Frankie Hughes American Icon

I have done year end iconic photographs in the past, but it never really crossed my mind to do it again this year, until that is, I woke up to these images this morning.

It wasn't the first image in this series of four that caught my eye and my admiration the way it did, I had to search out that one and the two others. Indeed it was the second one in the group that was first brought to my notice, and that for me, epitomised every thing that makes a photo iconic.

A lone slip of a girl silently protesting, surrounded by the burly troopers of the American Police State. That alone would have been plenty; but the cable ties! Oh what a gift to any photograph of this genre, you couldn't ask for more.

Little wonder her father is proud of her, as I would be too.

Frankie Hughes, fourteen years old, bless you girl, bless you indeed.

Update: Could someone please leave me a linkback to to the facebook site that is running this story. I would be interested in public opinion. Thank you.

Fourteen Year-Old Girl Among Dozen 'Occupy the Caucus' Protesters in Iowa
By Brett Smiley

Police arrested a dozen Occupy the Caucus protesters who blocked the doors to the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters, including 14-year-old Frankie Hughes who wore tape over her mouth and a sandwich sign that identified her as “a child whose voice is not heard." This isn't the girl's first rodeo with police, either. She said she's been arrested three or four times before, once at the State Capitol, according to the Times.

In this case, Frankie joined protesters who voiced concerns about Obama's ties to Wall Street, among other things. She was released to her father who said “I’m actually proud of her for standing up the way she did.” Better a serial protester than a problem child. NYmag.com

Regarding Frankie Hughes being an icon? well, I've just made her mine. Will you join me and give the girl the recognition she so richly deserves? You can do that by clicking any of the share/tweet buttons that are available available immediately below. Thanks.

In fact, I have just given Frankie Hughes her own tag, something tells me this isn't going to be the last we shall hear about this remarkable girl.

h/t YourAnonNews

A Man in Tunisia, a Movement on Wall Street, and the Soldier Who Ignited the Fuse: Michael Moore

A Man in Tunisia, a Movement on Wall Street, and the Soldier Who Ignited the Fuse
by Michael Moore,
17 December 2011

It's Saturday night and I didn't want the day to end before I sent out this note to you.

One year ago on December 17th, Mohamed Bouazizi, a man who had a simple produce stand in Tunisia, set himself on fire to protest his government's repression. His singular sacrifice ignited a revolution that toppled Tunisia's dictator and launched revolts in regimes across the Middle East.

Three months ago on December 17th, Occupy Wall Street began with a takeover of New York's Zuccotti Park. This movement against the greed of corporate America and its banks -- and the money that now controls most of our democratic institutions -- has quickly spread to hundreds of towns and cities across America. The majority of Americans now agree that a nation where 400 billionaires have more wealth than 160 million Americans combined is not the country they want America to be. The 99% are rising up against the 1% -- and now there is no turning back.

Twenty-four years ago on December 17th, U.S. Army Spc. Bradley Manning was born. He has now spent 570 days in a military prison without a trial -- simply because he allegedly blew the whistle on the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. He exposed what the Pentagon and the Bush administration did in creating this evil and he did so by allegedly leaking documents and footage to Wikileaks. Many of these documents dealt not only with Iraq but with how we prop up dictators around the world and how our corporations exploit the poor on this planet. (There were even cables with crazy stuff on them, like one detailing Bush's State Department trying to stop a government minister in another country from holding a screening of 'Fahrenheit 9/11.')

The Wikileaks trove was a fascinating look into how the United States conducts its business -- and clearly those who don't want the world to know how we do things in places like, say, Tunisia, were not happy with Bradley Manning.

Mohamed Bouazizi was being treated poorly by government officials because all he wanted to do was set up a cart and sell fruit and vegetables on the street. But local police kept harassing him and trying to stop him. He, like most Tunisians, knew how corrupt their government was. But when Wikileaks published cables from the U.S. ambassador in Tunis confirming the corruption -- cables that were published just a week or so before Mohamed set himself on fire -- well, that was it for the Tunisian people, and all hell broke loose.

