Overnight, the police in both Oakland and Atlanta forcibly tried to shut down the Occupy movements in those cities.
The reaction of Oakland police was extreme, firing beanbag rounds and flash canisters into the crowd and launching tear gas at them and driving them from a park they had occupied for two weeks. Atlanta's finest were more peaceful as they just arrested all fifty people occupying a park in downtown Atlanta and handcuffed them and carried them off to jail, but the result was the same, a metropolitan police force at the direction of its mayor attacked its own citizens for peacefully assembling and protesting its government. If this had happened in China or Syria, our state department would be filing letters of protest as we speak.
Some rogue elements in the Oakland crowd did not act perfectly as they were evicted. We are not all saints. There are reports of some flipping off police in Oakland and one report of someone throwing paint on the police. But, in Atlanta, everyone behaved beautifully but the result was the same.
The powers that be, the banks, the big corporations and our two terribly corrupted and bribed political parties, are beginning to feel the heat of this movement that refuses to be labeled or controlled. Unlike the Tea Party that wanted to work within the Republican Party to accomplish reform, the Occupy folks have made it clear they want to operate outside the two political parties. This is a threat to both political parties.
We have lived for thirty years now with banks and big corporations exercising an inordinate amount of power in our economic lives and using their vast economic might to capture our politicians, rewrite our laws and the rules we live by and do possibly permanent damage to our democracy. The current global economic crisis is a direct result of this power surge into politics and governing by these banks and corporations and their removal of regulations meant to protect the country and its people from their greed and recklessness, something not lost on the Occupiers. But now, the stakes have been raised. If these powerful banks and corporations and corrupt political parties and local and federal governments are going to use physical force to try to control the people, it is time each of us made a decision as to what side of this fight we wish to be on.
After Mayor Daley had his police attack demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, many naïve Americans assumed that if the police reacted violently they must have had good reason, they must have been provoked. Today, the question remains, have we learned from our past? Do we now understand that there is no place in America for its police forces to use violence against its own citizens exercising their rights of free assembly and free speech?
You don't have to agree with everything the Occupy movement stands for to lend your support. But we must put an end to this police-instigated violence. Speak out against it. Tell your friends you think it is wrong. Write your mayor and your congressman. And if you are still too afraid to join the movement, at least get out of your recliner and come down to your local Occupy movement to see what all the fuss is about. You need to see for yourself what democracy of and by the people looks like. I can assure you the corporate-owned media, dependent on banks and corporations as their advertising sponsors, are not going to televise a fair picture of what is happening into your living room. As they say, the revolution will not be televised. You need to get involved. To date the protesters have been working selflessly for you and your family, it is time you returned the favor.
John R. Talbott is a best selling author and economic consultant to families. You can read more about how he will work One on One with you on your financial situation at www.stopthelying.com.
Occupy Wall Street: the book is coming soon
Vendors cash in on anti-Wall Street protests
How the Occupy Wall Street movement could help Democrats
couple tries to trademark 'Occupy Wall St.'
Anti-Wall St protesters to join NY Halloween parade
7 Ways to Really Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street protester who was pepper-sprayed finds romance with fellow ...
The new CBO report shows the 1% increased their wealth 275% over past 30 years, & with it ability to buy more elections, legislators & legislation to further empower/enrich themselves. OWS is a threat to that reality & the rich will use their bought & paid for legislators, mayors, media to try to silence the hundreds of thousands of voices raised to say “we’re mad as hell & we aren’t going to take this anymore”.
The very foundations of Democracy & our Republic are threatened by increased wealth & power in fewer & fewer hands; those whose moral compass has ceased to function; we must end that threat!
Zuccotti Park is epicenter of the OWS Earthquake; if suppression & attacks on others is allowed to succeed, the Plutocracy may act in NYC; we must see that does not happen! Remember Oakland!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!
OWS!
Within days or weeks each and every one of you may have to make this decision...choose wisely!!
I finally understand exactly what that means because here it is. Power to the People! We are the 99%!
I was born in 1950, protested Vietnam. Disorder hurt our cause, turned adults against us. Chicago in '68, even Kent and Jackson State: voters sided with police, and will again. A promise of "law and order" elected Nixon. Disorder allowed Hitler to take power. Most voters prefer a police state to disorder.
Yes this will radicalize the youth, it did to us Boomers, but they are a minority of voters. There are likely twice as many voters over 40 as under. They have kids, jobs, mortgages. They don't want to destroy the system, they rely on it. Expect voters to support the police, not OWS.
It is with great irony that I note that Nixon claimed that he "had a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam and of course, he was elected, not once but twice. I think he even fooled my folks, though I can't believe that they would have voted for him. I'm sure they didn't.
We are real trouble and we need a cohesive movement to turn things around. Leadership must emerge to give the OWS real credibility.
The mistake is believing that you can force people to change by making life uncomfortable. That's just what bin Laden thought, but in fact he got a regressive reaction that killed him and will destroy his movement. Force never wins. People are not cowed by protests, they react against them. You make them sit in traffic jams, they will hate your movement forever. Bullying doesn't work.
- Abraham LincolnCorporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed. “
Abraham Lincoln
They rule.
That is life in a plutocracy where their plutonomy money talks and "bullsh*t" walks.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2011/09/homeland-big-brother-plutonomy.html
They didn't come up with this -- Canadian based, anti consumerist and anti American Adbusters did and is still calling the strategic shots.
LOL
They don't have the wherewithal to pull it off.
The danger is that co-opters -- notably the unions -- have the ability to escalate violence.
Federal CONGRESS cannot legislate STATE law.
If the park is closed, the police can order you to leave. Disobeying the police will lawfully get you arrested.