except as costume for their show.
Before election, everyone's in favor of democracy and freedom; after election, they become fascists. The mayors should all lose their jobs--recalls for all.
Now we have proof that there are fewer civil rights in the USA than in Arab tyrannies. Way to go Obombster. But it's not like we didn't see it coming.
Woe is Jerusalem.
Actually, if we were subjects of an Arab tyranny, Juan Cole would probably support bombing us.
Amen !
It's getting mighty hard to keep making up excuses for Obama the "Constitutional Scholar", ain't it, all you Obama supporters out there?
But I imagine you'll manage somehow. You always do.
"Oh, but this is just hearsay", or "But Obama did not know that the Feds were involved. He was out of the loop" or "This is just standard operating procedure that the Feds would be involved. Homeland security, you know. Those protestors with their gasoline [for their camp stoves] might be terrorists"
You folks will keep making up excuses for Obama until you re-elect him.And when it becomes clear as day to anyone with a brain that you were wrong, you'll cry "We did not know" (just like Bush and Cheney did on WMD in Iraq)
Cuz you simply can NOT admit you made a HUGE mistake in judging the guy's character
PS Since you folks KNOW full well what you are doing, you can't claim ignorance. What you are doing when you make excuses for Obama is being dishonest -- with yourselves, with your families, with your neighbors and with the rest of America.
I hope you can live with that. But if past performance is any indication, I'm pretty sure you can.
Besides, who gives a damn about "honesty" anyway? It's so quaint and outmoded -- kinda like the Geneva Conventions against torture, right?
//// for more on the above, read the following Examiner article
'Occupy' crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials - Minneapolis Top News | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/top-news-in-minneapolis/were-occupy-crackdowns-aided-by-federal-law-enforcement-agencies#ixzz1dsSJBlnf
"Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies." -- from Minneapolis Examiner
JIMBO: This goes way beyond Obama. In fact, the posts that play "team sport" by endlessly discussing which party and its operatives are more guilty of which treason against human decency keep the discussion pivoted on the same polarity that is by nature, deadlocked. We're talking, as did Sheldon Wollin, about an Inverted Totalitarian system where politicians have been purchased, media Occupied, the MIC out of control, and courts full of ideologues whose own authoritarian creeds anesthetize them to both truth and justice. The problems are SYSTEMIC which means that games of "pin the tail on the political donkey" only waste time. As Einstein put it, "No problem can be solved at the level of thinking that brought it about."
Thus it's painfully clear that both parties serve the same masters/interests; so what we require is that which transcends the 2 parties, that which will no longer be satisifed through the Status Quo. It's essentially status quo thinkers who remain stuck in the "party A" or "Party B" as solution, or limited basis for dialog and discussion. It's a trap... both parties are transparently for, and about that 1%. And thanks to the OWS movement, even those who don't want to see the truth, probably do... and more would, if Hate Radio & the Rush Team didn't telegraph lies into the ethers painting the principled protesters as unclean rejects.
I agree it goes way beyond Obama, but there are a lot of Democrats and progressives who are STILL ready and willing to give him a "pass" because they have convinced themselves that he is not responsible for any of this stuff -- and by extension, that they are not responsible either.
To address a problem that is very much like alcoholism, you have to first admit that you have it.
And that is something that a lot of Democrats AND progressives (many that I know, in fact) are STILL not willing to admit. They are essentially in denial.
Progressives (and Democrats) won't get anywhere until -- at a minimum -- we get the people on "our side" admitting that there is a problem with "our own" leaders.
PS Technically, I don't even have a team -- so it's not accurate to say that I'm playing a team sport :-). I'm an independent who voted for Nader in the last election (and the one before that). And it makes me ill that so many of the people I know have swallowed the Obama koolaid and will undoubtedly vote for him again (rather than ACTUALLY supporting and voting for someone like Nader who stands for REAL change)
This is just a short explanation of how a police state operates. Get used to it, or get rid of it.
Ah yes, and where oh where is "Slick Oily" during all of this? He is conveniently of on Air Farce 1 to Aussytrailia. Like I said, convenient!
This IS the rule of law. Our overlords MAKE the laws for we serfs to obey. The thought that they should themselves be subject to these laws is ludicrous. The First Amendment is a SLOGAN advertizing our greatness, for use when we invade poor countries. We are going to have to cease cooperating with this machine, and many of us WILL be in the orange jumpsuits, disappeared (Bradley Manning, etc), or dead, just like in other revolutions. If your'e OUT, and not SHOPPING, your'e ILLEGAL, FELONIOUS and FAIR GAME.
The next step will to bring in the military.
