Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Occupy Philly and LA Camps Raided, Evicted at Midnight, Hundreds Arrested: Photos, Videos

Follow link at bottom of page for videos
By Sarah Seltzer, AlterNet
Posted on November 30, 2011, Printed on December 1, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/741424/occupy_philly_and_la_camps_raided%2C_evicted_at_midnight%2C_hundreds_arrested%3A_photos%2C_videos
Last night, in the same kind of secretive late-night actions we've seen elsewhere, police raided end evicted Occupy Philadelphia and Occupy Los Angeles.
Although the proceedings were largely peaceful compared to say, tear gas and pepper-spray, there were stiill major issues for civil liberties--in particular in LA. The LAPD played the same tricks with credentialing media organizations that the NYPD had done previously, allowing only certain journalists to cover the eviction. Lisa Derrick at Firedoglake has more details on that:
Monday night at 7:15 PT, the Los Angeles Police Department held a lottery to decide which media could be credentialed for the LAPD Occupy LA media pool, in anticipation of the next raid. According to a mainstream media source who was there, the LAPD only wanted to allow one media outlet per medium (print, radio, television), but was persuaded to allow three of each...
On Twitter, @ProgresivTeachr Brian Jones tweeted: "Actual quote from KCAL9, "We made an agreement with LAPD to not give away their tactics." AGAINST PEACEFUL PROTESTERS! #OccupyLA #OLAraid"
The report from The Guardian announces over 200 arrests in LA:
In Los Angeles around 1,400 officers wearing riot gear and biohazard suits were moving members of Occupy Los Angeles after they ignored a Monday deadline to leave the area.
Protesters moved into the City Hall park on 1 October and, within weeks, their encampment had grown to include 500 tents and up to 800 full-time residents. But numbers fell last week after the Los Angeles mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, issued an ultimatum, telling them to move out at the beginning of this week or face eviction.
And a handful in Philadelphia:
In Philadelphia, police began pulling down tents at about 1:20am (EST) after giving demonstrators three warnings that they would have to leave, which nearly all of the protesters followed. Dozens of demonstrators then marched through the street until they were stopped by police.
Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey said breaking up the camp in the early hours helped minimise disruption to businesses and traffic.
Six protesters were arrested after remaining on a street that police tried to clear.
A video of words exchanged between protesters and mounted police in Philadelphia:
Photos from the AFP of LA--for Philadelphia photos, click here:
Police arrive to evict protesters from the Occupy Los Angeles camp near City Hall. Hundreds of riot police flooded into downtown Los Angeles and Philadelphia early Wednesday to clear anti-Wall Street protest camps in mostly peaceful operations that saw dozens arrested.

Members of Los Angeles Police Department process two arrested Occupy LA protesters at their camp outside City Hall. Hundreds of riot police flooded into downtown Los Angeles and Philadelphia early Wednesday to clear anti-Wall Street protest camps in mostly peaceful operations that saw dozens arrested.
Members of the Occupy LA group protest as police raid the Occupy Los Angeles campsite. Hundreds of riot police flooded into downtown Los Angeles and Philadelphia early Wednesday to clear anti-Wall Street protest camps in mostly peaceful operations that saw dozens arrested.
Members of Occupy LA hold signs and candles outside City Hall in Los Angeles. Hundreds of riot police flooded into downtown Los Angeles and Philadelphia early Wednesday to clear anti-Wall Street protest camps in mostly peaceful operations that saw dozens arrested.
Anti-Wall Street demonstrators take to the streets prior to being raided by police near City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Police arrested more than 200 anti-Wall Street protesters in downtown Los Angeles in an early morning raid Wednesday that cleared out hundreds from the two-month old encampment.

© 2011 All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews//

AlterNet: Occupy Philly and LA Camps Raided, Evicted at Midnight, Hundreds Arrested: Photos, Videos

Occupy the United States Infographic | OnlineMBA

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Occupy the Capitol: The Next Stage in the Occupy Movement in Washington State | Truthout

by: Trevor Griffey, Truthout | Report

Occupy the Capitol, Olympia, Washington. (Photo: Trevor Griffey)
Roughly two thousand people descended upon the Washington state capitol yesterday to expand the Occupy Wall Street movement to an “Occupy the Capitol” movement. The day’s events, which ended in an attempt to occupy the capitol building, took protests against budget cuts and corporate tax loopholes straight to politicians.
Students, teachers, advocates of the disabled, and local Occupy encampments each staged feeder marches that converged on the Washington state capitol in Olympia, Washington, in the early afternoon. K-12 teachers in the Washington Education Association and homecare workers from SEIU 775 each set up large tents on the capitol grounds where they held their own teach-ins in the morning, while unionized college instructors in the American Federation of Teachers hosted a teach-in in the basement of the capitol building that spanned the afternoon.
Occupy Olympia: in the shadow of the state capitol, not far from where the city's Hooverville was located during the Great Depression. (Photo: Trevor Griffey)
After rallying on the capitol steps at noon to hear music and speeches, the nearly 2,000 strong group dispersed to disrupt a legislative hearing with a “mic check,” march around the capitol grounds, as well as hold an occupation of the main foyer between the state house and senate chambers under the capitol dome. The day ended with an unsuccessful attempt to occupy the capitol building rotunda.
Tuesday’s activities marked the beginning of a weeklong series of events timed to coincide with a “special session” of the Washington state legislature that the state Governor, Christine Gregoire, has tasked with cutting $2 billion from a discretionary budget of $8.7 billion.
But there is much more at stake than local budget and tax policy.
Washington Education Association members march to join Occupy the Capitol protest on the steps of the capitol building, Olympia, WA. (Photo: Trevor Griffey)
The Occupy the Capitol events in Olympia, Washington this week could provide a unique fusion of the tactics developed in Wisconsin earlier this year during protests against Republican union busting with the Occupy movement’s protest against austerity politics imposed by both Republicans and Democrats. The Occupy movement made a step in this direction when it advocated that people “Occupy Your State Capitol” on October 29, 2011. But that action, which took place on a Saturday, when state government employees were not at work and many state legislatures were not even in session, was largely symbolic, and disappeared from public view afterward.
Now, one month later, and just a week before the Occupy movement plans to stage a massive “Occupy Congress” event in the nation’s capitol in Washington DC, Occupy the Capitol has the potential to be a catalytic moment in mobilizing opposition in the US to austerity politics.
(Photo: Trevor Griffey)
Washington State: Case Study of How Democrats No Longer Represent the Party of FDR
Though many of the Occupy the Capitol organizers—particularly those in the labor movement— are historic allies of the Democratic Party, the protest itself stands as a massive repudiation of Democratic Party rule in Washington state in the age of Obama.
The reason that Democrats stand in the crosshairs of Occupy the Capitol is simple. Voters didn’t just hand Obama a decisive victory over McCain as the economy trembled. Across the country, Democrats benefited handsomely at the local and state level from the tidal wave of support for Barak Obama in the 2008 election.
In Washington state, which has not elected a Republican Governor in thirty years, and where Democrats already controlled the state legislature by a thin margin for most of the past decade, the 2008 election was a rout. In both the state House and the state Senate, riding a wave of support for Obama’s presidential campaign, the Democratic party achieved a supermajority of over 60 percent of the legislative seats.
The story of what Washington state Democrats then did with their supermajority offers a parable of the failure of the Democratic Party to articulate or put forward a coherent and effective response to the economic crisis.
Because Washington state government relies heavily upon sales taxes and property taxes for revenue (it has no income tax), it was hit hard by declining consumer spending in 2008 and 2009. Revenues fell well below projections, creating billion dollar budget deficits that have undermined the long-term viability of state government programs, chief among them education and human services.
During the two years that Democrats held a supermajority in the legislature (2009-10), they faced a combined set of budget deficits of $13 billion. They filled 46 percent of the budget hole ($5.9 billion) with spending cuts, and only 7 percent ($920 million) with revenue increases. They used “revenue transfers” (ie raiding dedicated reserve and long-term construction accounts) and federal government stimulus money to make up the difference.
Because the state legislature raised so little money in new revenue, it chose to play different government services and their advocates off each other for a dwindling piece of the economic pie. In order to reduce the devastation to the state health care and income support for the poor and disabled, Frank Chopp (D), the powerful speaker of the House, directed a significant portion of the budget cuts to public universities. As a result, 4 year colleges in Washington state sustained 40 percent cuts and increased tuition by over 40 percent to make up the difference in just the last 3 years. At the college where I teach, The Evergreen State College, tuition will have risen 70 percent in 4 years between 2008 and the beginning of the 2012 school year next Fall.
Because state legislators used federal stimulus money to backfill their budget cuts, they ensured that new federal government spending during the first years of the economic crisis created essentially no net new jobs in Washington state. Dwarfing the stimulus with budget cuts not only suppressed the possibility for a quick economic recovery. It undermined the very foundation for Democrats’ electoral success by hiding the effects of Obama’s stimulus plan from voters. Instead of creating new jobs, they saved old ones. Instead of promoting “change we can believe in,” they patched up an unsustainable status quo that voters had come to take for granted. This all but ensured that the budget crisis would continue as their one-time fixes expired, and left the Democratic Party without a coherent vision for the future to take to the polls during the 2010 midterm elections.
During this era of supermajority power, when Republicans had effectively no say in the governance of the state, the Democrats in the state legislature passed an all-cuts budget in 2009, and refused to pass a Worker Privacy Act (WPA) that would have made it a violation of state law for employers to require their employees to attend anti-union meetings. When labor unions threatened to withhold campaign contributions to the Democratic Party for going back on its promises to pass the WPA, Democratic politicians had their own allies investigated for alleged extortion by reporting the state AFL-CIO to the Washington State Patrol. The State Patrol found no wrongdoing, but the criminal investigation silenced the AFL-CIO during a key comment period on pending legislation, and allowed the Democratic Party to get away with slashing government spending without effective dissent from its base.
In 2010, when the state legislature repealed a state initiative that required a 2/3 supermajority to increase taxes, it failed to close substantial corporate tax loopholes and then raised only one third of the projected $3 billion deficit that year in new revenue. The new taxes were almost entirely regressive—targeting the working poor with taxes on soda, candy, alcohol and tobacco—and left corporate tax loopholes largely untouched. During the 2010 midterm elections, voters struck back at these moderate reforms. They approved an initiative bankrolled to the tune of $20 million by the American Beverage Association that repealed the new soda tax. And they approved another initiative bankrolled by the oil industry to restore the 2/3 requirement for increasing taxes.
Protester against cuts to public education, Occupy the Capitol. (Photo: Trevor Griffey)
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Democratic Party lost ground during the 2010 midterm elections. In Washington state, this meant losing seats but not control of the state government. But it was enough to throw the state government into near-paralysis, because a local caucus of blue dog Democrats— calling themselves the “roadkill caucus” for their supposed electoral vulnerability as middle-of-the-road politicians— now regularly threatens to defect from their own party and vote with Republicans to oppose new taxes. Instead of disciplining this rogue and disloyal faction in their ranks, state Democrats now cater to these anti-tax “moderates” in order to pass legislation.
As a result, after 3 years of economic crisis, no coherent vision for how to respond has come from any portion of the Democratic Party in Washington state even though it technically retains control of the state government.
Three years of economic crisis have brought a total of $18 billion in budget deficits, which the legislature has filled with $10.5 billion in budget cuts, and less than $1 billion in revenue increases. Yet Washington state, even more than the rest of the country, is not broke. This is a state where Amazon.com and Microsoft have their corporate headquarters and continue to make billions in annual profits, and where the region’s high-tech economy has produced over 68,000 millionaires in King County (which includes Seattle and its suburbs). But there is no corporate or personal income tax in Washington state. And state legislators, instead of proposing substantial tax reform, have only been able to pass minor increases in the sales tax and massive budget cuts.
Occupy the Capitol, Olympia, WA. (Photo: Trevor Griffey)
Now, with another $1.5 billion budget deficit, and the Democratic Governor asking for $2 billion in cuts, it’s no wonder that hundreds of K-12 public school teachers took the day off work yesterday to march en masse chanting “enough is enough” as they joined over a thousand Occupy activists on the capitol steps.
Just the Beginning
The state legislature called its special session to order yesterday but adjourned the session 5 minutes after officially convening. Most of the day’s business was conducted behind closed doors. A phalanx of state patrolmen prevented protesters from entering the Governor’s office, leaving them to demand that she come outside to hear their protests against her proposal to increase the sales tax for education and corrections while subjecting human services to the brunt of a new round of budget cuts.
A rowdy combination of labor union members and student activists then occupied the capitol building rotunda for hours, holding a mic check that echoed through the three story space. But by 6pm, much of the labor movement and students had gone home, and the state patrol locked the doors to prevent others from entering. Instead of using pepper spray inside the building, the state patrol resorted to tasers to either force or compel those who wanted to occupy the capitol to leave.
In less than two hours, the protesters were expelled, and a handful had also been arrested. But the question of whether protesters could actually hold onto the building against superior force was largely irrelevant. What is more important is that the union members and student activists who had come to the state’s capitol to lobby and rally were now joining together in direct action to protest austerity politics.
After protesters were expelled from the capitol, they tried to prevent the bus that contained three arrested activists from leaving. One person recounted that
“about 75 or so people (I’m bad with numbers, could have been 50 or 100) linked arms around the bus to prevent it from leaving. It didn’t take long for the cops to get really violent. There were probably about 20 cops at least. They pushed from in front of the line (on the bus side) and others grabbed us from behind and threw us down. They tried to hold us in place as the bus started moving but we broke loose and tried to regroup in front of the bus to stop it but there were so many police at this point it was hard to re-form a line. We were making scattered attempts to link arms, lie down in front, and lie down in piles. They cleared the way, trying to scare people by being very brutal. I watched my friend get tackled by a fat bald cop and get punched in the face. I got picked up and thrown down several times. I think everyone did. Several of us tried to move a picnic table to use as a barricade but it got overrun. Then the cops got their tasers out. Tasers, with their red laser sights and bright blue electric sparks, are incredibly intimidating. I watched at least 3 or 4 people get tasered right in front of me. One guy was lying face down in the road. 3 or 4 cops ran over to him, surrounded him, and wouldn’t let him get out for at least 10 or 15 seconds as one of the cops tasered him over and over. Eventually they got the bus out after traveling a couple hundred yards and us fighting the whole way.”
He concluded simply, “We will be back. Re-group for tomorrow.”
(Photo: Trevor Griffey)
Reprinted with permission from the author.


