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I got back from a St. Patrick’s Day Party and started watching the live stream of the police riot in New York City, as they cracked down on the six-month anniversary celebration of Occupy Wall Street. I was watching people walking, singing, dancing and generally being civil, if loud, when the cops started rioting.
I’ve been in NYC on St. Patrick’s Day. I’ve watched the parade stream by from grassy knolls in southeast Central Park. I watched the parade proudly march by just a short time before September 11th, 2001. Hundreds of the cops and firefighters in that parade died that September day.
I’ve also watched the partying crowds drift away from that parade. Hundreds and hundreds of young drunks, yelling at people, breaking windows and pissing into trash cans over-filled with liquor bottles.
When the cops intervened in those scenes, they didn’t fucking go breaking heads through bank windows. They cajoled, elbowed or cuffed people, with an equal combination of firmness and professionalism.
That seems to largely be gone in the NYPD of 2012. And the way they came down hard this evening indicates that they are preparing to try to stifle the re-emergence of OWS in the rapidly warming weather.
Although other actions around the country have also recently been hassled by police, this was a peaceful, benign episode that was sternly broken up. Where the movement originated. There was an intended message here.
Sadly, the way this is turning, it won’t be long before the cops kill somebody. We have to be ready to fight harder when that happens.
I covered the student demonstrations at the University of Washington after the Kent State killings for KRAB FM radio. People fought harder then nationwide, after demonstrators were killed by adjuncts of law enforcement. I truly hope we will do that when the inevitable happens again. With firm non-violent action.
The authorities will fight hard to keep us from communicating.
They will lose.
There have been several attempts by either the Obama administration or Democratic Party-affiliated organizations to suborn aspects of OWS, or to derail it when thwarted. The latest is a snide organization called The 99% Spring. As I predicted in January, they’ve managed to draw such luminaries as Bill McKibben into the borg.
Don’t get sucked in.
99% Spring 2012 is as agitprop and phony as KONY 2012.
There’ll be more Obama-supporting bullshit like this being rolled out as the Obama and DLC strategies try to work the social networks, etc.
Don’t be fooled.
At the same time, the administration will be quietly backing legislation on the national and local levels that will try to disorganize us, make taking photographs of cops breaking the law illegal, and cutting off funding or media sources to the most outspoken of us.
They’re fucked though unless they can get hired or coerced provocateurs to create violence, mayhem or worse.
Be peaceful. Be organized. Share the message. Share the love.
This will be The American Spring.
Thanks, Firedoglake, for being such a key element in the survival of this movement through the winter.
60 Comments
I can’t recommend your diary highly enough, EdwardTeller, though ‘stern’ police actions sounds mild compared to what you indicate went on.
The 99% Spring is despicable, but predictable, given that the Obama base is so desperate to reelect him, and believes in baby-steps, tra la la. They are the group, imo, who will be last to the nonviolent revolution.
Already I’m fielding robo-calls from Dems claiming the caller is ‘from the 99%’, and asking me to take action against Republican X.
This Frances Fox Piven piece at The Nation is more of what you’re speaking about. Craven wrong, and not even well-written propaganda.
So many gate-keeping cooptations, so little time.
And yes, several states have already passed laws making photographing cops without their permission (WTF?) illegal. I was watching one case awhile back challenging the law, though, and forgot to stay with it. It may not matter much for now; with HR 347 the law of the land, the far too broad language of the NDAA, draconian city laws…as they say, ‘Arrest them all, sort it out later’. Internal memos might include ‘club them all, sort it out later’.
A little OT, but there are candidates emerging who call themselves ‘Occupy Candidates’; bad form, imo, and deceptive to boot.
Thanks for this, ET, and agree completely that there will be an attempt to crush Occupy early this time around. Moments of truth are upon us. Rec’d.
I was reading Mark Kurlansky’s history 1968 the other night. What was interesting is how Mayor Daley tried to use police brutality during the run-up to the Democratic Convention (especially during the riots after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King) as a means of discouraging people from coming to Chicago to demonstrate at the Democratic National Convention. And how he tried to manipulate permits to prevent marches from downtown to the Chicago Amphitheatre, which would have brought marchers through his own neighborhood. To a great extent, it worked. Fewer protesters showed up in Chicago than expected. And the CPD was primed to beat heads–bystanders, MSM journalists,…
The big kahuna in the American Spring is the NATO Summit, the capstone of Chicago Spring. All of the increased brutality in Chicago and elsewhere, especially related to Zucotti, will be aimed at trying to prevent the movement from re-establishing itself in strength enough to turn out large numbers of people on May 20. Preventing the reoccupation of Zucotti is key to that response.