Hoa binh
Now that we have that nasty Posse Comitatus out of the way. But I wonder whether it will be the military -- or Blackwater. The latter would be even more reliable, and using private contractors satisfies the government's current mission of pouring as much money into corporate pockets as possible.
Not necessary, really. The police have all the military gizmos. The only reason to bring in the 'military' is to beef up their numbers. We'd have to have MANY more people on the streets to require that.
Nice summary by Dr. Cole.
If you appreciate irony, look at this way: the First Amendment has been twisted and disemboweled so that corporations -- which are profit maximizing machines at the service of the plutocracy -- now have personhood and unlimited First Amendment Rights -- while actual citizens, should they attempt to exercise their First Amendment rights in such a way as to annoy the ruling class and their corporations, have no rights.
Sort of the antithesis of what Jefferson & Madison, for all their flaws, had in mind.
What you really have now is a police state hiding behind the fig leaf of a constitutional democracy.
For those people who might have been perplexed a little about the real 'enemy' targeted by the Patriotic Act, the vast expenditures on Homeland Security, the militarization of police forces, the warrantless searches by FBI, the unlimited surveillance by the NSA, etc. -- the cat is out of the bag.
Hint. They didn't spend all that money to catch Arabs sneaking across the border.
"Sort of the antithesis of what Jefferson & Madison, for all their flaws, had in mind."
Actually, it's precisely what most of the Founding Plutocrats had in mind. Hey, just look at how the Senate was originally elected, and how Presidents still are elected. Or just ask Daniel Shays.
Corvo --
Glad to see you are interested in American history and the Bill of Rights. Very exciting stuff!
And a champion of Daniel Shays, too!
However, you might try familiarizing yourself with the actual history in question before denouncing the alleged oppressors-- the authors of the First Amendment.
The Shays rebellion took place in late 1786 and January 1787 -- when his militia was routed.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h363.html
What role did the perfidious Thomas Jefferson play in putting down Daniel Shays?
"Thomas Jefferson, who was serving as an ambassador to France at the time, refused to be alarmed by Shays' Rebellion. In a letter to a friend, he argued that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing. 'The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.'"
And here is Jefferson writing to Madison and covering some of the same ground without the colorful and often quoted language:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer/letter.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion
The U.S. Constitution was enacted in the summer of 1887 -- after the Shay's Rebellion was already squashed. Jefferson and Madison's Bill of Rights did not become law until 1791 -- 4 years after the Shay's Rebellion.
http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_prisoners-rights_drug-law-reform_immigrants-rights/bill-rights-brief-history
So unless you have discovered some new form of historical causation that involves reversed chronology, the Bill of Rights would hardly have played much of a role in the repression of Daniel Shays.
Why don't you ask him yourself?
Last time I checked, there were more Founding Plutocrats than just Jefferson and Madison.
RANDY: Your post (and point) is astute. Similar inversions are seen in these areas:
1. The wealthiest nation in the world has so many starved for NUTRITION that they over-eat all the worst items and end up obese.
2. The nation that advertises itself as the global policeman acts a lot like the thugs reacting to the demonstrators with so clear an abuse of their own power. In other words, who's the terrorist?
3. The technological advances of television & media leading to an expansion of the fundamentalist church network to the point where its congregants, self-identified as followers of Jesus, tend to be the major supporters of war, i.e. the state assuming the role of mass murderer.
4. The ILLUSION of a politics that's transcended race & gender instead betrays the rights of both groups. This is done through the mastery of image over substance, as the Black President or female would-be president, both act as loyal servants to a status quo that hardly equates with justice or equality on the remotest scale.
I'm sure other analogies can be found that similarly reflect the Truths being inverted by our uber: corrupt times.
You can protest all you want if its against Taxes, that's it.
We have so many layers and levels of police that once the real revolution starts and they all come out of the woodwork we'll see how many police/FBI/DHS/Blackwater/private army/private police force thugs will be on the roam in our cities and neighborhoods. They will be well armed, will shoot to kill and we'll be screwed.
BLUE GRASS: I noticed this trend in the mid l980's when I moved to the Florida Keys. So many men were employed either: in the sheriff department, police department, marine patrol, Coast Guard, Navy, DEA, FBI, etc. And I realized back then that the ease with which several Amendments were shattered by the War on Drugs would grease the way to the seizure of more and more civil liberties. It was done under the cloak of what should have been branded as unconstitutional: The Zero Tolerance Campaign.
Once Russia shifted, the U.S. had to invent other enemies. A metaphysical friend of mine once explained that if one purchases insurance, they will unconsciously call forth a cause to use it. We all want to get what we pay for. A similar analogy can be extended to a military that's become so gigantic an organism. It MUST seek enemies to justify its own bloated existence; and therefore we see a BATTERY of entities designed (out of its paranoid imagination, OR fiscal necessity) to be endlessly fought. It's all illusion; and by now, given the MIC's deadly ecological footprint, added to the obscene funds it appropriates to itself, it should be evident that what has gone on under the banner of Defense is actually a great and grave OFFENSE against all sentient life! It is M.A.D.ness, regardless of the preferred euphemism du jour.
