Occupy Wall Street

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Here’s what attempted co-option of OWS looks like

BY GLENN GREENWALD

The 2012 election is almost a full year away and nobody knows who is running against President Obama, but that didn’t stop Mary Kay Henry, the D.C.-based National President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), from announcing last week that her organization endorses President Obama for re-election. That’s not surprising — while many unions have exhibited political independence, SEIU officials have long been among Obama’s closest and most loyal allies in Washington — but what was notable here was how brazenly Henry exploited the language of the Occupy movement to justify her endorsement of the Democratic Party leader: “We need a leader willing to fight for the needs of the 99 percent . . . .Our economy and democracy have been taken over by the wealthiest one percent.”

But now SEIU’s effort to convert and degrade the Occupy movement into what SEIU’s national leadership is — a loyal arm of the DNC and the Obama White House — has become even more overt, as Greg Sargent reports today:

One of the enduring questions about Occupy Wall Street has been this: Can the energy unleashed by the movement be leveraged behind a concrete political agenda and push for change that will constitute a meaningful challenge to the inequality and excessive Wall Street influence highlighted by the protests?

A coalition of labor and progressive groups is about to unveil its answer to that question. Get ready for “Occupy Congress.”

The coalition — which includes unions like SEIU and CWA and groups like the Center for Community Change — is currently working on a plan to bus thousands of protesters from across the country to Washington, where they will congregate around the Capitol from December 5-9, SEIU president Mary Kay Henry tells me in an interview. . . .

One goal of the protests, Henry says, is to pressure Republicans to support Obama’s jobs creation proposals. . . .

“The reason we’re targeting Republicans is because this is about jobs,” she said. “The Republicans’ insistence that no revenue can be put on the table is the reason we’re not creating jobs in this country. We want to draw a stark contrast between a party that wants to scapegoat immigrants, attack public workers, and protect the rich, versus a president who has been saying he wants America to get back to work and that everybody should pay their fair share.”

But Henry added she salutes Occupy Wall Street for finding fault with both parties, adding: “We agree that on domestic social programs, we have not won the day with either party. And we are applying pressure to both.”

Occupy Congress!

Having SEIU officials — fresh off endorsing the Obama re-election campaign — shape, fund, dictate and decree an anti-GOP, pro-Obama march is about as antithetical as one can imagine to what the Occupy movement has been. And pretending that the ongoing protests are grounded in the belief that the GOP is the party of the rich while the Democrats are the party of the working class is likely to fool just about nobody other than those fooled by that already. The strength and genius of OWS has been its steadfast refusal to (a) fall into the trap that ensnared the Tea Party of being exploited as a partisan tool and ( integrate itself into the very political institutions which it’s scorning and protesting.

As I noted several weeks ago, WH-aligned groups such as the Center for American Progress have made explicitly clear that they are going to try to convert OWS into a vote-producing arm for the Obama 2012 campaign, and that’s what “Occupy Congress” is designed to achieve. I believed then and — having spent the last few weeks talking with many OWS protesters around the country — believe even more so now that these efforts will inevitably fail: those who have animated the Occupy movement are not motivated by partisan allegiance or an overarching desire to devote themselves to one of the two parties. In fact, one of the original Occupy groups — as opposed to partisan organizations swooping in to exploit it — has announced its own D.C. occupation to, in part, “demonstrate the failure of the Democrats and Republicans in Congress to represent the views of the majority of people.”

I disagree with the prevailing wisdom that OWS should begin formulating specific legislative demands and working to elect specific candidates. I have no doubt that many OWS protesters will ultimately vote and even work for certain candidates — and that makes sense — but the U.S. desperately needs a citizen movement devoted to working outside of political and legal institutions and that is designed to be a place of dissent against it. Integrating it into that system is a way of narrowing its appeal and, worse, sapping it of its unique attributes and fear-generating potency. Even if you believe the U.S. has some sort of vibrant democracy — rather than a democracy-immune oligarchy — not all change needs to come exclusively from voting and electoral politics. Citizen movements can change the political culture in ways other than working within that pre-established electoral system; indeed, when that system becomes fundamentally corrupted, working outside of it is the only means of effectuating real change. Here’s how former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson put it in The Atlantic when equating the contemporary United States to the corrupted “emerging market” oligarchies which caused past financial crises on which he worked:

Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.