People across the world devoured the information Bradley Manning revealed, and it was used by movements in Egypt, Spain, and eventually Occupy Wall Street to bolster what we already thought was true. Except here were the goods -- the evidence that was needed to prove it all true. And then a democracy movement spread around the globe so fast and so deep -- and in just a year's time! When anyone asks me, "Who started Occupy Wall Street?" sometimes I say "Goldman Sachs" or "Chase" but mostly I just say, "Bradley Manning." It was his courageous action that was the tipping point -- and it was not surprising when the dictator of Tunisia censored all news of the Wikileaks documents Manning had allegedly supplied. But the internet took Manning's gift and spread it throughout Tunisia, a young man set himself on fire and the Arab Spring that led eventually to Zuccotti Park has a young, gay soldier in the United States Army to thank.

And that is why I want to honor Bradley Manning on this, his 24th birthday, and ask the millions of you reading this to join with me in demanding his immediate release. He does not deserve the un-American treatment, including cruel solitary confinement, he's received in over eighteen months of imprisonment. If anything, this young man deserves a friggin' medal. He did what great Americans have always done -- he took a bold stand against injustice and he did it without stopping for a minute to consider the consequences for himself.

The Pentagon and the national security apparatus are hell-bent on setting an example with Bradley Manning. But we as Americans have a right to know what is being done in our name and with our tax dollars. If the government tries to cover up its malfeasance, then it is the duty of each and every one of us, should the situation arise, to drag the truth, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the light of day.

The American flag was lowered in Iraq this past Thursday as our war on them officially came to an end. If anyone should be on trial or in the brig right now, it should be those men who lied to the nation in order to start this war -- and in doing so sent nearly 4,500 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to their deaths.

But it is not Bush or Rumsfeld or Cheney or Wolfowitz who sit in prison tonight. It is the hero who exposed them. It is Bradley Manning who has lost his freedom and that, in turn, becomes just one more crime being committed in our name.

I know, I know, c'mon Mike -- it's the holiday season, there's presents to buy and parties to go to! And yes, this really is one of my favorite weeks of the year. But in the spirit of the man whose birth will be celebrated next Sunday, please do something, anything, to help this young man who spends his birthday tonight behind bars. I say, enough. Let him go home and spend Christmas with his family. We've done enough violence to the world this decade while claiming to be a country that admires the Prince of Peace. The war is over. And a whole new movement has a lot to thank Bradley Manning for. truthout

My Fellow Americans: LAPD's Attack on Occupy LA

People Locked in Tiny Cages, Crying in Pain: What I Saw and Heard When the LAPD Threw Me in Jail for Exercising My Right to Protest the Oligarchy

Don't believe the PR. There was nothing peaceful or professional about the LAPD's attack on Occupy LA -- or the way detainees were later treated.
December 2, 2011


Editor's note: Yasha Levine, editor of the Exhiled.com, spent a . Here's his account of the crackdown on Occupy LA.

I finally got home Thursday afternoon after spending two nights in jail, and have had a hard time getting my bearings. On top of severe dehydration and sleep deprivation, I’ve got one hell of pounding migraine. So I’ll have to keep this brief for now. But I wanted to write down a few things that I witnessed and heard while locked up by LA’s finest…




First off, don’t believe the PR bullshit. There was nothing peaceful or professional about the LAPD’s attack on Occupy LA–not unless you think that people peacefully protesting against the power of the financial oligarchy deserve to be treated the way I saw Russian cops treating the protesters in Moscow and St. Petersburg who were demonstrating against the oligarchy under Putin and Yeltsin, before we at The eXiled all got tossed out in 2008. Back then, everyone in the West protested and criticized the way the Russian cops brutally snuffed out dissent, myself included. Now I’m in America, at a demonstration, watching exactly the same brutal crackdown…

While people are now beginning to learn that the police attack on Occupy LA was much more violent than previously reported, few actually realize that much—if not most—of the abuse happened while the protesters were in police custody, completely outside the range of the press and news media. And the disgraceful truth is that a lot of the abuse was police sadism, pure and simple:

* I heard from two different sources that at least one busload of protesters (around 40 people) was forced to spend seven excruciating hours locked in tiny cages on a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. prison bus, denied food, water and access to bathroom facilities. Both men and women were forced to urinate in their seats. Meanwhile, the cops in charge of the bus took an extended Starbucks coffee break.

* The bus that I was shoved into didn’t move for at least an hour. The whole time we listened to the screams and crying from a young woman whom the cops locked into a tiny cage at the front of the bus. She was in agony, begging and pleading for one of the policemen to loosen her plastic handcuffs. A police officer sat a couple of feet away the entire time that she screamed–but wouldn’t lift a finger.