Is it just me, or has Juan Cole's tone gone less academic?
The next time ANYONE tells me they are proud to be an American (geez, it's been quite some time since anyone has done so), I don't care if it's a redneck with a pistol or a businessman with a suit, I'll tell them I am too, only because there are at long last Americans in the streets speaking out against tyranny. But if they're talking about somehow being proud of the police state called America, I'll tell them that they'd make great Nazis.
Who didn't see this coming? Who really didn't suspect that Homeland Security, the "war on terror" and the Patriot Act were nothing but methods of attacking the citizens of this country under the guise of "protecting our freedoms?" Who didn't see that the atrocities at Gitmo and the American injustice system's refusal to do anything about it weren't merely a precedent set to allow similar detainment of American citizens (without charges) and "enhanced interrogation" of American citizens (without charges)?
Sure, the Founders were all flawed men, but I simply don't believe they would do anything but scream bloody murder if they were here today. I choose to believe so, but it really doesn't matter. Anyone with a shred of decency, self-respect and honor should be screaming bloody murder as well.
The powers that be think that the OWS movement can be bullied into submission, and anyone tempted to join their activities intimidated into silence. Guess what? They are totally fricking wrong! It may get very very ugly, and it may get very very brutal, but I vow with every ounce of life in my body that there are MANY of us who will refuse to be bullied, refused to be intimidated, and refuse to ever submit to such tyranny.
They have the toys, they have the big guns, they have the corrupt machinations of the American injustice system and its agents.
We have have the numbers, we have the might, we have Providence on our side. Believe it! Long live the revolution and bless all who devote their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in defense of liberty.
Possibly Adams and Hamilton wouldn't be upset about the crackdown - Alien and Sedition Acts and all - but I would agree that most of the rest, especially Jefferson and Franklin, would be outraged.
I think that most progressives I know thought that the old way of thinking about the Democratic Party (that is, pre-Clinton sellout) thought that an Obama win would reverse most of the more Fascist policies implemented by Bush and Co. I never bought in, and after Kucinich was frozen out of the campaign I was firmly in the camp of those who would not vote Democratic for President in '08, and indeed I voted for the REAL black candidate, Cynthia McKinney. I expect to vote for either the Green or Socialist candidate for President in '12 as well.
As for the "but another Republican President would be an absolute disaster" argument: Yes, but that's probably what it's going to take to finally get the real majority of Americans to get fed up enough to truly support a "99%" movement. I'm not seeing it at this point. Why did the sanitation workers in NYC go along with trashing the Occupy encampment? I thought labor was on the side of the protesters? The transit workers refused to help the police haul protesters to jail a month or so ago. I think there is still a strong blue collar mentality left over from the Vietnam-era that the protesters are wild-eyed communist radicals who don't represent them. Certainly, that is the clear impression most corporate media want low-information citizens to believe. You really have to be tuned-in, like just about everyone reading this is, to know the truth. I'm sitting here writing this while listening to Bernie Sanders on the Thom Hartmann show. How many working stiffs do you think are doing similar things?
Sadly, things are going to have to get much worse before most people finally figure out what a reaming we've gotten, and who is really responsible. I am not optimistic that REAL change can be brought about peacefully. I believe that there is going to have to be a true revolution or civil war between the haves and have-nots, and those forced into the military and police for economic reasons are going to have to decide which side they are on.
I wonder how long it will take people to be fed up with increasing tyranny and control. I think the idea of peaceful protest will have to end pretty soon after we discover that, unlike the precedents we are so fond of using as definitive models, this situation could become far more serious than anything we've encountered before.
The police and the state are violent. Case closed. Whether you believe there is a reasonable limit to this crackdown or not, it is definitely getting more intense. There will be more hurt and bloodshed to come. If you are effective at challenging and disturbing rulers, they WILL kill you. Until that time, you are merely tolerated or batted around like a cat's toy. For this reason alone, non-violence has always failed because too many people who too often go unmentioned have been destroyed by violent enforcement. Non-violence only works if it shames the other side into negotiating non-violently. But here I can only see this scenario going the opposite way.
There is nothing more depressing for me than optimism at this point. Just because you can't imagine a worse outcome doesn't mean it won't happen. Stop with the toy talk and at least support those who are willing to defend themselves and attempt to achieve true security. Even if you don't wish to be part of the fight, you can appreciate that someone is accomplishing the next undesirable yet necessary phase of resistance.