Occupy the Capitol: The Next Stage in the Occupy Movement in Washington State | Truthout

No Longer Laughing, but Still Clueless -- In These Times: The mainstream media’s narrow and formulaic approach damages its Occupy coverage.


A protester from Upstate New York holds a sign on September 30 in New York's Liberty Park. "I came down because of the state of the economy, society and the system," he said. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
BY Allison Kilkenny

If the media doesn't understand by now what OWS wants, it simply hasn't been paying attention.

The Occupy protesters have quickly altered the political landscape of the United States. They are standing up for all those who find themselves in thrall to a grasping and ever-more powerful oligarchy, aka "the 1%." In its December 2011 issue, In These Times explores the terrain of this all-American revolt—an uprising that may be the most formidable challenge to neoliberalism yet. —The editors

Occupy Wall Street stumped the media from the beginning. Here was a movement that didn’t support either political party. Unlike the Tea Party, it was not backed by a giant corporate overlord. It did not have traditional leadership.
From its inception, OWS has existed outside traditional beltway games, and so the establishment media, which is generally only comfortable covering a story in “horse-race” terms, didn’t understand it. Are the protesters supporting Obama? No. Who is the leader? We have no leader.
The New York Times has rightfully become the archetype for how not to cover a social upheaval of this magnitude. From Ginia Bellafante’s opening salvo when she called the craziest woman she could find at OWS a “default ambassador” of the movement to Andrew Ross Sorkin’s confession that he only visited the protest at the behest of a “major bank” CEO, the Times repeatedly revealed itself to be irrelevant, out-of-touch and all-too-cozy in its role as sycophant to the rich and powerful.
In an October 14 article, “In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated,” written by Nelson Schwartz and Eric Dash, the Times permits Wall Street to disseminate propaganda and smears against the protesters–anonymously, of course. One “top hedge fund manager” scoffs that “most people view [OWS] as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.”
I’m still waiting for the protesters to be afforded the same luxury to tee off on bankers without having to publicly state their names or be held accountable in any kind of way.
One could practically see the vein on CNN anchor Erin Burnett’s head pulsate as she fought to understand why normal citizens would gather to protest against her beloved Wall Street. She crafted a segment called “Seriously?!” in which she made the absurd claim that because protesters purchase products, they can’t possibly simultaneously protest the unethical behavior of Wall Street.
In short, unless protesters live in caves and craft tools out of rocks and mud, they’re not permitted to protest the gross wealth divide in the United States.
Burnett commented that she “saw dancing, bongo drums, even a clown” at the protest, but its participants “did not know what they want,” except that “it seems like people want a messiah leader, just like they did when they anointed Barack Obama,” which is such an abysmal misreading of OWS that it’s difficult to know where to begin.
OWS is a leaderless movement precisely because it does not want a “messiah leader.” The group is a pure democratic force that literally votes on every decision–and I do need to emphasize every decision. The General Assemblies are a remarkable thing to behold–a time when every single future action of OWS is voted on democratically by the assembled body.
Second, “they” did not “anoint” President Obama. While OWS leans to the liberal end of the spectrum, it is also comprised of a large number of independents and even some Ron Paul supporters. Furthermore, many activists who did vote for Obama in the past told me they did not plan to do so in the future, and even the ones who did say they would support the president come election time added they felt profoundly disappointed in both Obama and the Democrats in Congress. That’s hardly stirring praise for a messiah.
Finally, if the media doesn’t understand by now what OWS wants, it simply hasn’t been paying attention. Quite simply, OWS wants accountability and a one-tier justice system that holds corrupt bankers, Wall Street speculators and hedge fund managers responsible when they wreck the world’s economies. OWS wants to live in a society that properly funds schools, and doesn’t offer tax breaks to massive corporations and pump endless money into two failed wars. OWS wants every person, regardless of income, to have a chance to live a dignified life, complete with a home, healthcare and steady employment. OWS believes in the right to unionize in order to fight for this dignity, and also that those Americans who earn more than $1 million a year should, yes, probably pay a larger percentage of their earnings in taxes than their maids.
The motives are hard to miss, but of course, documenting them entails showing up to the Occupy movements and talking to more than one person.
Here, the failure is not the Times’ and CNN’s alone. In numerous outlets and publications, I see the accusation of “scattered ideologies” as if a movement that claims to represent 99% of the population can come up with a fixed, 10-point agenda overnight. Of course the complaints are numerous. There’s a lot wrong with the country right now, and the fact that OWS hasn’t come up with a solution for all the country’s woes in, oh, a little less than two months, isn’t a poor reflection on the movement, but rather a reflection on the media demanding the impossible.
What the media can’t seem to grasp is that any specific OWS policy demand would die instantly in the Congress we currently have, and so OWS chooses to fight back the only way it can–by living outside of the system and physically resisting.
Yet, to the media, the movement remains a mystery–shapeless, leaderless, existing everywhere and yet refusing to adhere to a traditional hierarchy. This is new, scary and therefore must be comprised of a tribe of dirty, bongo-playing hippies.
There. I understand “hippies.” Everything will be okay now.
Editor’s note: This story was filed prior to the police raid and eviction of the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park that took place in the early hours of November 15.
Allison Kilkenny is an In These Times Staff Writer and the co-host of the critically acclaimed radio show Citizen Radio. Her blog for In These Times, Uprising, focuses on efforts of youth around the world to address the global economic crisis.
More information about Allison Kilkenny
url: No Longer Laughing, but Still Clueless -- In These Times

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

How Do We Know OWS Is Winning? Elites Are Desperate to Suppress It

By Yotam Marom , AlterNet

Posted on November 22, 2011, Printed on November 29, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153172/how_do_we_know_ows_is_winning_elites_are_desperate_to_suppress_it

