Occupy

[Jenne]

It shows a level of hubris you kinda gotta wonder where it came from, eh?  Probably GENERATIONS of being able to LIE to the public...?  And get away with it...?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yes, I think they lie and then it blows over, and that's how it's been done for so long that they don't anticipate anything different.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

Ive already heard some of my right-wing friends spouting the line that "The protestersrioters were blocking the way of the cops. They had to disperse them with the flash band in order to get first-aid to the injured man."

[kingyak]

Interesting....

Oakland Mayor Now Supports the Occupy Movement, Orders "Minimal Police Presence"

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Ive already heard some of my right-wing friends spouting the line that "The protestersrioters were blocking the way of the cops. They had to disperse them with the flash band in order to get first-aid to the injured man."

ZOMG

People are so fucking stupid.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Interesting....

Oakland Mayor Now Supports the Occupy Movement, Orders "Minimal Police Presence"

She (or her advisers) probably realized that this is the only way to prevent full-on rioting. I could almost feel Oakland's tension all the way up here. It's a spring wound too tight.

[Jenne]

Ive already heard some of my right-wing friends spouting the line that "The protestersrioters were blocking the way of the cops. They had to disperse them with the flash band in order to get first-aid to the injured man."

Your right-wing friends need a can of whoopass shoved...up their whoop-ass.

Just saying.

[Jenne]

Interesting....

Oakland Mayor Now Supports the Occupy Movement, Orders "Minimal Police Presence"

SOMEONE GOT A CALL FROM GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN.

I WONDER WHO THAT MIGHT BE?

2 GUESSES...READY...?  GO!

[Cain]

Charles P. Pierce, Esquire's new politics blogger, has a great piece up on Oakland:

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/occupy-oakland-6530274

Make no mistake about it: The actions of the police department in Oakland last night were a military assault on a legitimate political demonstration. That it was a milder military assault than it could have been, which is to say it wasn't a massacre, is very much beside the point. There was no possible provocation that warranted this display of force. (Graffiti? Litter? Rodents? Is the Oakland PD now a SWAT team for the city's health department?) If you are a police department in this country in 2011, this is something you do because you have the power and the technology and the license from society to do it. This is a problem that has been brewing for a long time. It predates the Occupy movement for more than a decade. It even predates the "war on terror," although that has acted as what the arson squad would call an "accelerant" to the essential dynamic.

Basic law enforcement in this country is thoroughly, totally militarized. It is militarized at its most basic levels. (The "street crime units," so beloved by, among other people, the Diallo family.) It is militarized at its highest command positions. It is militarized in its tactics, and its weaponry and, most important of all, in the attitude of the officers themselves, and in how they are trained. There is a vast militarized intelligence apparatus that leads, inevitably, to pre-emptive military actions, like the raids on protest organizations that were carried out in advance of the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. Sooner or later, this militarized law enforcement was going to collide head-on with a movement of mass public protest, and the results were going to be ugly. (There already had been dry runs elsewhere, most notably in Miami, in 2003, during protests of a meeting of trade ministers.)

Meet Oakland, Singapore-by-the-Bay. There will be more of these. Depend on it. After all, they have fans out there...

And why shouldn't the police be militarized? After all, we keep handing them "wars" to fight. A war on drugs. A war on terror. A war on graffiti. (Thanks, Rudy.) Wars are not properly fought with half-measures. Wars are fought over territory and wars are fought over power. You put enough war propaganda into the heads of young men, hand them weapons, and give them a license to use them, and they are not going to see fellow citizens through the visors on their helmets. They are going to see enemies. Wars have enemies. In Oakland last night, the police took action against enemies...

It's time for the country to realize that something is dangerously out of control here, and that it's not a bunch of people in sleeping bags in the public parks. There is a tradition of public protest in this country. Hell, this country is itself an act of public protest. Preserve that, or preserve nothing else, because there's nothing else worth preserving. Police officers are public servants. They are not soldiers, facing down enemies. This is not a war. This is America.

[Jenne]

That youtube Hawk linked earlier comes to mind--the Iraq war vet shouting "THERE'S NO HONOR IN TREATING US CITIZENS LIKE THIS--GO TO AFGHANISTAN IF YOU WANT TO SHOOT SOMEONE" comes to mind...