That last phrase is the essence of why I hope OWS, at least for now, remains a movement that refuses to reduce itself into garden-variety electoral politics. What is missing from America is a healthy fear in the hearts and minds of the most powerful political and financial factions of the consequences of their continued pilfering, corporatism, and corrupt crony capitalism, and only this sort of movement — untethered from the pacifying rules of our political and media institutions — can re-impose that healthy fear. When both parties are captive to the same factions, then — by design, as AIPAC has so effectively shown — one can’t subvert the agenda of those factions simply by voting for one party or the other.

Moreover, what happens with fundamentally corrupted political systems is that even well-intentioned candidates — or discrete pieces of legislation that are good in the abstract — become infected and degraded when inserted into that system; if you believe that the wealthiest class anti-democratically controls political institutions (an indisputably true premise), then it makes little sense to expect specific new bills or even individual candidates inserted into that system to bring about much change. This was the same debate I had with transparency advocate Steven Aftergood when he argued that it was better to bring about transparency with anti-secrecy legislation than with the insurgent approach of WikiLeaks. As I argued then, even if one entertained the fantasy that strong, well-crafted transparency legislation could be enacted, the fact that it would be implemented within a political system controlled by Generals and intelligence community officials, and overseen by CIA-and-Pentagon-revering members of Congress, meant that any statutory framework would be so watered down (if not outright ignored) in implementation that it would be virtually irrelevant. Given how fundamentally corrupted and secrecy-obsessed the National Security State is, only a force for transparency that remained outside of that secrecy-preserving system — WikiLeaks — could bring about meaningful disclosures. That’s what I think about our oligarchy-drenched political process.

That said, people I respect and who are well-intentioned have advanced reasonable arguments as to why the Occupy movement would be well-advised to start demanding specific legislative changes and/or backing candidates, and some have even proposed ideas for how they can and should do that. Some of those arguments are compelling (though ultimately unpersuasive to me for the reasons I just described), but everyone participating in the Occupy protests can and should — and ultimately will — decide for themselves if they think their grievances are best addressed through that tactic.

But whatever else is true, the notion — advanced by SEIU — that it’s the Democratic Party and the Obama White House working to bring about these changes and implant these values of the 99% is so self-evidently false as to be insulting. Agitating for passage of the jobs bill is a perfectly reasonable and sensible step, but how can casting that in such starkly partisan terms be justified when numerous key Democratic officials opposed the bill and prevented its passage (just as an always-changing roster of numerous key Democrats — the Villains of the Moment — almost always act to protect the interests of Washington’s permanent ruling factions)?

Beyond that, and more important, does SEIU think that people will just ignore these key political facts? How does anyone think these protesters will be convinced that it’s exclusively the GOP — and not the Democratic Party and the Obama WH — who “protect the rich” when: Wall Street funded the Democrats far more than the GOP in the 2008 election; the Democrats’ key money man, Charles Schumer, is one of the most devoted Wall Street servants in the country; Obama empowered in key positions Wall Street servants such as Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Bill Daley, Rahm Emanuel, and an endless roster of former Goldman officials; JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been dubbed “Obama’s favorite banker” after Obama publicly defended his post-bailout $17 million bonus; the President named the CEO of GE to head his jobs panel; the DCCC and DSCC exist to ensure the nomination of corporatist candidates and Blue Dogs whose political worldview is servitude to the lobbyist class; the Democratic President, after vocally urging an Age of Austerity, tried very hard to usher in cuts to Social Security and an increase in the age for Medicare eligibility; and the Obama administration has not only ensured virtually no accountability for the rampant Wall Street fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis, but is actively pressuring New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and others to agree to a woefully inadequate settlement to forever shield banks from the consequences of their pervasive mortgage fraud.