Occupy Wall Street celebrated its two-month anniversary by taking the streets of New York City in a full day of mass direct action. We celebrated the hundreds of occupations that have sprung up across the country and around the world. We celebrated the hundreds of thousands who have participated by marching, carrying out civil disobedience and putting their bodies in motion. We celebrated the millions of people across the globe united in their willingness to join this movement in whatever ways they can. We celebrated in the many thousands in cities all around the world.
At the same time, much of the status quo goes on. New austerity measures are being passed right under our noses, the homeless remain without homes and the jobless without jobs, the wars carried out in our name continue, wealth goes on being concentrated further and further into a few hands at the expense of the many. And in the face of this movement rising in opposition, the state and capital have responded with violence both physical and ideological, intended to suppress and demoralize us – camps being cleared out by riot police, organizers targeted for arrest, teeth and noses broken, kids and grandmothers pepper-sprayed.
It’s only a drop in the bucket in comparison to the violence experienced in marginalized communities or at the hands of American imperialism, but it represents a critical moment in the development of this movement. It is not a coincidence. We are being taken seriously. Maybe we should be flattered.
Reassurance: We Are Still Winning
We are building a global movement, and elites are beginning to mobilize the incredible power at their disposal to do it whatever damage they can – media and scholarship to discredit us, laws and regulations to constrain us and sheer violence to repress us. They are paying their think tanks to undermine us, mobilizing their shock troops to beat and detain us, and whistling to their lap-dogs in the press to tell the stories they want heard.
This is what happens when genuine movements emerge with enough force and potential to be taken seriously by those with power and privilege. This is what happens when movements grow stronger and more diverse. This is what happens when movements take root in the public consciousness. Make no mistake about it: They are fighting us now because we are winning.
In moments like these – when protest becomes resistance and power mobilizes to confront it – it becomes important again to stop and remember why we started fighting in the first place, and what it is we want.
A Reminder: Why We Fight and How We Win
We each come to this movement with our many different scars and traumas, our many goals and dreams. We come from different places, with different needs. We are here together because we share an understanding that our different issues come together, that the systems of oppression we are challenging not only intertwine and coexist but actually produce and define each other, that we can only defeat them by having a deep, holistic analysis and by presenting one another with a real vision for what might be instead. We agree that we need to build something new in the here and now, while fighting those forces that keep us from doing so.
We fight because people’s needs really aren’t being met, because there are simple and systemic reasons for that, because it is unacceptable, and because there is an alternative. We fight because we oppose injustice intellectually, but also because injustice makes us sick to our stomachs. We fight because a system in which homeless people freeze outside of empty homes does not deserve to exist, because a system that allows for people to go hungry while there is an overabundance of food is unacceptable. We fight because the economic and social systems governing our lives have proven themselves to be totally incapable of meeting the minimum criteria for a just and humane society, and because we are sure as hell it doesn’t have to be this way. We fight for other people, but also for ourselves – because none of us get to live out our full human potential within the institutions that dominate our lives today. We fight because another world really is possible, and because we demand it for the people around us, our friends, our kids, and ourselves.
The stakes are high. We have a responsibility not only to fight, but to win.
We win when we build diverse mass movements led by the most oppressed people in society. We win when that movement becomes a dual power – a movement able to prefigure the values of a free society and laying the seeds for it, while fighting the institutions that oppress and exploit. We win when that movement becomes one where groups have the autonomy to carry out their own struggles while finding solidarity in a shared analysis, vision, and strategy. We win when we manage to transform the struggle from the symbolic to the real – a struggle that reclaims land and space in order to truly create an alternative and meet peoples’ needs, one that truly disrupts business as usual and prevents the classes that dominate and exploit from continuing to do so.
This new world is being born – slowly and painfully – and in order to win it, we have to tell its story.
The Story: Another World is Possible
Perhaps the first story we must tell is about the world around us. These systems that encourage us to compete and exploit, that force us to make war and torture, that compel us to literally wipe ourselves off the planet by damaging it so thoroughly, have no future. They are not only unethical and unnecessary: they are simply and truly impossible.
But the most important story is one of possibility: Another world is possible.
A society that is ecologically sustainable, liberating, intimate, warm and creative is possible. Not only is it possible, but it must be. We can have a political and economic system that we all control together, one that is equitable and humane, one that allows for people to self-manage and act in solidarity, one that is participatory and democratic to its very roots. We can live in a world where people have the right to their own identities, communities, and cultures, and the freedom and support to express them. We can have a society with institutions that take care of and nurture our youth, elderly, and families in ways that are liberating and consensual. We can have a world where we actually get to live out and express our full human potential. We can, and we must.
We tell a story that shatters the myth that there is no alternative, that people don’t fight back, that we can be bought off. We tell a story that smashes cynicism and identifies it as nothing more than a defense mechanism to protect us from following the rabbit hole that leads to rising up. We tell a story of autonomy within solidarity, equity alongside diversity, peace bound with justice, struggle intimately linked with beauty. We tell a story of how our scars give us the wisdom and courage to change the world.
We tell the story ourselves, tweet and tag it, film and sing it, write it with our arrests and our bruises. We tell it at work and in school, on the picket lines and during demonstrations, at our occupations and sit-ins, in the jail cells where they put us when they are truly afraid of the power we hold. We tell it by fighting in a way that reflects the values of the world we are dreaming of, and by creating as much of that world as we can while we fight.
We are not alone. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we stand among friends.
Conclusion: Hope
Throughout history, people have struggled, risen up, and succeeded. All over the world, there are people fighting, building and dreaming. All around us, people are laying the seeds of the world we are fighting for – from their bedrooms to their workplaces, from the ways we produce and consume to the ways we teach and learn. All around us, workers are going on strike or taking control of their workplaces, students are walking out or taking control of their schools, communities are rejecting the political and social institutions that oppress them and creating their own. People are taking control of their lives, their communities, and in some places, their governments. And it is only the beginning. A movement is being born, and there is so much beauty in that – so much potential, so much hope.
Then, also, there is hope in you – hope in us. The world is waiting.
Yotam Marom is an organizer, educator, musician, and writer. He is a member of the Organization for a Free Society, and can be reached at Yotam.marom@gmail.com.
© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/153172/
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Ten Things You Should Know About the UC Davis Police Violence « Student Activism


1. The protest at which UC Davis police officers used pepper spray and batons against unresisting demonstrators was an entirely nonviolent one.
None of the arrests at UC Davis in the current wave of activism have been for violent offenses. Indeed, as the New York Times reported this morning, the university’s administration has “reported no instances of violence by any protesters.” Not one.
2. The unauthorized tent encampment was dismantled before the pepper spraying began.
Students had set up tents on campus on Thursday, and the administration had allowed them to stay up overnight. When campus police ordered students to take the tents down on Friday afternoon, however, most complied. The remainder of the tents were quickly removed by police without incident before the pepper spray incident.
3. Students did not restrict the movement of police at any time during the demonstration.
After police made a handful of arrests in the course of taking down the students’ tents, some of the remaining demonstrators formed a wide seated circle around the officers and arrestees.
UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza has claimed that officers were unable to leave that circle: “There was no way out,” she told the Sacramento Bee. “They were cutting the officers off from their support. It’s a very volatile situation.” But multiple videos clearly show that the seated students made no effort to impede the officers’ movement. Indeed, Lt. Pike, who initiated the pepper spraying of the group, was inside the circle moments earlier. To position himself to spray, he simply stepped over the line.
4. Lt. Pike was not in fear for his safety when he sprayed the students.
Chief Spicuzza told reporters on Thursday that her officers had been concerned for their safety when they began spraying. But again, multiple videos show this claim to be groundless.
The most widely distributed video of the incident (viewed, as I write this, by nearly 700,000 people on YouTube) begins just moments before Lt. Pike begain spraying, but another video, which starts a few minutes earlier, shows Pike chatting amiably with one activist, even patting him casually on the back.
The pat on the back occurs just two minutes and nineteen seconds before Pike pepper sprayed the student he had just been chatting with and all of his friends.
5. University of California Police are not authorized to use pepper spray except in circumstances in which it is necessary to prevent physical injury to themselves or others.
From the University of California’s Universitywide Police Policies and Administrative Procedures: “Chemical agents are weapons used to minimize the potential for injury to officers, offenders, or other persons. They should only be used in situations where such force reasonably appears justified and necessary.”
6. UC police are not authorized to use physical force except to control violent offenders or keep suspects from escaping.
Another quote from the UC’s policing policy: “Arrestees and suspects shall be treated in a humane manner … they shall not be subject to physical force except as required to subdue violence or ensure detention. No officer shall strike an arrestee or suspect except in self-defense, to prevent an escape, or to prevent injury to another person.”
7. The UC Davis Police made no effort to remove the student demonstrators from the walkway peacefully before using pepper spray against them.
One video of the pepper-spray incident shows a group of officers moving in to remove the students from the walkway. Just as one of them reaches down to pick up a female student who was leaning against a friend, however, Lt. Pike waves the group back, clearing a space for him to use pepper spray without risk of accidentally spraying his colleagues.
8. Use of pepper spray and other physical force continued after the students’ minimal obstruction of the area around the police ended.
The line of seated students had begun to break up no more than eight seconds after Lt. Pike began spraying. The spraying continued, however, and officers soon began using batons and other physical force against the now-incapacitated group.
9. Even after police began using unprovoked and unlawful violence against the students, they remained peaceful.
Multiple videos show the aftermath of the initial pepper spraying and the physical violence that followed. In none of them do any of the assaulted students or any of the onlookers strike any of the officers who are attacking them and their friends.
10. The students’ commitment to nonviolence extended to their use of language.
At one point on Thursday afternoon, before the police attack on the demonstration, a few activists started a chant of “From Davis to Greece, fuck the police.” They were quickly hushed by fellow demonstrators who urged them to “keep it nonviolent! Keep it peaceful!”
Their chant was replaced by one of “you use weapons, we use our voice.”
Six and a half minutes later, the entire group was pepper sprayed.
Monday Update | One of the most common criticisms of this post in comments has been the claim that because the UC Davis protesters encircled police in an attempt to (at least symbolically) prevent the arrest of their fellow students, their protest cannot be considered nonviolent. I’ve addressed this question in a followup post this morning.
If you’d like to stay in the loop as I continue to cover this story, please feel free to follow me on Twitter or subscribe to the blog’s Facebook page.

Ten Things You Should Know About Friday’s UC Davis Police Violence « Student Activism

Monday, November 28, 2011

Keith Olbermann, Dorli Rainey Talk Pepper Spray Incident, Occupy Movement (VIDEO)

Keith Olbermann spoke to Dorli Rainey -- the 84-year-old Seattle woman whose pepper spraying by police at an Occupy Seattle protest rocketed around the Internet on Tuesday -- on his Wednesday show.

Before speaking to Rainey, Olbermann ran through a string of news from Occupy events around the country. He then showed the picture of Rainey with pepper spray all over her face that went viral.

"Every time you might think you had seen the worst of the establishment's response to Occupy, somebody, somewhere, is willing to bet you are not," he said. He then turned to Rainey and asked how she was feeling.

"I'm feeling great," she said. "I'm so energized. It's amazing what a little pepper spray will do for you."

Rainey called her participation in Occupy Seattle a "natural progression" for her, since she has a long history of activism behind her. She said that she had been going to a transportation meeting when she heard "tons of helicopters" overhead. She guessed that an Occupy rally was happening, and went to join it. A little while later, though, she got pepper sprayed and shoved.

"Thank heavens a young Iraq veteran grabbed me," she said. "...Otherwise I would have been on the ground trampled."

Rainey apparently took the whole thing in stride and got back on her normal bus. "I must have looked a fright," she told Olbermann. She said she was ultimately happy, because everyone on the bus started talking about the protests. "They had never seen a real person that they could identify with who got pepper sprayed," she said.

Rainey concluded by remembering something one of her heroes, a Catholic nun, had always told her: "whatever you do, take one more step out of your comfort zone." She said that "it's so easy to say, 'Well, I'm going to retire, I'm going to sit around and watch television or eat bon-bons ... but somebody's got to keep them awake."





Keith Olbermann, Dorli Rainey Talk Pepper Spray Incident, Occupy Movement (VIDEO)

As Egypt Holds Vote, Journalist Mona Eltahawy Recounts Beating, Sexual Assault By Egyptian Forces

Editors note: Very important interview detailing the disintegration of a peaceful Egyptian revolution into a bloody confrontation. This is a slippery road the Occupy movement could easily go down, we're witnessing the same kind of police brutality that appears to be a tool authorities are using to escalate the violence here in America.  Intimidating reporters,  censorship and media repression aren't isolated to foreign countries,  journalists in New York city have been arrested, beaten and had film confiscated while covering Occupy protest events.
 
There's a striking difference in coverage of Occupy Wall St from the mass media and alternative news outlets, with mass media it's one big race towards the bottom of the barrel. It's absolutely shameful how the lack of honest, real information will ultimately be the downfall of America if people don't wake up soon. What's unfolding in Egypt is horrifying, we're fast approaching an Orwellian end game scenario where turning the clock back will be next to impossible....
 