Always happy to recommend your very learned posts.
I am so hoping the we can keep this peaceful.
Without killing someone, I am hoping the police state will overstep their mandate much like Rushbo.
I personally am revolted at the disrespect of civil rights won so painfully by so many as we have become a police state.
The police work for the one percent and St. Patrick’s Day parades don’t threaten them like #OWS does. This is especially true in NYC where Wall Street is of course and the mayor is one of the one percent and the Wall Street establishment. The police were ordered to be brutal. Never doubt it.
Indeed.
And I’m glad Ed saw the same point so many others have: Dozens if not hundreds of NYC cops were taken off drunk detail on the New York version of Mardi Gras to go beat up some bagpipers from overseas (can you say “let’s risk creating an international incident”? I knew you could) and other peaceful protesters:
http://fdl.me/wmCWaw
Adbusters has an article about the increasing police intimidation tactics.
Police Try to Intimidate Occupy
Thanks, EdwardTeller.
I think that what is happening – increasing oppression and police brutality – are the inevitable reactions of a power structure (PS) against a growing social movement. We should welcome these reactions because they are the indicators that the PS is afraid. The Occupiers, the Conservationists – and now, women who are angered and insulted by the repressive actions of state legislators and religious leaders – are questioning the legitimacy of the current PS.
Right now, the questioners are a small percentage of the population. The PS is terrified that this questioning of their legitimacy will spread to the larger population, because then they will be in deep doodoo. Thus the violence of the repression.
The PS has already admitted that they can control only by force. The repression will only become more intense. The social movement to change society has reached a critical juncture. We can meet violence with violence, in which case we will lose, because the PS has a lot more weapons and power than we have.
Or, we can meet violence with non-violence. Which, if Ghandi was right, will serve to reveal to the now uncommitted populace, that the current PS is totally illegitimate.
But, until we reach that point, there will be increasing violence from the PS – and more Rachel Corrie’s.
I have a few questions here, about training for Non-Violent Direct Actions.
I read the Counter Punch article on the 99% Spring; nothing surprising, since I learned about the 99% Spring Training through MoveOn, and just assumed it was a MoveOn thing.
Occupy Littleton and Occupy Denver are presenting a series of workshops later in April/May on Non-Violence. These will cover the whole spectrum, from philosophy to social movements to hands-on how-to do your own direct action.
And, I am taking the train-the-trainer workshops next weekend, along with a lot of other activists in Denver from Occupy, MoveOn and other community groups. Have not idea what these will consist of, since no one on the ground here seems to have any information.
But, who else, what other groups are taking on the task of training people en-masse in how to get a non-violent social movement going? It’s fine to sit there and say that the 99% Spring is a front, avoid it. But what about all the folk out here who want to know how to DO this stuff? Give us some alternatives.
The Albert Einstein Institution has been a key resource for nonviolence training. They have quite a number of publications and some free .pdf’s for downloading. Gene Sharp is their Senior Scholar.
Take the Square has been a resource for the Occupy movement. It is tied closely to Acampada Puerto del Sol in Spain.
#HowToOccupy has links to a whole bunch of resources.
The folks who have put up these resources might know of folks in your area who do training. I would go ahead and take the training that the 99% Spring is providing just to see if it meets your requirements and is sufficiently disconnected from attempts at electoral co-option. Just treat it as another resource.
That might even give you folks a basis to roll your own training course better adapted to training folks in your locality.
Training is one of the biggest helps in dealing with the fear factor around getting out and protesting.
Hope this helps.
Swarthmore College has a Global Nonviolent Action Database
It was unnerving to hear timcast say he didn’t expect eviction (or some such) last night. On the other hand, maybe that kind of optimism is what will keep occupy alive…
History repeats itself.
Well, the PTB got away with everything last season, and now they have new laws and that precedent to work with, so I would expect maximal aggressiveness from them this spring.
Yeah, me too, of course.
The exuberance of the occupiers last night for reoccupation was almost inexplicable considering all that has passed since last fall. It seemed like occupiers actually expected to retake and reoccupy Zuccotti. I think that the (naive?) optimism is one element contributing to the continued success of the movement. It’s hard to resist, if unrealistic.
Naw, Mark Twain had it right.
Heh. Indeed.
BTW, I only saw a jiggly video of Cecily M taking a swing at an officer and then getting tackled. Was there better footage that got removed? If so, what happened in that video?