That’s just a fraction of the facts one could list to document the actual factions to which the Democratic Party has devoted itself. If one wants to argue that the GOP is more opposed to progressive economic policies than Democrats, that’s certainly reasonable. If one wants to argue that, on balance, voting for Democrats is more likely to bring about marginally more of those policies than abstaining, I think that, too, is reasonable. But to try to cast the Democratic Party and the Obama administration as the vessel for the values and objectives of the Occupy movement is just dishonest in the extreme: in fact, it’s so extreme that it’s very unlikely to work. Those who believe that further empowerment of the Democratic Party is what is most urgently needed can make their case and should pursue that goal — they should try to generate as much citizen enthusiasm as possible behind them — but they should stop trying to depict and exploit the Occupy movement as an instrument for their agenda.

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/19/heres_what_attempted_co_option_of_ows_looks_like/singleton/

[Sharpshooter]

Online Furor After Police Pepper-Spray Demonstrators at UC Davis

A non-violent protest at UC Davis turned chaotic Friday afternoon as police pepper-sprayed a group of students sitting on the ground. Videos shot at the scene show a policeman walking up to the protesters, pulling out his can of pepper spray to display to the crowd, and liberally sweeping the protesters with the stinging substance. Many students had their heads down, but at least one demonstrator was hit in the face. Other officers then followed suit, spraying many of the Occupiers who appeared to be sitting in a circle with their arms linked. By midday Saturday, videos of the showdown were circulating the Internet.

As the pepper spray hit protesters, the gathered crowd bristled at the police action. A chorus of boos quickly rang out and as police attempted to drag students from the circle the crowd began to chant “Shame on you!” At least one teacher reported that police restrained students as they were pepper-sprayed in the mouth. Bystanders swooped in to tend to those who had been sprayed, as police in riot gear stood watch. The afternoon ended with 10 arrests, nine of them students, the Associated Press reports.

(PHOTOS: Occupy Protests Spread Worldwide)

Police soon responded to the online uproar surrounding the videos. According to UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza, the students were surrounding police officers as they sat in their tightly-linked circle. “They were cutting the officers off from their support,” Spicuzza told the Sacramento Bee. “It’s a very volatile situation.”

The situation allegedly came to a standoff when the UC Davis students were told to move their encampment by 3 p.m. Friday. The Sacramento Bee reports they had been camped out since Thursday. On Friday morning they were told to take down their tents by the afternoon, but when police arrived tents remained. Shortly before 4 p.m., police from UC Davis, other UC campuses, and the city of Davis swooped in, shortly before 4 p.m.

This harshly contested chain of events has inspired UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi to form a task force to investigate the police action. “The use of the pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this,” Katehi said.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/11/19/watch-online-furor-after-police-pepper-spray-demonstrators-at-uc-davis/#ixzz1eCtxGM00

[Satan's Evil Twin]

The best part is the Police Chief saying that her officers were "surrounded"......surrounded by what? By a circle of students sitting down.

The only way in and out of this 'volaitle situation and impenetrable? To pepper spray their way out and in.

And even better is the dumbass and now doe-eyed Chancellor promising a full investigation and raising of questions....you know after she called the police in to do exactly what they did. She's something else this one. I can just picture her in her best Southern Belle voice saying," Oh I do declare! Won't anyone think of the children!"....

[Sharpshooter]

I wonder if anyone around here noticed how McGill students got beaten by Canadian police a few days ago. Or did no one simply care.

Pigs, the lot of 'em.

[canuckster19]

I won't say the "lot of 'em". If you meant the specific ones at McGill, then I suppose i'd tend to agree with your characterization of them.