To help people awaken story's like this must be heard by the masses so people understand the truth about what's happening over there, because it's a matter of time before it comes to the US. Mona Eltaway's courage and composure in the aftermath of such physical and psychological trauma, terror and brutality is absolutely incredible.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Egyptian-American journalist, Mona Eltahawy, was detained for 12 hours by Egypt’s security forces last Wednesday near Cairo’s Tahrir Square, during which time she was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted. She has just returned from Cairo and joins us in our studio. “So many people in Tahrir Square came up to me and would kiss my forehead, they would give me a hug and they would say, ’We’re not going to let them get away.’ They would say, ’We’re going to snatch Egypt back from them.’ I’ve come back with so many messages of love and support from Tahrir. I feel like Tahrir’s spirit is going to help my arms heal even quicker. This is for Egypt. People have lost eyes. People have been killed, people have lost loved ones,” says Eltahawy. “What happened to me is minuscule compared to that. I have a voice in the media — they don’t. So I want to use that voice to get across to the world that our revolution continues.” Today Egypt held its first round of parliamentary elections to elect a new, post-Mubarak government in the wake of fierce clashes between protesters and police that lasted for nine days and left at least 42 people dead and more than 3,000 wounded across the country.

Link to interview with Mona's recount of the brutal beating and sexual assault:
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/740232/as_egypt_holds_vote%2C_journalist_mona_eltahawy_recounts_beating%2C_sexual_assault_by_egyptian_forces/

"It's a fraud problem, not a business cycle problem" Everything you ever wanted to know about the meltdown but the bullshit news media will never tell you

William Black put over 1,000 bankers in jail
during the S & L crisis

When someone takes the time to explain it to them, people get it.

This is not a class struggle.

It's a struggle between a deeply entrenched criminal class and the productive class, the vast majority of people who work hard at work, at home and in school.

The US is being gutted from the top down much in the same way the USSR was gutted at the end of its life by its elites.

We're not dead yet and thanks to people like William Black and tools like the Internet, we may have a chance yet.

Takeaway: "It is not a few bad apples. It is an orchard of 1%'ers who a rotten to the core."

If we don't stop this now, the US as we know it (opportunity for the honest and hard working) is done for.

I try not to be too judgemental (yeah, right), but anyone who doesn't get this basic fact is an idiot.

Marine Vet at #OccupyWallStreet Tells Sean Hannity to "F**k Off"

 

Uploaded by on Oct 10, 2011
Recently, Sean Hannity called the #OccupyWallStreet protesters un-American by saying they "hated liberty."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQNtaJmiJ3k
(As seen in this video)

In response, WeAreTheOther99.com interviewed a few Marine vets at Zuccotti Park.

The Marines stated why they had come to protest and in direct response to Hannity's statement: One said "F**k Off" and the other replied: "That's the biggest load of shit I've ever heard"

Please continue to support "We Are The Other 99". Consider a donation of $9.17 [Sept. 17] to keep our coverage on the air. We are funded 100% by small donors like you. Thanks for the generosity you've already shown us, whatever the amount..

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t: @TheOther99

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Jose Pimentel - 'Lone Wolf' - Scare Tactics To Distract From The 'Occupy' Movement

They must really think we're stupid, watch the video Bloomberg presents to the press. These people are insane, they're psychopaths that's the only way to explain what's going on here.

So a 'lone wolf' 'home-grown terrorist' has been apprehended, in the nick of time, by the FBI and NYC cops. Or so the story goes. The problem is, we've heard this one before, many times. Jose Pimentel, like so many others alleged 'jihadis' before him, is undoubtedly the victim of yet another FBI sting operation rather than a dangerous terrorist. FBI sting operation? "What's that?" I hear you ask. Well, in case you've fallen victim to the 10-year-long 'war on terror' government and media mind-job, allow me to explain, or rather, allow me to point you to some fairly reliable sources.

Trevor Aaronson is a Fellow of the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. In August 2011, Aaronson published the results of his investigation into how the FBI runs a network of informants in Muslim communities in the USA. Aaronson's mulltimedia investigation, which includes an 8,000-word cover story and the first and only publicly searchable, online, interactive database of more than 500 federal terrorism prosecutions since 9/11, is aptly titled "The Informants". Among the investigation's key findings:

- The FBI has 15,000 registered informants, many of them keeping watch on Muslim communities. Today, the FBI has nearly three times as many informants as it had 25 years ago.

- Of more than 500 federal terrorism prosecutions since 9/11, nearly half involved the use of an informant - many of them motivated by money or the need to work off criminal or immigration violations.

- Sting operations resulted in prosecutions against 158 defendants. Of that total, 49 defendants participated in plots led by an "agent provocateur" - an aggressive FBI operative who provoked the targets into committing their alleged terrorist acts.

- The FBI often uses the threat of deportation, as well as other forms of leverage, to win cooperation from informants.

The report reveals that in many of the stings, important meetings between informants and the unknowing participants are left purposely unrecorded, so as to avoid any entrapment charges that could cause the case to be dismissed.

Martin Stolar, who represented a suspect involved in a New York City bombing plot which was set-up by FBI agents, said that:
"The problem with the cases we're talking about is that defendants would not have done anything if not kicked in the ass by government agents; they're creating crimes to solve crimes so they can claim a victory in the war on terror."
But there's another obvious question here, which is, what is the difference between an FBI informant and a 'lone wolf terrorist'? The answer is, nothing. The 'lone wolf' is simply the informant's informant and is being manipulated by him (on behalf of the FBI and usually with money), in exactly the same way as the first informant. The only real difference is in the propaganda potential. The first informant remains unknown, the second is the patsy, dragged out at the appointed or appropriate time to pose as the 'lone wolf terrorist' du jour to serve the agenda of the psychopathic terror masterminds in the CIA, Mossad, MI5/6 etc.

So, I think we can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that the timing of Pimentel's apprehension is cynical in the extreme. After all, the FBI had been grooming him for over two years via informants who posed as fellow 'jihadis'. Equally cynical was Bloomberg's use of a short and sweet pipe-bomb detonation video at his press conference:

Link to video:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/237952-Jose-Pimentel-Lone-Wolf-Scare-Tactics-To-Distract-From-The-Occupy-Movement

Note that Bloomberg says that the police had to "construct a duplicate of an explosive device that the suspect built and then designated (sic) in the way that he intended to use his weapon." Then we cut to a car blowing up. It doesn't get any more crass than this folks.

Bloomberg fails, however, to offer any explanation of how Pimentel was going to get his 'pipe bomb' (pipe bombs are notoriously volatile and usually end up killing their creator) into a police car (or several police cars since in this full version of the press conference Bloomberg says that Pimentel was "plotting to bomb police patrol cars, and postal facilities" and "members of our armed forces returning from abroad"). It's rather hard not to see that last comment about "members of our armed forces returning from abroad" as a direct response to the recent video of an Iraq invasion veteran letting loose on the NYC Police department's brutalization of OWS protestors. It also suggests that the US government and corporate elite are beginning to feel a little uneasy about the growth and persistence of the 'occupy' movement.

Pimentel was going to 'destroy your freedom and democracy' with an alarm clock, a piece of pipe and some Christmas lights

So why did Mayor Bloomberg decide to go to press with this story now? Is it just a coincidence that Pimentel seems to have waited until the 'occupy' movements across the US had grown deep roots before deciding to assemble his purported 'pipe bomb' and force the FBI to act? Or is there a more insidious confluence of government agendas at work here? You're damn right there are.

One of those agendas is, of course, the perpetuation of the 'Muslim terror' myth in the aftermath of the fabled death of Osama bin Laden. Perhaps that's why we're being sold the laughable story that Pimentel - a native of the Dominican Republic - was going to change his name to 'Osama Hussein'. Of course, we only have the word of the FBI, Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly that that is in fact the truth. Police Commissioner Kelly also claimed that Pimentel was a follower of Anwar al-Awlaki, the 'radical American-born cleric' who attended dinner at the Pentagon and was, allegedly, murdered by a missile from US drone in September 2011. They charge a pretty high price for dinner at the Pentagon. In case you're having trouble believing that a guy with alleged links to the '9/11 hijackers' would be wined and dined at the Pentagon, even Fox news admitted it, so you know there must be even more to the story. I recommend you check out that last link, if only to skip to minute 1.04 to hear the Fox news pundit saying probably the most ironic thing you'll ever hear:
"A defense dept. spokesman has declined our request for an interview and it's not clear, frankly, what exactly the vetting process is at the Pentagon, that would have allowed a known associate of the 9/11 hijackers into the US military's headquarters..."
Yeah, those Islamic terrorist 'vetting processes' at the Pentagon are a real mystery...at least to Fox News.

According to Commissioner Kelly, Pimentel "tried to contact al-Awlaki directly, but never got a response". No doubt he needed a higher Pentagon security clearance, or an invite to dinner, to pull that one off. But we're not just talking about the FBI and the Pentagon here. The CIA is, naturally, up to its neck in phony terrorism of the Muslim variety, and not just overseas. For example, according to an October 2011 CBS News report:
[...] three months ago, one of the CIA's most experienced clandestine operatives started work inside the New York Police Department. His title is special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence. On that much, everyone agrees.

Exactly what he's doing there, however, is much less clear.

Since The Associated Press revealed the assignment in August, federal and city officials have offered differing explanations for why this CIA officer - a seasoned operative who handled foreign agents and ran complex operations in Jordan and Pakistan - was assigned to a municipal police department. The CIA is prohibited from spying domestically, and its unusual partnership with the NYPD has troubled top lawmakers and prompted an internal investigation.

His role is important because the last time a CIA officer worked so closely with the NYPD, beginning in the months after the 9/11 attacks, he became the architect of aggressive police programs that monitored Muslim neighborhoods. With the earlier help from this CIA official, the police put entire communities under the microscope based on ethnicity rather allegations of wrongdoing, according to the AP investigation.
So there you have it. This latest 'lone wolf' story is nothing more than another CIA/FBI farce, another desperate attempt to re-inflate the fantastical and fictitious bubble that is the 'war on terror' by conflating ordinary Americans and their justified grievances with 'terrorism'. In doing so, the psychopaths in power hope to distract public attention away from the very real crimes of the American government, its agencies and its corporate and banking cronies and to criminialize dissent forever. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."

~ Abraham

Senate Moves To Allow Military To Intern Americans Without Trial, Turn Aemrica in to a Battlefield








Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Saturday, November 26, 2011

Senate Moves To Allow Military To Intern Americans Without Trial   1402565016 705d95495b

The Senate is set to vote on a bill next week that would define the whole of the United States as a “battlefield” and allow the U.S. Military to arrest American citizens in their own back yard without charge or trial.

“The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself,” writes Chris Anders of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

Under the ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’ provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is set to be up for a vote on the Senate floor Monday, the legislation will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the bill.

The bill was drafted in secret by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), before being passed in a closed-door committee meeting without any kind of hearing. The language appears in sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA bill.

“I would also point out that these provisions raise serious questions as to who we are as a society and what our Constitution seeks to protect,” Colorado Senator Mark Udall said in a speech last week. One section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on U.S. soil. Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil. That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved.”

  • A d v e r t i s e m e n t

This means Americans could be declared domestic terrorists and thrown in a military brig with no recourse whatsoever. Given that the Department of Homeland Security has characterized behavior such as buying gold, owning guns, using a watch or binoculars, donating to charity, using the telephone or email to find information, using cash, and all manner of mundane behaviors as potential indicators of domestic terrorism, such a provision would be wide open to abuse.

“American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?” asks Anders.