I’m not sure. I picked up that retweet by Suzanne last night, and checked. There had been a video at youtube earlier in the evening showing Cecily down on the ground. Then it was gone.
I haven’t checked this morning – I’m getting my greenhouse set up. The point I was trying to make in putting up a screen shot of Suzanne’s retweet is that they can remove stuff somewhere, but it shows up elsewhere.
mzchief posted the Cecily video on another thread. Here it is. It’s hard to watch at times.
Came on this little nugget from James Madison:
Madison had *that* just about right. I wonder what he would have thought of the internet.
IIRC Federalist #10 was very concerned about the tyranny of the majority, in other words he wasn’t as friendly to real democracy as we would like to believe. Also, I recall learning that political parties were the founders solution to overcoming the distances and restrictions of easy travel in those days, as parties had a more hierarchical form with a system of representative democracy to simplify creating strong groups to represent political beliefs.
The “tyranny of the majority” has led us into many misadventures, especially where minority rights are concerned. All of the “defense of marriage” referendums on ballots this spring (they sneak them in the primary elections) if passed illustrate exactly what Madison meant by the tyranny of the majority.
Here’s Madison’s National Gazette piece on political parties:
This dates from after the government was actually operating. Federalist 10 was in support of ratification.
But protection against the tyranny of the majority would be properly applied in support of equal rights. Madison had a good idea, it was just applied to the wrong group.
Why were you not my college history professor? I’d be a lot better informed.
Tyranny of the majority and the function of political parties were the two major takeaway ideas from my college Am history class, so they are lumped together in one comment.
I do recall the bit I wrote above about political parties, but those ideas obviously did not originate in Madison. As for Federalist #10, all I remember is that it included the tyranny of the majority. The course text for the class I took was Democracy in America. Whether the political party ideas I talked about were ideas of the professor alone or from another source I do not know.
That’s one meme I’d suggest repeating over & over again. If any of you can still stomach watching Washington Journal, that would make a good talking point for callers if the subject is Occupy.
Back in the mid-60s some journalists, particularly from the left and from African-American journals, started using the term “police riot” to describe when law enforcement went out of control in the North or California. I don’t recall the term used in connection with police over-reactions to civil rights demonstrations and actions in the deep South, though.
Are videographers asked to accompany groups and do a continuous recording of what demonstrators behavior actually was? Is there a way of verifying that such videotapes are not doctored for timelines? Are there ways of transmitting the footage to a safe storage site so that if cameras are confiscated or trashed by cops, there will be a backup?
I had some modest success with that kind of framing in an entirely diff area. When the medical care ‘debate’ was raging, trolls would show up claiming that single payer blah blah blah.
I would simply point out that the problem was NOT in MC, MC, but entirely in the private part of U.S. medical industry. Trolls usually disappeared after that simple statement.
I’m thinking analogously for demonstrations. Put the blame where it is due, don’t let the opposition frame the issue.
I always associate it with the ’68 Chicago Democratic convention; all, of course, on TV.
Side note: Don’t know whether you saw my response on PUAC yesterday, but I did not select the photo. The first I saw it was when you did. Many shared your opinion.
Actually, here it is. Looks lik you were tripped up by that ever-so-helpful “http://” that those link forms seem to feel are necessary.
I did see your note and thank you. I was glad it was not your choice. I do not usually react in that visceral way, but I really couldn’t take it. I did not see others, but I appreciated your post….thanks again.
That was in reply to yellowsnapdragon @18. As usual, the first time I try to reply, the ever-so-annoying requirement that Javascript be enabled in order for Reply to work tripped me up.
No problem.
When I am the author, I feel it is my duty to reply to comments, so I kept my nose to that “grindstone”,* rather than trying to get the photo replaced after the fact while the thread was active.
*Meant in good humor. It is an honor to have people interested in one’s post.
That would fit right in with their approach to law enforcement, which is that the law applies to us, but not to them.
Good article, BTW, and recommended, of course.
Yep, Looked like it was quite active…and enjoyed. Good for you.
The Dominion have their Jem’Hadar.
My point in 27 is NOT to focus on getting thwarted by trying to document cops’ bad behavior, but rather focus on demonstrators’ good behavior. “They” will have a harder time trying to figure out how to make that illegal, though they will doubtless try.