That clip of the Wisconsin police in support of the civilian protest would tell me that there are many out there that don't fit that description.....as the police cpatian from Philly who went and protested alongside those "dirty punk kids and hippies".

On a side note:

I wonder if it's against our Charter for police to use pepper spray on non-violent peaceful protestors?

Wetcoaster, any info or thoughts?

[Sharpshooter]

With regards to the Wisconsin police video, it's dated February 2011, digging a bit further, it had something to do with a teachers strike.

If somewhere some community could get the support of the police, maybe we'd see some change.

[GLASSJAW]

HEADWATERS FOREST DEFENSE v. COUNTY OF HUMBOLDT

Use of pepper spray on peaceful protesters violates the Fourth Amendment.

Negged for linking a relevant court case. Bloody cowards!

[Satan's Evil Twin]

I won't say the "lot of 'em". If you meant the specific ones at McGill, then I suppose i'd tend to agree with your characterization of them.

That clip of the Wisconsin police in support of the civilian protest would tell me that there are many out there that don't fit that description.....as the police cpatian from Philly who went and protested alongside those "dirty punk kids and hippies".

On a side note:

I wonder if it's against our Charter for police to use pepper spray on non-violent peaceful protestors?

Wetcoaster, any info or thoughts?

[Sharpshooter]

in the cases you just linked, the people receive multiple, direct applications of pepper spray to the eye, either with cotton swab or direct sprays to the face from inches away. that, apparently, was a 10 year court battle (reaching the supreme court) to be considered excessive. in the video of the UC Davis kids, they were sprayed for a few seconds, after being told to leave (both by the school and the police). i don't understand.

are people allowed to just obstruct public walkways, despite being asked to leave by the school? despite being asked by the police? can the police not do anything without it being considered "excessive"?

yes the people are sprayed with pepper spray, but if it took 10 years to determine that multiple direct cotton swab applications of the substance to an eye is "excessive" i can't imagine how the few seconds of spraying done by the cop is excessive. is he not just doing his job?

[Satan's Evil Twin]

in the cases you just linked, the people receive multiple, direct applications of pepper spray to the eye, either with cotton swab or direct sprays to the face from inches away. that, apparently, was a 10 year court battle (reaching the supreme court) to be considered excessive. in the video of the UC Davis kids, they were sprayed for a few seconds, after being told to leave (both by the school and the police). i don't understand.

are people allowed to just obstruct public walkways, despite being asked to leave by the school? despite being asked by the police? can the police not do anything without it being considered "excessive"?

yes the people are sprayed with pepper spray, but if it took 10 years to determine that multiple direct cotton swab applications of the substance to an eye is "excessive" i can't imagine how the few seconds of spraying done by the cop is excessive. is he not just doing his job?

[Sharpshooter]

That's the thing, the more I read the more I become convinced that it is a systematic problem. Look at the NYPD and their outpouring of support for the 16 cops charged with various offenses. How many rotten apples does one have to pick up before realizing the batch is spoiled?

Why didn't any cop speak out in Oakland when they started teargassing the protesters and using rubber bullets (later to be denied by the mayor)? At any other occupation, aren't we always told company policies and to rat on our co-workers if they offend? Not so with cops. They cover for each other, they doctor reports and falsify evidence to keep each other in the clear. On the off-chance one of them gets caught red-handed, they get paid vacation. There's no accountability in the US for police who overstep their bounds (except in the most extreme cases), and that is what breeds the cops willing to pepper spray peaceful protesters. They have full immunity.

In my most honest opinion, if the fallout from the protests is positive and real change happens, police departments across the nation should be purged. There should be no second chances. Those double-digit IQ cops that unquestioningly follow orders to assault and batter do not deserve to wear badges. Police should be the first means of protection for citizenry, not the first means of oppression for powers that be.