The ACLU is urging citizens to call their Senator and demand that the Udall Amendment be added to the bill, a change that would at least act as a check to prevent Americans being snatched off the streets without some form of Congressional oversight.

We have been warning for over a decade that Americans would become the target of laws supposedly aimed at terrorists and enemy combatants. Alex Jones personally documented how U.S. troops were being trained to arrest U.S. citizens in the event of martial law during urban warfare training drills back in the 90′s. Under the the National Defense Authorization Act bill, no declaration of martial law is necessary since Americans would now be subject to the same treatment as suspected insurgents in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

If you thought that the executive assassination of American citizens abroad was bad enough, now similar powers will be extended to the “homeland,” in other words, your town, your community, your back yard.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

SIGN PETITION HERE:

Human Rights Petition: The President of the United States: Oppose section 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA | Change.org

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Occupy Aloha!! Obama at APEC dinner gets Occupied by...a musician?

Editorial note: Every other day I'm finding a new hero in the Occupy revolution, first it was Sgt. Shamar Thomas for shaming the NYPD. Then 84yr old Dorli Rainey who was pepper sprayed in the face at Occupy Oakland, next it was retired police officer Lt. Ray Lewis who was arrested at Occupy NY and today it's Makana who made his statement earlier this week while singing before Obama and world leaders at the APEC dinner.

Hired to sing for guests during dinner, a the last minute he had a change of plans and decided to improvise with his "Dylan'esque" style Occupy song "We Are the Many" playing it over and over and over - for about 45 minutes...BRAVO!! Makana!

In addition to a big set of Kahona's this kid has a #1 hit on his hands, it's a greeaaatttt song!! Enjoy the video below, the last two video's tell the story of how it went on stage and the crowds reaction as he sang "We are the Many...you are the few." Love Makana and love this song, very catchy!! http://www.yeslab.org/APEC


By Andy Bichlbaum on Nov 13 2011
November 13, 2011
APEC World Leaders Dinner Gets Occupied
Within secure zone, musician sings on behalf of the many
(this is the song - below is what happened***http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3BYw4xjxE We Are The Many- by Makana)
Honolulu - A change in the programmed entertainment at last night's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gala left a few world leaders slack-jawed, though most seemed not to notice that anything was amiss.
During the gala dinner, renowned Hawaiian guitarist Makana, who performed at the White House in 2009, opened his suit jacket to reveal a home-made “Occupy with Aloha” T-shirt. Then, instead of playing the expected instrumental background music, he spent almost 45 minutes repeatedly singing his protest ballad released earlier that day. The ballad, called “We Are the Many,” includes lines such as “The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw.... And until they are purged, we won't withdraw,” and ends with the refrain: “We'll occupy the streets, we'll occupy the courts, we'll occupy the offices of you, till you do the bidding of the many, not the few.”
Those who could hear Makana’s message included Presidents Barack Obama of the United States of America, Hu Jintao of China, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, and over a dozen other heads of state.
“At first, I was worried about playing ‘We Are The Many,’” said Makana. “But I found it odd that I was afraid to sing a song I’d written, especially since I'd written it with these people in mind.”
The gala was the most secure event of the summit. It was held inside the Hale Koa hotel, a 72-acre facility owned and controlled by the US Defense Department; the site was fortified with an additional three miles of fencing constructed solely for the APEC summit.
Makana was surprised that no one objected to him playing the overtly critical song. “I just kept doing different versions,” he said. “I must’ve repeated ‘the bidding of the many, not the few’ at least 50 times, like a mantra. It was surreal and sobering.”
Makana’s new song is inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has taken root in cities worldwide. Last Saturday, eight protesters were arrested when they refused to leave the Occupy Honolulu encampment at Thomas Square Park. Occupy Honolulu has joined other groups, including Moana Nui, to protest the APEC meeting, and while Makana performed, hundreds of people protested outside.
After facing large-scale protests in South Korea, Australia, Peru, and Japan, APEC moved this year's event to Hawaii, the most isolated piece of land on earth. In preparation for the meeting, homeless families were moved out of sight and millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on security—including over $700,000 on non-lethal weapons for crowd control. In a bitter twist, the multi-million dollar security plans backfired when a local Hawaiian man was shot and killed by a 27-year-old DC-based federal agent providing security for dignitaries.
Makana’s action was assisted by the Yes Lab and Occupy the Boardroom. In recent weeks, Occupy protesters have been showing up at corporate events, headquarters and even on the doorsteps of those in power. “Makana really raised the bar by delivering the Occupy message inside what is probably the most secure place on the planet right now,” said Mike Bonanno of the Yes Lab.
“My uncle taught me to feel out the audience and play what my heart tells me to,” said Makana. “That’s what I did tonight.”
Contact:
Mike Bonanno: music@yeslab.org, 917-209-3282
John Sweeney: hawaii@yeslab.org, 808-230-0799
Video
Photos (click some for high-res):



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3BYw4xjxE

Occupy UC Davis: Bob Ostertag looks at the militarization of police forces in the US, Kieth Olberman November 21, 2011



KEITH OLBERMANN: Now, on “Countdown” — aftermath. Two UC Davis policemen, now the campus police chief, suspended, after Occupy protesters are pepper sprayed like so many insects. Is the university chancellor, next?