* Everyone on my bus felt her pain–literally felt it. That’s because the zip-tie handcuffs they use—like the ones you see on Iraq prisoners in Abu Ghraib—cut off your circulation and wedge deep through your skin, where they can do some serious nerve damage, if that’s the point. And it did seem to be the point. A couple of guys around me were writhing in agony in their hard plastic seats, hands handcuffed behind their back.

* The 100 protesters in my detainee group were kept handcuffed with their hands behind their backs for 7 hours, denied food and water and forced to sit/sleep on a concrete floor. Some were so tired they passed out face down on the cold and dirty concrete, hands tied behind their back. As a result of the tight cuffs, I wound up losing sensation in my left palm/thumb and still haven’t recovered it now, a day and a half after they finally took them off.

* One seriously injured protester, who had been shot with a shotgun beanbag round and had an oozing bloody welt the size of a grapefruit just above his elbow, was denied medical attention for five hours. Another young guy, who complained that he thought his arm had been broken, was not given medical attention for at least as long. Instead, he spent the entire pre-booking procedure handcuffed to a wall, completely spaced out and staring blankly into space like he was in shock.

* An Occupy LA demonstrator in his 50s who was in my cell block in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center told us all about when a police officer forced him to take a shit with his hands handcuffed behind his back, which made pulling down his pants and sitting down on the toilet extremely difficult and awkward. And he had to do this in sight of female police officers, all of which made him feel extremely ashamed, to say the least.

* There were two vegetarians and one vegan in my cell. When I left jail around 1:30 pm, they still had not been given food, despite the fact that they were constantly being promised that it would come.

* There were 292 people arrested at Occupy LA. About 75 of them have been released or have gotten out on bail, according the National Lawyers Guild. Most are still inside, slapped with $5,000 to $10,000 bail. According to a bail bondsman I know, this is unprecedented. Misdemeanors are almost always released on their own recognizance, which means that they don’t pay any bail at all. Or at most it’s a $100.

* That means the harsh, long detentions are meant to be are a purely punitive measure against Occupy LA protesters–an order that had to come from the very top. AlterNet

A Cartoon For Occupy

The opportunity to hear Beck's response comes at the end of the cartoon.

It's 2011 -- Why Is God Still Involved In American Politics? Speaking For God

Paramilitary Policing From Seattle to Occupy Wall Street

Paramilitary Policing From Seattle to Occupy Wall Street

.....The paramilitary bureaucracy and the culture it engenders—a black-and-white world in which police unions serve above all to protect the brotherhood—is worse today than it was in the 1990s. Such agencies inevitably view protesters as the enemy. And young people, poor people and people of color will forever experience the institution as an abusive, militaristic force—not just during demonstrations but every day, in neighborhoods across the country.

Much of the problem is rooted in a rigid command-and-control hierarchy based on the military model. American police forces are beholden to archaic internal systems of authority whose rules emphasize bureaucratic regulations over conduct on the streets. An officer’s hair length, the shine on his shoes and the condition of his car are more important than whether he treats a burglary victim or a sex worker with dignity and respect. In the interest of “discipline,” too many police bosses treat their frontline officers as dependent children, which helps explain why many of them behave more like juvenile delinquents than mature, competent professionals. It also helps to explain why persistent, patterned misconduct, including racism, sexism, homophobia, brutality, perjury and corruption, do not go away, no matter how many blue-ribbon panels are commissioned or how much training is provided. More The Nation

Norm Stamper was chief of the Seattle Police Department during the WTO protests in 1999. He is the author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing (Nation Books).

From the comments section, and a man that mirrors my philosophy.

Most cops are fascists. That’s just a noted fact. The first thing that must be done is to change the recruitment and training of new police. All departments have candidates take a psychological test. They must use new tests to weed out the aggressive personalities which now dominate virtually all police departments at the local, county, state and federal levels. More weight must be added to candidates with strong reasoning, verbal communication and analytical skills, as well as a demonstrable moral core. Most cops have been militarized, as the article state. And, most are in for the duration - until they can retire and collect a pension. Therefore, they qualify as “Lifers”, just as in the military. You cannot de-militarize a lifer soldier.

Step one; recruit the right candidate. Step two; the switch from a paramilitary police force to a service police force must start from day one at the academy. Less emphasis on confrontation and combat ... more emphasis on psychology and communication. Step three; give cops meaningful work ... end the ridiculous “War On Drugs”. That redefines the officers’ relationship to the community. No longer is every person with their hand in their pocket a suspected drug user or dealer. Now the cops on the beat and in districts can meet the people face to face without the burden of the old, “Us against them” mentality.