Too many of us are coddled here and have never come close to such a desperate scenario. Now is the time to reconsider options and not expect the same outcome to these actions.
Maybe someone should look into the rumorthat the Patriot Act was already written when 9/11 occurred.
Bien Hoa says the miltary will be next....I agree. Remember the Northen Command. All this gobbledygook to 'protect'.
Protect whom?
I think Bien Hoa may also be a little late. The final militarization of police departments is complete...just look at the photos...and listen to the uniformed goons.
Welcome to FascistLand. To those who warned about it...why didn't you stop it?
To all those who have wrung their hands over the past 10 years, whining 'it can't happen here'......well it has.
You mean they didn't commit to print or phone the planting of saboteurs.
Sadly, planting violent types in nonviolent protests is de rigueur.
Occupy just got a modern version of a dire episode from 20th Century American history, the Palmer Raids. Seeing as how the Palmer Raids were the first step to power for one J. Edgar Hoover, progressives would be well advised to know which bureaucrat(s) planned this. Whomever planned this is quite capable of plenty more outrages at the behest of the corporate kleptocracy.
One of the heroes of the Occupy movement is in danger of being deported.
Please sign the petition to keep him here.
http://www.change.org/petitions/free-pancho-now
Pancho Ramos is the most moral human being I know. He could have stayed in comfortable Berkeley, studying Gandhian non-violence, but instead he went to East Oakland to apply what he knows among the gangs there, teaching them conciliation and meditation. All for no money. Now he has been arrested while meditating at Occupy Oakland. We need him, and a hundred like him, in our community. We will all be poorer if Pancho is not among us. Please sign as soon as possible. His hearing is this morning.
Quan = Quisling. We see exactly what the progressives who get into the foutracracy do when under pressure -- they will serve the corporate militarist masters while mumbling about their devotion to helping people. This is what happened to the '68ers, to people like Kerry, the Clintons, and many others within the palaces.
Cole is just licking a little bit of public balls to 'rehabilitate' his image after Libya. Outraged that some master-race protesters got pepper-sprayed, but cheereleaded like the little liberal fascist whore that he is what happened in Libya.
If push comes to shove, Don Juan 'Butcher Libyans for Democracy!' Cole will be right there, manning the guns, mowing down the Red Menace to protect his 'privileges'.
I see you have the measure of the man.
I am heartened by a few of these bloggers above. There DOES seem to be some thinkers and doers in our 99%. If they can just continue to be so vocal and in other venues as well - we just may have a chance at survival. Thanks siouxrose, randy g., wildraven, joehillsghost, among others. Keep on rocking.
And remember what we said during the arab spring - the World is Watching. And maybe finally they'll see who the US really is - hypocrites all 1% of them.
Satan rules the USA as "He" has for the most of history.
I am in the top 10% thanks in part to the countless wars, coups, murders, assassinations, genocides that the USA has undertaken in someone's interest. There *was* some trickle down; but there will **never** be an "economic recovery" and the "Brave New World" will look a lot like "1984" or "Soylent Green".
Man arguably is the world's most sussessful predator, but please don't throw in any nonsense about religion, morality, ethics, truth, or justice -- or hope for the future.
Peak oil, world overpopulation, and pervasive governmental corruption -- you may not want to live to see where it leads -- you may not be allowed to!
If ever in Washington D.C. walk along the DOJ Building and read the different inscriptions on the side of the building. One I like and have in a photo and it applies to this. "When the Law Ends, Tyranny Begins". I think members of the Justice Dept. should go outside their building and read that.
This stuff has been coordinated at least since the late sixties/early seventies. Google "The Glass House Tapes" by the C.R.I.C. from 1972, I believe. Occupy that Glass House in L.A. (the scene of the nation-wide coordination of police forces), but they've surely moved on from there, in this laptop/celphone era.
An even better question would be why a supposedly progressive site prints the garbage of a CIA fifth columnist.
" Oakland Mayor Jean Quan let slip in an interview with the BBC that she had been on a conference call with the mayors of 18 cities about how to deal with the Occupy Wall Street movement."
"Likewise, A Homeland Security official let it slip in a phone interview that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security had been strategizing with cities on how to shut down OWS protests."
"What these two reports show is a high-level CONSPIRACY to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to protest peacefully."
¿Can these mayors et al be brought up on conspiracy charges and brought before a judge?
Terran
Theoretically, yes. But most judges are members of the 1% as well, and represent its interests faithfully.
The Rule of Justice needs to be maintained, not the Rule of Law. We've seen how the 'law' is manipulated by the powerful time and time again.
The Patrioti Act and Dept of Homeland Securty are 'legal.' But are they just?
We are seeing more and more that the answer is NO.