Just so you know how this is being reported in the establishment press (and why it’s so important to pass along links and video like Gregg Levine’s to your family and friends to counter this propaganda):
http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/political_news/157816/dozens-of-occupy-protesters-arrested-following-late-night-struggle-in-zuccotti-park
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-investigating-apparent-occupy-wall-st-protester-online-threat-article-1.1041830
Most Americans aren’t hearing about the poor woman who had a seizure, or the Breton bagpipers arrested and beaten, or anything we’re seeing here. That’s why you’ve got to pass on the real OWS news from here to your family and friends.
The National Lawyers Guild has a study out that shows that in pretty much every single major protest over the past decade and a half, the vast majority of violence was in fact not only committed by the cops, it was initiated by the cops.
Ummmm. In the Constitution itself it says the document does not take effect until ratified by nine of the thirteen states. The Constitution took effect on March 4, 1789 following certification of nine State Constitutional Conventions by the Articles Congress.
The Federalist Number 10 was published in November 1787. At the time of its publication the United States were governed under the Articles of Confederation.
I don’t understand why the PTB throw gas on the fire?
But we must make it clear we ARE nonviolent.
good catch. I hadn’t seen that yet.
That’s another link to pass along.
As a long-time resident of NYC, I’m aware of that. Used to call cops thugs until I figured out that went nowhere with people who automatically thought of those who opposed cops as instigators. An evidence-based document won’t change that meme rapidly, but will make inroads, hopefully. Making law abiding citizens afraid of anything non-authoritarian as an existential threat has worked over & over again for PTB. But not always.
It didn’t take long to figure out that the square of the distance from ground zero on 9/11 was equal to the sum of the square of the two adjacent cops.
Both Timcast and GlobalRevolutionTV are carrying live feeds from tonight’s NYC OWS event. Timcast seems to be feeding a lot more smoothy.
Logically, they can always claim that it was the bad behavior that we didn’t see. Much harder to prove a negative, if there are no mathematical constraints to the issue.
Agreed. Look how well it worked for Saddam Hussein or the ayatollahs.
But then put the burden back on them. What is their evidence of bad behavior.
Not saying it’s easy, just looking for a way of changing the POV.
“Whenever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there” – Tom Joad
Your link doesn’t work for me on Safari, so here it is spelled out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An8OCm-Gl2U&feature=youtu.be
I noticed a comment on that adbuster article extolling ‘Americans Elect’ and excitedly suggesting to people to sign on. It’s just one after another after another of these sucker games from Moveon’s latest pile of puke called The 99% Spring, to this ‘Americans Elect’ joke. Please, everyone come to realize that the electoral system is completely broken. We have Occupy to help us gather the numbers of people that we’ll need and to help gather the information that we’ll need to overcome the broken electoral system without contributing to it. Contributing to it in any way will only help to perpetuate it and continue beating us down.
Please read and then help to pass on a great outreach tool created by a collective of Occupy Activists called Occucards.
http://www.occucards.com/
Good cards. I looked over them the other day. Maybe some of the facts presented on their back faces need to be formatted more like outlines or with bullet points.
Thanks for your attention to the cards, Edward. Notice that there are several issues pending for writeup. So by all means please do communicate your input to the collective.
– a comforting concept.
Unfortunately, for the first time in history, an arrest is now in a database. That database can ruin your life. For example, if you work, or apply for a job with a company, that has a contract with any government entity, that arrest will be a red flag by your name. This can prevent your being hired and might even get you fired. We are truly screwed. And not only current arrests, the database is extensive enough that even if you were arrested for protesting in 1970, that arrest will now appear on your employment check. Ask me how I know.
The hysterical over-reaction to the OWS protests tells me one thing: that the PTB are afraid. They are afraid this thing could grow exponentially very quickly beyond their ability to manage it. They truly believe we could succeed or they wouldn’t be reacting as they are.
The crazier, more violent and unhinged the response becomes, the closer we are to winning. They know it; so should we as well.
With all due respect, fuck their databases and blacklists. Who would want to work for someone who considers a protest arrest a disqualifying fault? That’s a pretty good tipoff that job will make you the wage slave of some entity in thrall to the authoritarian machine. Fuck them and fuck that. Have some self respect.
That’s the point of the post – plus hoping to get comments and feedback on the importance of non-violence training and organization, which it got.
Thanks, everyone.
I want those cards!
Thank you, Edward Teller. It’s good to know the propaganda outlets from the real deal.
I’ll put 99% Spring on my radar.
My radar is getting bogged down………!
Vigilance is a bitch!!
But, it beats Ignorance.
Thanks for the NV resource links, TarheelDem!