Perhaps I'm too idealistic and tend to judge people based on the expectations I have for myself. I've always taken actions that were to my detriment when it meant doing the right thing. I think this is exactly what we should expect of people charged with keeping peace and protecting the weak and powerless.

Imagine if the police were as I propose they should be, today. Conditions would never devolve to the point where people protest across nations, because perpetrators of economic and political crimes would be jailed. We need accountability at all levels if we are to strive as free societies.

I think I'm rambling. I blame the beer. There's a point in there somewhere.

[GLASSJAW]

“[T]he essence of the Graham objective reasonableness analysis” is that “ ‘[t]he force which was applied must be balanced against the need for that force:  it is the need for force which is at the heart of the Graham factors.’ ”  Liston v. County of Riverside, 120 F.3d 965, 976 (9th Cir.1997) (quoting Alexander v. City and County of San Francisco, 29 F.3d 1355, 1367 (9th Cir.1994)) (emphasis in original).   The facts reflect that:  (1) the pepper spray was unnecessary to subdue, remove, or arrest the protestors;  (2) the officers could safely and quickly remove the protestors, while in “black bears,” from protest sites;  and (3) the officers could remove the “black bears” with electric grinders in a matter of minutes and without causing pain or injury to the protestors.

I'd argue the force was unnecessary. I'd also argue the police didn't take any steps to control the protesters before pepper spray was deployed.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

I understand your point, don't worry, I'm bilingual....i speak both scotch and beer.

And there are plenty of good cops out there in every force, in every country. Sometimes the reasons you don't hear about them is because it doesn't make for good newsprint or headlines over a bad cop.

I'm just saying that while I completely agree with your sentiment about those that deserve to be called 'pigs', I can't agree with you that all cops are deserving to be called 'pigs'. Just like how all Russians aren't named Vladimir, although almost all people named Vladimir are most likely Russian...not really but you know what I mean.

But carry on, I enjoy a good drunken ramble.....it's kinda nice not being the one doing the drunken rambling this time, to be honest.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Yes, the "black bears" can be removed with an electric grinder. And in the case of UC Davis? What is the equivalent? Call in the riot squad to throw a giant net over the group of protesters and drag them away?

From what I've read, the police asked them to move multiple times, after the school denied them a 'tent city' on the lawn. Now what I just don't understand is, when you go against police orders multiple times, what is that police officer allowed to do? What should the protester EXPECT to happen?

It just seems like this is a lose/lose situation for cops all over the place. Yeah, it would suck to get sprayed like that... but what did they expect? What is a police officer ALLOWED to do when his/her orders are ignored?

What steps are you talking about? How should the cops have handled it, with OWS loyalty and sentimentality aside?

edit: i'm not trying to be an ass here, i sincerely just don't get it. did the school not have a legal right to reject a tent city? and if so, did the police not have the legal right to remove them by force?

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Beautiful.

[Sharpshooter]

Silent Treatment eh? Didn't see that one coming.

That was pretty cool

Gandhi woulda been proud.

[German_Canucks_Supporter]

i can't imagine how the few seconds of spraying done by the cop is excessive. is he not just doing his job?

[Satan's Evil Twin]

I can't believe how the one second of pulling the trigger on a gun is excessive.

Yeah, maybe a wrong analogy, but the results of being peppersprayed aren't funny. Oh well, maybe it's all a plot by the pepper spray industry. They have to make millions of extra dollars recently.

[Taelin]

More than two dozen people have died in California since pepper spray was legalized in the early 90's. Conditions like asthma, allergies to certain chemicals in the spray. Are police ready to provide first aid to people they're spraying into submission? It's more and more becoming a matter of time until a protester gets killed by the police. That'll be the real catalyst.

[GLASSJAW]

One guy was coughing up blood, because of the spraying done......even though he was sitting down, peacefully and not making any aggressive or threatening gestures. I'd say the force used was excessive......considering by that time, the tents had been dismantled.....which was the main complaint of the University.