(Excerpt from video clip) STUDENTS: Resignation! Resignation!
OLBERMANN: The latest on the latest police atrocity against Occupy, with one of the UC Davis protesters, a University professor studying the militarization of campus police. And the most eloquent silence in a generation, as the school chancellor leaves.
The backlash from the lunatic right. Political associates of Speaker Boehner propose to the American Bankers Association an $850,000 project of opposition research, infiltration and undermining of Occupy Wall Street. The Association turns them down. And then there’s Newt “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” Gingrich on the Occupiers.
(Excerpt from video clip) NEWT GINGRICH: Go get a job, right after you take a bath.
OLBERMANN: Gingrich, unemployed, also suggests putting poor 13-year old kids to work as janitors.
The Super-Committee. It’s a brand name. Nothing super about it. Complete failure.
(Excerpt from video clip) JOHN KERRY: My pledge is to the constitution of the United States. To defend it. My pledge is to well and faithfully execute my duties. And that does not include living up to a pledge to a lobbyist.
OLBERMANN: Our guest, Congressman Barney Frank.
The nexus of politics and terror again. Caught spying on Muslims in their city and in New Jersey, the mayor and police chief of New York arrest a Muslim, accuse him of plotting against targets in their city and in New Jersey. And the FBI today says the suspect was no threat and there was no plot.
And the victory against fracking. The vote permitting it in the Delaware Water Basin is tabled.
(Excerpt from video clip) MAYA VAN ROSSUM: How did this happen? How did you get that vote canceled? How did it happen? You made it happen. We made it happen!
OLBERMANN: The good news with actress and activist Debra Winger and “Gasland” filmmaker Josh Fox. All that and more, now, on “Countdown.”
(TITLE SEQUENCE)
OLBERMANN: Good evening from New York. This is Monday, November 21st, 351 days until the 2012 presidential election. The Occupy movement has a signature act. It is the peaceful temporary seizure of an open space — public property — for the purpose of constitutionally-protected political protest. Seems the police who seek to repress those protests have a signature act as well — the indiscriminate use of pepper spray.
The fifth story on the “Countdown” — what happened in New York in September to four women now seems almost quaint in retrospect. What happened to 84-year-old Dorli Rainey in Seattle, a week ago tomorrow night, now seems almost controlled. For it was as if the police thought they were the exterminators and the students at their campus — UC Davis — were the cockroaches. Two campus police officers used pepper spray on Occupy demonstrators protesting tuition hikes. Two demonstrators were hospitalized after the spraying and 10 were arrested. UC Davis insists the protesters had been warned — verbally and in writing — to remove their tents and leave, saying the tents put students’ health and safety at risk. Perhaps the pepper spray was more of a risk.
(Excerpt from video clip) STUDENT #1: It felt like my face was peeling off.
(Excerpt from video clip) STUDENT #2: I received a direct shot of pepper spray down my throat. I spent the next hour dry heaving and vomiting.
OLBERMANN: Thousands at an assembly at Davis made their feelings about this heard.
(Excerpt from video clip) STUDENT #3: Whose University?
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: Our University!
(Excerpt from video clip) STUDENT #3: Whose University?
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: Our University!
OLBERMANN: Also hearing this from UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi.
(Excerpt from video clip) LINDA KATEHI: I’m here to apologize. I really feel horrible for what happened on Friday.
OLBERMANN: Apparently, she does now. It took the chancellor a few days to get to this point. On Friday — after the pepper spray attack — she issued a statement claiming, in part, that by refusing to leave, the protesters had left the university, “no option but to ask the police to assist in their removal. We are saddened to report that during this activity, 10 protesters were arrested and pepper spray was used.”
By Saturday, Chancellor Katehi was calling the use of pepper spray “chilling to all of us.” The chancellor also asked for a task force to prepare a report on the incident, due in 90 days. She told a news conference that — while she understood that very bad situation the students had faced on Friday –
(Excerpt from video clip) KATEHI: I don’t believe that that, by itself, is — would lead me to a resignation.
OLBERMANN: Shortly after that, students interrupted that news conference, surrounded that building. Chancellor Katehi stayed inside it for some three hours. Eventually, she got the protesters’ message.
(Excerpt from video clip) PROTESTERS: The world is watching. We are non-violent. The world is watching. We are non-violent.
OLBERMANN: When the Chancellor emerged, the students staged one of the more elegant Occupy protests — or protests of any kind — in years. They watched her go in silence.
By yesterday, Katehi’s position had evolved again. She put the officers who pepper sprayed the students on paid administrative leave and released another statement. “I spoke with students this weekend and I feel their outrage. I take full responsibility for the incident. I feel very sorry for the harm our students were subjected to and I vow to work tirelessly to make the campus a more welcoming and safe place.” The campus police chief Annette Spicuzza however, still defended the officers:
(Excerpt from video clip) ANNETTE SPICUZZA: You have to understand situations — it is a very fluid, dynamic situation. These are split-seconds’ decisions. There are decisions that officers make that you just can’t review.
OLBERMANN: The chief also defended the use of pepper spray, at least in theory.
(Excerpt from video clip) SPICUZZA: It is a tool that allows officers to control, as well as to stay safe and protect others besides themselves. I think it’s a necessary tool, and like any other tool that we carry and we utilize, you hope and pray that it’s used correctly and within policy.
OLBERMANN: You know what the word for that is? It starts with bull. The idea that it can be used within policy and still be wrong apparently never occurring to the chief. The only tool here was the chief. She was put on administrative leave, pending review, today. While the task force on the pepper spray assault is now supposed to turn its report, not in 90 days but in 30 days. We have a victim of the pepper spraying incident and a UC Davis professor whose students were among the victims and has been studying the militarization of campus police.
There’s been a transportation snafu and they are still en route to our interview location. They will join us when those logistics are sorted out.
Meantime, the far-right solutions to Occupy and the conditions it protests. One, John Boehner’s friends try to pitch Wall Street on a $850,000 infiltration and oppo-research project. Two, Newt Gingrich suggests a bath and a job. That would be Newt Gingrich, whose soul stinks to heaven and who is still unemployed. Next.
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OLBERMANN: Barney Frank joins me on the Anything-But-Super Committee. “It will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement.” I know. You’re shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.
Faking a terror threat for political gain is low, even for this man. The FBI says the suspect he breathlessly identified last night was no threat.
First, the Keystone XL Pipeline is delayed. Now a vote key to permitting fracking in the Delaware Water Basin has been tabled. “Gasland” filmmaker Josh Fox and actress and activist Debra Winger join me.
And the far right gets more frantic still in the effort to discredit Occupy. The $850,000 proposal for oppo-research against it. And Newt “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” Gingrich tells its members to get a job and take a bath. Irony, Mr. Gingrich is unemployed, and — at least metaphorically — stinks.
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OLBERMANN: A leaked memo reveals banking lobbyists making plans to dig up dirt on Occupy leaders. Meanwhile, Newt “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” Gingrich, a man with no lack of dirt himself, telling Occupiers to take a bath.
In our fourth story tonight — the Occupy movement now in the crosshairs of lobbyists and GOP candidates alike. First, the secret memo that shows a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm with past ties to John Boehner wrote to the American Bankers Association offering to do a recognizance on Occupy leaders for the bargain low, low price of $850,000.
The memo, written by two former members of Speaker Boehner’s staff, says that Occupy Wall Street threatens to “have a very long-lasting political policy and financial impact on the companies in the center of the bullseye.” The memo notes that Wall Street companies likely will not be the best spokespeople for their own cause, so instead the firm would go on the offensive, looking through Occupy leaders’ litigation history, tax liens, even IRS filings. The American Bankers Association, which has worked with the group in the past, declined their services this time.
Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, did not need any lobbyists help in attacking the Occupy movement on Saturday.
(Excerpt from video clip) NEWT GINGRICH: All of the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we all owe them everything. Go get a job, right after you take a bath.
OLBERMANN: And help Newt pay down his Tiffany’s bill. Some Portland residents — albeit a very small number of them, you’re seeing all of them in one picture — seeming to agree. A group calling itself Un-occupy Portland, with about a dozen members, marching Sunday to protest the protesters. A block away, several hundred members of Occupy Portland — undeterred in its march — also putting out a call on Twitter for permanent, indoor space.
Meantime, police raid a San Francisco encampment in front of the Federal Reserve Bank there. Removing about a dozen tents and reportedly arresting six protesters. The raids not seeming to slow momentum though, members of the city’s Board of Advisers pledging their support to the protesters yesterday.
(Excerpt from video clip) DAVID CAMPOS: Tonight we ask Mayor Ed Lee –
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: Tonight we ask Mayor Ed Lee –
(Excerpt from video clip) CAMPOS: That before there is a crackdown by the police –
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: That before there is a crackdown by the police –
(Excerpt from video clip) CAMPOS: That he come out here and see for himself –
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: That he come out here and see for himself –
(Excerpt from video clip) CAMPOS: What’s happening here.
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: What’s happening here.
(Excerpt from video clip) CAMPOS: Because the reality is –
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: Because the reality is –
(Excerpt from video clip) CAMPOS: That this plaza –
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: That this plaza –
(Excerpt from video clip) CAMPOS: Is safer –
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: Is safer –
(Excerpt from video clip) CAMPOS: Than many places in the city.
(Excerpt from video clip) CROWD: Than many places in the city.
OLBERMANN: Speaking of which, on the opposite coast, calls for another mayor to show his face — New York’s Michael Bloomberg. Protesters had been planning a 24-hour drum circle outside his townhouse on East 79th Street. They were stopped by police, who closed the block to all non-residents, creating what one civil-liberties lawyer describes as a “no First Amendment zone.” Bloomberg then redirected most reporters to City Hall, for what proves to have been a phony terror-scare announcement. More on that coming up. His neighbors none to pleased with the new arrivals from downtown.
(Excerpt from video clip) RESIDENT: It’s very annoying, my poor dog, she was like very scared of the drums. And she wasn’t sure what was going on.
OLBERMANN: To hell with your dog, lady. From Central Park to Zuccotti Park, which was festooned with Christmas lights this weekend. That’s not the only holiday cheer in store for protesters. New York chef Eric Smith announcing he is going to make an organic Thanksgiving dinner for 1,000 at Zuccotti Park. How much food does it take to feed that many people? Smith says he’ll be cooking 150 turkeys, 300 pounds of stuffing and 400 pounds of potatoes.
And on that tantalizing thought, joining me now — “Countdown” contributor Markos Moulitsas, founder and publisher of Daily Kos. Markos, good evening.
MARKOS MOULITSAS: Good evening, Keith.
OLBERMANN: The secret memo about the willingness to do $850,000 worth of oppo-research, how — what does that say about how nervous Wall Street, and particularly the bankers, might be about Occupy?
MOULITSAS: Well the bank have to be worried about Occupy. Just in the last month and a half, over a million people have left the too-big-to-fail banks and have opened up accounts at credit unions and local non-profit banks.
Further more, now you have a movement amongst cities. San Jose last year divested a billion dollars — that’s billion with a “B” dollars — from Bank of America. And now Portland and Seattle are talking about following suit. There’s going to be a lot of people pushing mayors to divest from the big banks.
So, this is not a question of a few un-profitable, poor customers. The fact that this movement is growing, and the more it spreads, the more impact it’s going to have on its bottom line. A consulting firm that serves the industry today released a report — 185 billion dollars is what they expect to lose in deposits over the next year.
OLBERMANN: What does it say, though, about this movement, that the ABA — The American Bankers Association — rejected this offer? Is that some glimmer that they need to polish their image and not get associated with underhanded tactics, or do they have something worse planned for Occupy?
MOULITSAS: You know, they may be greedy bastards, I don’t think they’re stupid. They didn’t get to where they are by being stupid. And they’re realizing that they are waging war against their own customers and they can’t win if they do that. So, they have to maintain at least some common, you know — higher ground. Which is why, mostly, they have stayed out of the fray. Now, allies and unnamed sources will make snide remarks but — in general — they’ve shied away from making public comments, because I don’t think it’s in their interest for them to inflame the situation and they know that. So, that’s why they are not doing that.
OLBERMANN: The new Gallup poll, showing Americans have grown either more critical of Occupy’s methods over the last month but they are also still just as supportive of the goals, in that context — I know this is kind of a soft ball coming at you — is it a smart move, politically, for Newt Gingrich to attack Occupy in that cliched, moronic manner that he did?
MOULITSAS: Well, he is running for the Republican nomination for president, so it’s fantastic politics. I mean, you never lose by hating on people if you are a Republican. He’d be in trouble if he showed any empathy for the 99 percent. That would be the death of his campaign. But the fact that he has, basically, punching them in the face, fantastic politics. In the primary. In the general election, I don’t think being pro-Wall Street is going to be that positive — that good of a place to be next year.
OLBERMANN: Bloomberg and shutting down the street on which he lives, is that legal? Do you think he even cares about looking like an out-of-touch despot, or is that, sort of, what he’s going for?
MOULITSAS: Yeah, I don’t know if it’s legal or not. I mean, obviously, they are time/place/manner restrictions on the First Amendment that the Supreme Court has decided upon in the past. So, they may decide that a quiet, residential neighborhood may not be the right place. I don’t know. That’s for the lawyers to decide. As for Bloomberg himself though — he realizes this is his last term. He is done being mayor after he’s done. So, I don’t think he cares anymore. That this point, he has got to grease the skids for when he goes back into the Wall Street sector after he’s mayor and he is going to have to make sure that his friends in that world are still his friends when he’s done being mayor.