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Charles P. Pierce, Esquire's new politics blogger, has a great piece up on Oakland:

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/occupy-oakland-6530274

Make no mistake about it: The actions of the police department in Oakland last night were a military assault on a legitimate political demonstration. That it was a milder military assault than it could have been, which is to say it wasn't a massacre, is very much beside the point. There was no possible provocation that warranted this display of force. (Graffiti? Litter? Rodents? Is the Oakland PD now a SWAT team for the city's health department?) If you are a police department in this country in 2011, this is something you do because you have the power and the technology and the license from society to do it. This is a problem that has been brewing for a long time. It predates the Occupy movement for more than a decade. It even predates the "war on terror," although that has acted as what the arson squad would call an "accelerant" to the essential dynamic.

Basic law enforcement in this country is thoroughly, totally militarized. It is militarized at its most basic levels. (The "street crime units," so beloved by, among other people, the Diallo family.) It is militarized at its highest command positions. It is militarized in its tactics, and its weaponry and, most important of all, in the attitude of the officers themselves, and in how they are trained. There is a vast militarized intelligence apparatus that leads, inevitably, to pre-emptive military actions, like the raids on protest organizations that were carried out in advance of the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. Sooner or later, this militarized law enforcement was going to collide head-on with a movement of mass public protest, and the results were going to be ugly. (There already had been dry runs elsewhere, most notably in Miami, in 2003, during protests of a meeting of trade ministers.)

Meet Oakland, Singapore-by-the-Bay. There will be more of these. Depend on it. After all, they have fans out there...

And why shouldn't the police be militarized? After all, we keep handing them "wars" to fight. A war on drugs. A war on terror. A war on graffiti. (Thanks, Rudy.) Wars are not properly fought with half-measures. Wars are fought over territory and wars are fought over power. You put enough war propaganda into the heads of young men, hand them weapons, and give them a license to use them, and they are not going to see fellow citizens through the visors on their helmets. They are going to see enemies. Wars have enemies. In Oakland last night, the police took action against enemies...

It's time for the country to realize that something is dangerously out of control here, and that it's not a bunch of people in sleeping bags in the public parks. There is a tradition of public protest in this country. Hell, this country is itself an act of public protest. Preserve that, or preserve nothing else, because there's nothing else worth preserving. Police officers are public servants. They are not soldiers, facing down enemies. This is not a war. This is America.

Really well-said. Gonna go link that article around a bit.

[The Wizard Joseph]

It would seem that the Occupy folks have gotten cash bombed a bit.  $500,000 in donations has come in, and the first major returns on news from Google seem to be spinning it as a point of contention.

Occupy Wall Street Fund Distribution Causes Strain Among Protesters from Yahoo.com
A little something about in-fighting from BigGovernment.com
Something almost exactly the same for several paragraphs as the above from NYPost.com
Something from DailyMail.co.uk that reads differently and has better pictures, yet tells similar stories.
Some copy from Foxnews.com that has similar opening lines to the article from the UK
And a bit from the Wall Street Journallinked to from a different fox news article on the same subject, but 2 from Fox would be way too much

Reading through these got creepy for me.  I mean, some of these literally say the same thing with different attribution.  I think it's great that Occupy got cash sent their way!  They will either adapt and become a more efficient organization or fall to in-fighting... maybe.  Guess we'll find out faster if even more cash comes in.  Wish I had such problems. 

[Jenne]

Maybe now the Occupy movement is getting "Too Big Too Fail"?  Or just too big for its britches?  I think it's hilarious that this once-ad-hoc movement is now requiring folks to "fill out paperwork" to get the money donated to them.

In a way, it's awesome, in a way, it's ookook sad.  Either way, yes, I'm glad they have $ to help them eat etc.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Maybe now the Occupy movement is getting "Too Big Too Fail"?  Or just too big for its britches?  I think it's hilarious that this once-ad-hoc movement is now requiring folks to "fill out paperwork" to get the money donated to them.

In a way, it's awesome, in a way, it's ookook sad.  Either way, yes, I'm glad they have $ to help them eat etc.

How else do you do it? Just give money to whoever asks for it?

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

Ive already heard some of my right-wing friends spouting the line that "The protestersrioters were blocking the way of the cops. They had to disperse them with the flash band in order to get first-aid to the injured man."

ZOMG

People are so fucking stupid.

In all honesty the "in between the police and the injured" line Ive only heard from a single Tea Bagger type that I know IRL and a few online. But the idea that there was some kind of riot Ive heard quite a bit.

Im not sure if its honest disinfo, or if people just hear "Cops Clash with Protestors" and assume it was a riot.