It would be a start.

11. posted by: Big Dave at 11/11/2011

Talking About A Revolution

I would like to believe this is more than just rhetoric.

As the writer notes, the component parts for a revolution are in place, but that is a far cry from an actual cohesive movement that would bring about fundamental change.

If nothing else is achieved, at least the pretence is gone. No more 'democracy' bullshit, America can now be seen for what it is, what it has been for a long time, a police state.

And I have a great deal of trouble accepting the notion that the minions of corporate America, the para-military police, are going to somehow find a social conscience and join with masses in instrumenting that change.

I think the events of the last few days have more than proved just where just where the cops stand, where they have always stood, shoulder to shoulder with the establishment.

This Is What Revolution Looks Like
by Chris Hedges,
15 November 2011

Welcome to the revolution. Our elites have exposed their hand. They have nothing to offer. They can destroy but they cannot build. They can repress but they cannot lead. They can steal but they cannot share. They can talk but they cannot speak. They are as dead and useless to us as the water-soaked books, tents, sleeping bags, suitcases, food boxes and clothes that were tossed by sanitation workers Tuesday morning into garbage trucks in New York City. They have no ideas, no plans and no vision for the future.

Our decaying corporate regime has strutted in Portland, Oakland and New York with their baton-wielding cops into a fool’s paradise. They think they can clean up “the mess”—always employing the language of personal hygiene and public security—by making us disappear. They think we will all go home and accept their corporate nation, a nation where crime and government policy have become indistinguishable, where nothing in America, including the ordinary citizen, is deemed by those in power worth protecting or preserving, where corporate oligarchs awash in hundreds of millions of dollars are permitted to loot and pillage the last shreds of collective wealth, human capital and natural resources, a nation where the poor do not eat and workers do not work, a nation where the sick die and children go hungry, a nation where the consent of the governed and the voice of the people is a cruel joke.

Get back into your cages, they are telling us. Return to watching the lies, absurdities, trivia and celebrity gossip we feed you in 24-hour cycles on television. Invest your emotional energy in the vast system of popular entertainment. Run up your credit card debt. Pay your loans. Be thankful for the scraps we toss. Chant back to us our phrases about democracy, greatness and freedom. Vote in our rigged political theater. Send your young men and women to fight and die in useless, unwinnable wars that provide corporations with huge profits. Stand by mutely as our bipartisan congressional super committee, either through consensus or cynical dysfunction, plunges you into a society without basic social services including unemployment benefits. Pay for the crimes of Wall Street.

The rogues’ gallery of Wall Street crooks, such as Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs, Howard Milstein at New York Private Bank & Trust, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers and Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase & Co., no doubt think it’s over. They think it is back to the business of harvesting what is left of America to swell their personal and corporate fortunes. But they no longer have any concept of what is happening around them. They are as mystified and clueless about these uprisings as the courtiers at Versailles or in the Forbidden City who never understood until the very end that their world was collapsing. The billionaire mayor of New York, enriched by a deregulated Wall Street, is unable to grasp why people would spend two months sleeping in an open park and marching on banks. He says he understands that the Occupy protests are “cathartic” and “entertaining,” as if demonstrating against the pain of being homeless and unemployed is a form of therapy or diversion, but that it is time to let the adults handle the affairs of state. Democratic and Republican mayors, along with their parties, have sold us out. But for them this is the beginning of the end.




The historian Crane Brinton in his book “Anatomy of a Revolution” laid out the common route to revolution. The preconditions for successful revolution, Brinton argued, are discontent that affects nearly all social classes, widespread feelings of entrapment and despair, unfulfilled expectations, a unified solidarity in opposition to a tiny power elite, a refusal by scholars and thinkers to continue to defend the actions of the ruling class, an inability of government to respond to the basic needs of citizens, a steady loss of will within the power elite itself and defections from the inner circle, a crippling isolation that leaves the power elite without any allies or outside support and, finally, a financial crisis. Our corporate elite, as far as Brinton was concerned, has amply fulfilled these preconditions. But it is Brinton’s next observation that is most worth remembering. Revolutions always begin, he wrote, by making impossible demands that if the government met would mean the end of the old configurations of power. The second stage, the one we have entered now, is the unsuccessful attempt by the power elite to quell the unrest and discontent through physical acts of repression.