OLBERMANN: And what does it say — all we’ve heard, so far, from everybody on the right have been these — either ideas that involve pepper spray or insults — never engagement, or at least not after a few initial comments to that effect. They are still — the right wing has had two months and they still do not have an organized pushback against Occupy — what does that say?
MOULITSAS: Well, it’s difficult, and I think this memo that we talked about at the beginning of the segment is a reason why. It talked about targeting the leaders. There are no leaders. And any time you go after a movement, it’s really difficult to knock a movement if it has no easy leaders to go after. So, that’s part of the process.
And fact is, people are hurting. Ninety-nine percent truly are hurting in this country. And it’s such a clear, concise message. It’s such a clear encapsulation of what’s wrong with this country that it’s very difficult for Republicans — as skilled as they are in rewriting history and as skilled as they are in reshaping reality — this one is too deeply engrained in people for them to manipulate.
OLBERMANN: Markos Moulitsas, the publisher and founder of Daily Kos, “Countdown” contributor, of course. As always, many thanks, sir.
MOULITSAS: Thank you very much.
OLBERMANN: Super Committee fails — yeah, I know, that’s my breaking news? Question mark? — and we’ll go out to Cal. Davis, where our two guests have now reached our location and will be able to give us a firsthand account, both of the events of the pepper-spray weekend at that university and, also, one professor’s study of the militarization of campus police. Next, on “Countdown.”
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OLBERMANN: That, again, the extraordinary video from University of California at Davis — Cal Davis. The campus police chief placed on leave. Two officers suspended after the officers acted like terrified children seeing an ant on the kitchen floor and emptied cans of repellent — in this case, pepper spray — on students who were posing no threat. As promised, more on this story with Dominic Gutierrez, a UC Davis student and protester who was pepper sprayed last Friday as he tried to shield other students from the police. Thanks for your time tonight.
DOMINIC GUTIERREZ: Thank you.
OLBERMANN: When the police approached you on Friday, had you been warned that they might use force? Did you have any indication that any of that was coming?
GUTIERREZ: No, I was surprised. We had been warned that some people would be arrested, but pepper spray came as a shock.
OLBERMANN: What happened when they — when they so nonchalantly opened, as I suggested, those — those cans of pepper spray as if they were, you know, going after insects?
GUTIERREZ: It was chaos. Everyone was screaming. I was actually on the other side of the circle. And that’s when I ran over and tried to cover the people with my sweatshirt. A lot of them are good friends, so it was really scary to see. I could just hear screams and I could see pepper spray mist coming. And you could smell it, it’s really pungent. It’s very strong.
OLBERMANN: Yeah, you could see some of, just, photographers who lined up in another line that — sort of at that right angle in the back of the screen there. Some of the photographers are retching, just from the smell, as they try to get an image of this horrific event.
GUTIERREZ: Yeah, exactly. It wasn’t just the people directly in the line. It was people all around, because it, you know, dispersed and got into people’s lungs. I got it in my eyes, it got into a lot of people’s — directly into their throats. It was pretty horrific.
OLBERMANN: Dominic, the chancellor said student’s health and safety was at risk because of the encampment. Does that make any sense to you?
GUTIERREZ: None whatsoever. We had been there for less than 24 hours, I believe — or actually just over. And it was a bunch of tents. There was no kitchen, no stoves, no bathrooms — people were using campus bathrooms and bringing food from off campus. It was completely sanitary. We weren’t blocking any walkways. We wanted to make sure others could use the quad as well. I just don’t buy that argument at all.
OLBERMANN: Occupy Wall Street went from a footnote to a headline when the pepper spray was used on four women protesters, who had been already been hemmed in behind some plastic netting, and the video went viral. The pictures from the pepper spraying in Seattle, the 84-year-old protester and the woman in Portland square in the face with the pepper spray last week — that went worldwide. What’s the effect on Occupy at UC Davis been since this event took place?
GUTIERREZ: Well, when we started, there was group of maybe 400 students, and then — whenever we would occupy overnight, because we occupied a administration building prior to this — it would be, maybe, anywhere from 100 to 20 students, depending upon the time of night. Now, there were thousands of people on the quad today. It was really incredible. They are all very excited to work with us, as fellow students and university faculty.
OLBERMANN: What — what is the outcome at this point, in terms of what the university is doing? It appears the chancellor has held six or seven different positions on this, since the event. Should she resign? Is the campus police chief viable at this point?
GUTIERREZ: Right, I think it’s all the way up the line. You know, if something happens and you are culpable for it, you should — I mean, she should really step down. The campus police chief should step down. They all knew it was going to happen. They ordered it to happen. It wasn’t one decision made up high. It was made by every single one of them, starting with Katehi when she told the officers to remove the tents, then the police chief called in riot police and then Lieutenant Pike decided to use pepper spray. So, I mean, I think all of them need to go.
OLBERMANN: Dominic Gutierrez, a student at UC Davis, part of the group that was pepper sprayed on Friday. Great thanks for coming on the program and bearing with us tonight.
GUTIERREZ: Thank you.
OLBERMANN: There is an over arching issue here, of course — not just at UC Davis, not just on college campuses, but perhaps especially there. These are campus police. Why do they have riot gear? Who told them to treat the students as if they were dangerous, violent individuals who needed to be pepper sprayed? When did we decide to militarize campus police?
My next guest is a UC Davis professor with some insight into the protesters who took that vicious attack peacefully. Some of them are his students. In fact, he describes them as “top students,” adding that “among the students he knows, the higher the grade point average, the more likely they are centrally involved in the protests.”
Bob Ostertag, professor of technocultural studies and music at Davis, who wrote about the incident today on a post at the Huffington Post that looks at militarization of campus police. Thank you for your time tonight, sir.
BOB OSTERTAG: I am delighted to be here to discuss such an important issue.
OLBERMANN: Indeed, you wrote that the way police are handling the Occupy protests constitutes a radical departure from the past. I mean, how is it different? Because as fortunate, obviously, as it was — and unfortunate as it is to have to say it — I mean, we’ve seen peaceful protesters abused by police before, whether it was water hoses or dogs or bringing in the National Guard. Why — what’s so radically different about this?
OSTERTAG: Well, we saw police dogs and water hoses in the 1950s and ’60s during the civil rights movement and during the anti-Vietnam War movement. But from the 1970s on, you know, after Kent State — and after some of the most dramatic police abuses of that era — things de-escalated, and we saw the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s, we saw the movements around the Central America, non-intervention in the 1980s, the movement against apartheid in the late Eighties, the early Nineties, all kinds of movements have taken place in our country since that time that have not seen police dogs and this kind of violence.
In fact — just over the last couple of weeks in Washington, D.C. — over one thousand people were arrested protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, over one thousand, and not a single police baton was raised. No one was pepper sprayed. No assault rifles were brandished. And, you know, the Washington police actually have to worry about things like terrorism, and they managed to make a distinction between people exercising their First Amendment right to speak in public and something that actually requires a SWAT team response.
OLBERMANN: All right, with the proviso we are going to stop showing the video because I think people have seen enough by now — has something changed, also, in terms of what the police are taught — are they taught now to assume that there is violence, or even some lethal threat, facing them at all times even when it’s people sitting down on a sidewalk in a campus?
OSTERTAG: Well, you know, I am probably not the one to speak to what police are taught. But I can say that I strongly believe — you know, Davis is not a hot bed of student radicalism. Davis is a suburban campus.
(TRANSMISSION CUTS OFF)
OLBERMANN: Well, we will be right back.
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OLBERMANN: Breaking news, the Super Committee failed to produce a compromise on debt reduction. Also, Lindbergh has landed safely in Paris.
In our third story on the “Countdown” — the failure will trigger 1.2 trillion dollars in automatic spending cuts over the decade set to begin in 2013, and be divided equally between military and domestic programs, unless the Republicans renege. The president was listening, especially to the renege part.
(Excerpt from video clip) BARACK OBAMA: Already, some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts, domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one. We need to keep the pressure up to compromise, not turn off the pressure.
OLBERMANN: So, why? Per Nancy Pelosi, “American’s demanded, and Democrats repeatedly supported, a big, bold and balanced plan to reduce our deficit and grow our economy. The plan could not be balanced because the Republicans insisted on extending the Bush tax cuts for people making more than a million dollars a year and repealing the Medicare guarantee, while refusing to accept a jobs proposal.”
Or, per Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, “In the end an agreement proved impossible not because Republicans were unwilling to compromise, but because Democrats did would not accept any proposal that did not expand the size and scope of government or punish job creators.”
Joining me now, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee — Democratic Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts. As always, sir, our thanks for your time tonight.
BARNEY FRANK: Thank you, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Who benefits from this failure? For whom is stalemate victory?
FRANK: Liberals. Inertia has switched sides in the battle. For those of us trying to get the government to play an active role in staving off a recession and helping improve the quality of life, this is good news. Inertia has been our problem. You needed 60 votes in the Senate, we couldn’t get anything done. But here’s where we are. Now, I don’t think anybody has planned this, Keith, but it’s worked out very well as far as I am concerned.
If nothing happens next year, if we continue the pattern of gridlock — because we have very right-wing people elected in 2010 and others who would, like the president, elected in 2008 — we can’t come to an agreement, here’s what happens: first of all, all of the Bush tax cuts expire. All of them. Secondly, there are significant cuts across the board but the programs for the poorest people in this country are protected and the Defense Department takes a big share of the cuts.
Now, here’s what I think this means. We say to the Republicans, “Look, if you are prepared to allow some of the Bush tax cuts to expire, namely to those making say more than $300,000 of income, then we will agree to adjust and sequester.” But again, I want to stress, if nothing happens, if they don’t agree to anything — and I was glad to hear the president say that, I was, frankly, a little worried about where he was on this — but if he says, “I am going to veto any attempt to amend the sequester,” and we say to them, “Look, he is not going to sign a bill to extend all of the Bush tax cuts,” we could put forward a bill that would extend 98 percent of the Bush tax cuts. That is for 98 percent of the people — not the dollars — and I think that’s the deal.
We say to them, “Look, if you want to continue to do nothing, then here’s what will happen. There will be no increase — there will be tax increase for everybody.” Now, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think we should continue the tax cuts for people who are making, say, less than $300,000. But I am — I am very happy with the way it’s played out, and — even if the defense cuts are equal to the domestic cuts — historically, defense has paid much less of a price than anything else.
So, I think we are in a good position. As I said, inertia has changed sides and it’s up to them now to come to us to make a deal.
OLBERMANN: But, of course — as you suggest — the Republicans have been the international distributors of inertia for the last 20 or so years. Did they not know that inertia was changing sides? How did they let this happen from their vantage point?
FRANK: They are so locked into their ideology. They had to understand this. They had to understand that — look, what this is going to do is force them to choose between defense cuts that they think are impossible to sustain, although they greatly exaggerate that, and the tax increase on the rich. They can’t have both. Yes, I think they understood this, but they are so locked-in ideologically and so rigid — so afraid of Mr. Norquist, afraid of losing in primaries. Look, the Republicans of the House consist half of people who agree with Michelle Bachmann and half of people who are afraid of losing the primary to someone who agrees with Michele Bachmann. That’s not a formula for action.
OLBERMANN: So, what do you expect them to try to do? Do you think they are going to try to renege on the premise of the Super Committee that established it in the first place?
FRANK: Well, they are going to hold their breath and kick their feet and scream and yell and tell us America will be in dire peril if we can’t continue to protect Germany against an invasion from Stalin, which is essentially what we’ve been doing for 61 years.
And one of my favorites, Keith, is we have to keep open the sea lanes for trade from Asia. You know what happens along those sea lanes? As you know, the Chinese make about a trillion dollars. So, why in the world would the Chinese want to close down the sea lanes over which they make so much money?
So — but what we say to them is, “Look, we should prepare a bill now that extends the Bush tax cuts for people making less that $300,000, less than $25,000,” — whatever we can get agreement on — and say that we will take the revenue from that and use much of it to reduce the debt, but some of it to ease the sequester.
Now, I don’t want to see a two percent cut in Medicare providers. I think that’s going to hurt people. You know, when you talk about Medicare providers those are the hospitals — some of the poorest, hardest-working people in America work in those hospitals, emptying bed pans at 2:00 in the morning. I don’t want to hurt them. But that’s the deal.
We say to the Republicans, “Here it is. We are prepared to support an extension of the tax cuts. Here’s our bill.” Now, they’ll have a bill that will pass the House that will extend the tax cuts for everybody and will undo the sequester for the military. It won’t pass the Senate, neither one — the president would threaten to veto if they did — and once that’s failed, I think that will be their first effort , we say, “Okay, now do you want to get serious? Here is the deal. Here is our bill to extend the tax cuts for 98 percent of the people, but we will save a lot of revenue and, secondly, here is our bill that adjusts the sequester and puts some money back in the military but puts some money back into Medicare.” And I think the burden is overwhelmingly on them to take it.