I have seen my share of revolts, insurgencies and revolutions, from the guerrilla conflicts in the 1980s in Central America to the civil wars in Algeria, the Sudan and Yemen, to the Palestinian uprising to the revolutions in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania as well as the wars in the former Yugoslavia. George Orwell wrote that all tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but that once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force. We have now entered the era of naked force. The vast million-person bureaucracy of the internal security and surveillance state will not be used to stop terrorism but to try and stop us.

Despotic regimes in the end collapse internally. Once the foot soldiers who are ordered to carry out acts of repression, such as the clearing of parks or arresting or even shooting demonstrators, no longer obey orders, the old regime swiftly crumbles. When the aging East German dictator Erich Honecker was unable to get paratroopers to fire on protesting crowds in Leipzig, the regime was finished. The same refusal to employ violence doomed the communist governments in Prague and Bucharest. I watched in December 1989 as the army general that the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu had depended on to crush protests condemned him to death on Christmas Day. Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak lost power once they could no longer count on the security forces to fire into crowds.




The process of defection among the ruling class and security forces is slow and often imperceptible. These defections are advanced through a rigid adherence to nonviolence, a refusal to respond to police provocation and a verbal respect for the blue-uniformed police, no matter how awful they can be while wading into a crowd and using batons as battering rams against human bodies. The resignations of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s deputy, Sharon Cornu, and the mayor’s legal adviser and longtime friend, Dan Siegel, in protest over the clearing of the Oakland encampment are some of the first cracks in the edifice. “Support Occupy Oakland, not the 1% and its government facilitators,” Siegel tweeted after his resignation.

There were times when I entered the ring as a boxer and knew, as did the spectators, that I was woefully mismatched. Ringers, experienced boxers in need of a tuneup or a little practice, would go to the clubs where semi-pros fought, lie about their long professional fight records, and toy with us. Those fights became about something other than winning. They became about dignity and self-respect. You fought to say something about who you were as a human being. These bouts were punishing, physically brutal and demoralizing. You would get knocked down and stagger back up. You would reel backwards from a blow that felt like a cement block. You would taste the saltiness of your blood on your lips. Your vision would blur. Your ribs, the back of your neck and your abdomen would ache. Your legs would feel like lead. But the longer you held on, the more the crowd in the club turned in your favor. No one, even you, thought you could win. But then, every once in a while, the ringer would get overconfident. He would get careless. He would become a victim of his own hubris. And you would find deep within yourself some new burst of energy, some untapped strength and, with the fury of the dispossessed, bring him down. I have not put on a pair of boxing gloves for 30 years. But I felt this twinge of euphoria again in my stomach this morning, this utter certainty that the impossible is possible, this realization that the mighty will fall. Truthout

Fallujah Veteran The Road To Damascus

No stranger to bucking the trend and often being the lone voice on an issue, something quite easy to do when one is perfect and always right must be said. Nevertheless it is nice on occasion to have it confirmed by someone who, by virtue of personal involvement in an issue, is far better qualified than I to speak on that issue.

Quite recently, when all around were a cheering and a hollering and a hooting for Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas when he put a flea in the ear of New York's finest. Seemingly, as far as I know, I was the only bloke to make objection to his use of the word honour, whilst shouting his diatribe at the NYPD. And I did so, not just in this short post, (includes video) but tweeted on more than one occasion.

But the lone voice no more, I'm joined by an Iraqi vet who seems to have undergone a Road to Damascus moment, the scales falling from his eyes so to speak, seeing things far clearer after witnessing, and being a part of, America's near genocidal invasion of Iraq.

Although the writer doesn't use the word honour directly, it's as near as damn is to swearing as he covers a surprising number of points that are fundamental to the philosophy of this blog, ergo myself. Including I must add, the aforementioned Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas.

There is another issue on which I am a lone voice, and though I say it myself, I'm just as right on that one as I am on this. But here and now is not the time to reiterate, my feelings on that particular subject are well enough known.

Wall Street's Wars
Fallujah Veteran: 'I Served The 1%'
Thoughts on the role of veterans in the Occupy movement
By Ross Caputi
November 08, 2011

I did not serve my country in Iraq; I served the 1%. It was on their behalf that I helped lay siege to Fallujah, helped kill thousands of civilians, helped displace hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and helped destroy an entire city. My "service" served Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, and other multinational corporations in Iraq.