OLBERMANN: Well, they’ve boxed themselves in. Certainly sounds like it. Congressman Barney Frank of the Massachusetts Fourth. As ever, great thanks. And good news is that it’s all quiet in Gallipoli, from what I have been told here.
FRANK: Well I don’t know — they might come up with a threat. After all, we just sent Marines to Australia to do God knows what.
OLBERMANN: They are worried about that — the dingoes or something. Congressman, always a pleasure. Thanks for your time.
Caught illegally spying on Muslims in their city and in another’s adjoining state, the New York Police Department suddenly arrests an alleged Muslim terrorist with targets in their city and in the other state. Except the FBI today announced that it had twice told New York officials that their suspect was no threat. The nexus of politics and terror unfortunately returns in “Worst Persons.”
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OLBERMANN: Debra Winger and Josh Fox, on the bid to keep fracking out of the Delaware Water Basin. The key vote delayed. They’ll join us.
Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Newt Gingrich’s solution? Let poor, 13-year-old children become janitors. “Worst Persons,” next on “Countdown.”
First, the “Sanity Break,” and on this date in 1942, Warner Brothers released its latest cartoon — an opus called “Tale Of Two Kitties,” in which a pair of cats called Babbitt and Cat-Stello take on an obnoxious yellow creature called Tweety Bird. So, a happy 69th birthday to Tweety Bird. I tawt I taw a puddy tat.
“Time Marches On!”
VIDEO: Cat massages dog’s back. 
We begin with the TMO Adorable Clip of the Day. Putting to rest all of the nonsense about cats and dogs not getting along, there’s nothing at the end of a long day like a nice back rub. It’s Massage Cat. What’s better than a best friend with magic paws? “Really work the hind legs, I carry a lot of tension around in the hind legs. A lot of stress lately — hid this bone, don’t know where it is.”
Things got a little weird later when the cat brought out the incense and the candles.
VIDEO: Man stacks thousands of coin atop a single dime. 
From the “too much time on your hands” department, this young man is attempting to stack more than three thousand coins on top of one single dime. Why, you ask? Certainly, this is not a question the young man had asked himself.
Through a combination of skill, patience, and complete lack of a social life, he is successful in tacking — or stacking– all of the coins atop the single dime. And we’re hoping nobody turns on the air conditioner, or the whole thing will be over.
VIDEO: Two toddlers cover a house with a five-pound bag of flour. 
Finally, we end — as we always do — with a house covered in flour. While Mom was in the bathroom, her one-year-old and her three-year-old found a five-pound bag of flour in the kitchen. The result? Well, if you can’t see it by now, check your eyesight. There’s “flour” power. The next generation of “Flour” Children.
You know, you probably shouldn’t even bother cleaning it up. At this point — and a feeling I know all too well — you might just have to move. Could I suggest a house with a white interior for these kids next time?
“Time Marches On!”
“Gasland” filmmaker Josh Fox and the great Debra Winger, coming up. And first, “Worst Persons.” Stand by.
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OLBERMANN: “Gasland” film-maker Josh Fox, and actor and activist Debra Winger, on the delay of the vital vote on fracking and why that’s good news, next.
First, because these — these are the people what ought to get fracked, here are “Countdown’s” nominees for today’s top-three “Worst Persons in the World.”
The bronze? To now self-destructing Illinois Congressman Joe “Deadbeat Dad” Walsh. He strikes again. About the Occupy Movement he say, “I don’t know how many veterans are part of the Occupy protest. I can’t imagine it’s many. But anyone who would advocate socialist solutions to certain problems in this country, they don’t understand this country.” You know what “socialist solutions” are to Joe Walsh? That’s a judge telling him he has to pay his good, hard-earned money to his ex-wife for child support for their kids.
And you know what socialism is to Joe Walsh? That’s when he stops paying it and the amount he owes her balloons to $117,000, and a judge tells him he has to pay it anyway. Damned government overreach!
The runner-up? The latest GOP presidential front-runner, Newt “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” Gingrich. It’s hard to believe that the short shelf life of GOP front-runners could go to your head, but Newt has let it do so.
Speaking at Harvard, not many miles from the infamous 19th century Massachusetts textile mills that were staffed by kids as young as eight, he proposed eliminating the 120-year-old laws against manual labor by children.
“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re, what — 14, 16 years of age — fine. You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing, with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”
Gingrich then asked the crowd “Are there no prisons?” “Plenty of prisons,” said the gentlemen. “And the union workhouses?” demanded Gingrich. “Are they still in operation?” They are. Still,” returned the gentlemen. “I wish I could say they were not.” “The treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, then?,” said Gingrich. “Both very busy, Sir.” “Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Gingrich. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
But our winner? Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly of New York City. Last night they summoned, on short notice, a rare Sunday night news conference. Among other things, they managed to distract and re-locate most of the reporters covering the Occupy protest at Bloomberg’s home.
Then they breathlessly revealed an almost-laughable supposed terror plot. They even released video of a car blowing up, which they pretended was what would have happened if 27-year old Jose Pimentel had succeeded. The morons on local TV news here played the video as if it had something to do with Mr. Pimentel.
Today, FBI sources told the Associated Press that they had twice warned New York that there was no threat. That Pimentel had neither “the pre-disposition nor the ability to do anything on his own.”
Last night’s arrest of a Muslim convert on charges of “hoping to blow things up in New York and New Jersey” comes just months after Bloomberg and Kelly were caught spying illegally on — and trying to infiltrate — Muslim groups in New York and New Jersey. And then, suddenly, they arrested a half-wit whom the grown-ups knew was no threat, and then dramatically announced it on a Sunday night when there was no other local news to cover.
It’s the same old manipulation for political purposes — of phony or exaggerated terror threats — that stopped working for the Bush Administration in 2006. Yet Bloomberg and Kelly still think we’re all stupid enough to fall for it again. They are under attack, and justifiably so, for their recent fascist touches in the handling of Occupy, and the persecution of minorities in New York City, and they are throwing anything they can think of at any wall they can see.
Gentlemen, it won’t stick. We’re all on to you now. Just resign. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly of New York City — today’s “Worst Persons in the World.”
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OLBERMANN: When you think about it, usually when someone wants to pollute the drinking water for over 15 million people, the plot you’re thinking about involves a terrorist, maybe in a film. In our number-one story, a vote that would open the Delaware River to fracking was postponed today, due in large part to the over 800 people who stood outside the Trenton War Memorial and said “No fracking way!”
In 1961 New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware came together with the federal government to form the Delaware River Basin Commission or DRBC. The DRBC consists of the governors of each of the four states as well as a representative from the US Army Corps of Engineers. Ordinarily, the commission focuses on monitoring water quality. It operates with little interest from the ordinary public. But the Marcellus Shale and its vast natural-gas supply changed that.
About a third of the Delaware River Basin in New York and Pennsylvania lies on top of the Marcellus Shale. By utilizing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — the polite name for fracking — natural-gas companies estimated they could recover 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which would be enough to supply natural gas for the United States for two full years. Run a lot of hospitals to treat all the sick people that got sick that way from fracking as well.
In May 2009, DRBC executive director Carol Collier ordered that all drilling in the basin required the commission’s approval. A hearing scheduled for today planned to vote on whether or not to allow twenty thousand gas wells in the Delaware River Basin. But last week the commission decided to delay the vote, apparently due to a lack of agreement on the issue. Gov. Markell of Delaware and Gov. Cuomo of New York had both publicly stated their intent to vote against the plan. Governor Corbett of Pennsylvania had shown support. Governor Christie and the Obama administration had not made any indication of which way they would vote.
While this was seen as a victory for those who have opposed the drilling, it did not stop more than 800 people from protesting outside where the hearing was supposed to have taken place. In light of all this, joining me now, actress and activist Deborah Winger and fellow activist — and director of a great film, “Gasland” — Josh Fox. Thank you both for coming in.
DEBORAH WINGER: Thanks for having us.
OLBERMANN: Deborah, is this a victory or is this just a delay?
WINGER: Well, I’m sort of Eeyore on the victory thing. I’m like, “It’s a nice little victory, but . . . We’re in it for the long run.” Three years ago, we started to catch wind of this — no pun intended — as Josh was out across the country, sending footage back that was terrifying all of this, we thought “This can’t come east. This can’t come to New York.” And in fact, it has. It’s run over Pennsylvania and, you know — we talk about the watershed because that’s what we’ve been — the argument has been framed, and the fact is that it’s the food shed for New York.
OLBERMANN: Right.
WINGER: And what goes into the water goes into the earth, and we have great new farmers that are trying to move back into a very depressed farm area. We want that to happen. We want our specialty cheeses. We want our wine. We want — I speak to New Yorkers now. I speak to New Yorkers, because these things are being grown in a place where the water will be tainted. It’s not — it’s no doubt in our mind that if things go the way they’ve gone in these other states, we’ll be in trouble.
OLBERMANN: So Josh, why did it go the way it did and what do you think is going to happen next?
JOSH FOX: Well, I think what happened was an enormous outpouring of citizen pressure. Not just today. Today was actually a huge victory in my estimation and a very, very unlikely victory.
WINGER: He is winning.
FOX: Well, it came from an enormous outpouring of people — calling, emailing and the threat of taking over that meeting, which was stated as very, very clear — that this was a moment where we had about a thousand people there today, and we anticipated 10 times more than that, to go and swarm a 2,000-seat hall.
When the Delaware River Basin Commission put out their regulations, they got 69,800 public comments overwhelmingly against the drilling. So, if you translate that — all of New York State got 14,000 public comments. New York State took two years to absorb them. The Delaware River Basin Commission took seven months. And it doesn’t seem like anybody actually read them. Going around making the rounds with the governors, talking to them and petitioning, it didn’t seem like this crisis had really sunk in.
OLBERMANN: Right.
FOX: And now, it’s 2-2, and it’s squarely in the hands of the Obama administration. They have the swing vote. They have the deciding vote. So, we don’t know what’s actually going to happen. It’s very rare that the DRBC actually cancels a vote. So, it’s a big victory.But we don’t know for how long .  . .
WINGER: But they also have — what? They only have to declare 24 hours before. . .
FOX: Ten days.
WINGER: Ten days.
FOX: Ten days.
WINGER: Ten days. Eeyore.
FOX: So, they can decide to vote again in 10 days and it would be time to call all of those people back into the street.
WINGER: But I think people are poised, and I think that we understand we are in it for the long run, but the level of education for all of the tri-state area has to be raised.
OLBERMANN: To that end, is it your conviction, based on what you did for “Gasland,” and in terms of the preparation of it and as you put the movie together, and then the subsequent — where it resonated and where it did not — that the reason people have gotten away with fracking is because they’ve been able it operate in this vacuum of publicity and this is literally one of these situations that really needs sunshine and pressure?
FOX: Absolutely. We are in a paradigm shift about energy. We’ve been in it for quite awhile. We’re in a phase called “extreme fossil-fuel development.” Fracking fits in with Keystone XL — the tar sands — mountaintop removal, deep-water drilling. We haven’t noticed the fact that we are running out of easily-attainable oil. We should have noticed that. We should have starting moving toward renewable energy.
But what — instead — the fossil-fuel companies have done is expose us to ever-more-contaminating and risky and dangerous and polluting forms of energy development — fracking, tar sands — and we see what happens in the Gulf. You see results of fracking all across the nation. The other thing that’s happened is that that area — where it’s okay for people to be expendable — you know, like West Virginia was for 100 years –
OLBERMANN: Yeah.
FOX: Has now expanded across the country and we are in 34 states and the largest domestic national-gas drilling campaign in natural history.
WINGER: And Western Pennsylvania’s, you know, probably the best example.
FOX: It wasn’t right, obviously, for people to be expendable anywhere. But now, what you are seeing is this encroach — more and more — on places where there’s a lot of media attention.
WINGER: And I would say to that as well — because, Josh, you know — there’s nobody better to talk about policy and numbers and facts. But when you start talking to people who have been affected by this and we can’t — you can’t even manage the amount of stories that come in to be vetted.
FOX: No.
WINGER: But, you know, I think that’s for me. I have been telling stories about people my whole life. But there is none more compelling than the real stories that are coming in now and some of them are abject, some of them cannot be fixed already. And I think that that’s what I would like to get out there is — are some more of these tales. I know the New York Times magazine did an article that gave us one of those stories. They are heart breaking. And it’s happening here, it sounds like another country.
OLBERMANN: In the very limited time left, I guess I’ll just poll you — since you’re Eeyore and Winnie in this situation. Between this and the XL pipeline delay, this has been a good year for America?
WINGER: Oh no, I don’t think it’s been a good year, Keith.
FOX: This has been an amazing week. To get two wins and we are talking about a coalition of people — from the climate-justice movement, the fracking movement, the local groups, the big greens — all coming together, so I think we are just getting started. This is like the orchestra tuning itself up.
WINGER: Okay, well, that’s your metaphor. And mine is a funnel. We are going to jump in at different edges of the funnel.
OLBERMANN: Because delay means more attention and more knowledge, necessarily. So I get the final vote.
WINGER: Well, yeah. Not Tom DeLay.
OLBERMANN: Josh fox, Deborah Winger and not Tom DeLay. Thank you. That’s “Countdown.” I’m Keith Olbermann. Good night and good luck!