My family in Massachusetts is not safer because of my service, and Iraqis are not freer. I helped oppress Iraqis in a manner far more brutal than what has been experienced by the Occupy movement at the hands of the New York and Oakland police departments.

I was an occupier and am now an #occupier. I once served the 1%, but now try to serve the 99%. That is why I must speak up when I see the Occupy movement being led astray by the same nationalism and “Ameri-centrism,” the same thoughtless praises for U.S. troops and veterans, and the same hypocrisy that led us into the so-called “War On Terror” and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many of us have joined the Occupy movement, because we identify as members of the 99%, but the media only began to highlight our participation after Cpl. Scott Olsen was shot in the head by the Oakland police with a projectile on Oct. 25. Olsen was immediately rushed to the emergency room, and his name soon became a rallying cry. A nationwide call was put out for vigils in solidarity with Olsen.

Going to war is not "serving our country"

The Occupy movement was quick to highlight Olsen's "service" and his two deployments to Iraq. The New York Times noted that "his injury—and the oddity of a Marine who faced enemy fire only to be attacked at home—has prompted an outpouring of sympathy, as well as calls for solidarity."

Although Olsen appears to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—he is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace,—the Occupy movement's response to his attack has revealed ambivalence on these issues.

The Occupy movement has glossed over the irony that Olsen was put in the hospital by some of the same tactics that his Marine Corps has used against Iraqis. It has not drawn a connection between what happened to Olsen and what happened to Iraqis who peacefully protested against the U.S. occupation of their country—like in Fallujah on April 28, 2003, when the U.S. fired into a crowd of protesters and killed 13 civilians. Countless other identical incidents have taken place, even today as Iraqis also protest unemployment, corruption and lack of services.

When the Occupy movement mentions Olsen's "service" without clarifying who he served, they hide the lies of the 1% and ignore the more than 1 million dead Iraqis, the millions of refugees and orphans, and the dramatic rise in cancers and birth defects in Iraq.

We must stand for the most affected victims of Wall Street

I watched a Youtube video the other day of U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Shamar Thomas shouting at the NYPD: "If you want to go kill or hurt people, go to Iraq. Why are you hurting U.S. citizens?" as a crowd of Occupy Wall Street protesters cheered him on.

Over 2.5 million people have watched this video, and Thomas appeared on Rosie O'Donnell's television show and made several appearances on Keith Olbermann. Everyone championed his "service" and decried police brutality against U.S. citizens. Nobody questioned the dismissal of the value of Iraqi lives.

We should all decry police brutality wherever it rears its ugly head. Yet police brutality and the murder of innocent civilians in foreign countries in service of the 1% are both moral issues, and to decry one without decrying the other suggests a serious disconnect.

These attitudes in our movement are deeply troubling to me. We decry economic injustice at home, but stay silent about the unjust occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We decry police brutality at home, while the U.S. war machine brutalizes innocent people abroad. We need to understand that Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Libyans and everyone else who has fallen victim to the 1% and its war machine are part of the 99%, too.

We can love our country, but we should not value American lives more than any other. We can set up a Scott Olsen Support Fund, but we should not ignore the rise in cancers and birth defects that U.S. weapons have caused in Iraq.

Veterans have an important role to play in this movement, but we are not heroes because of our participation in the wars, and it is shameful for anyone to use us to appeal to patriotism; that only serves the 1%. What we have to offer this movement is a first-hand account of what the 1% has done all over the world at the expense of the 99%. We as veterans are in a better position than anyone else to fight against the dangerous beliefs that put veterans on a pedestal. It is our responsibility to speak out against injustice, no matter where it occurs in this world. ICH

The author is a Marine Corps veteran of the second siege of Fallujah and a member of March Forward!. He is the founder of the 'Justice for Fallujah Project' which will host various events during the second annual 'Remember Fallujah Week,' Nov. 16-19. Click here for more information.

This item was first published at www.answercoalition.org

Least We Forget

Police State in Oakland? First Hand Report From Arrested Female Journo

I think the header should read Police State America, sans question mark.

The worrying thing about, not just Oakland, but demonstrations anywhere in the world, will be the readiness of states to put their agent provocateurs in place. No police force in the world is going to stand by when stuff starts going up in flames. It's all too easy and all too predictable.

But the story isn't all about what went down on the streets, the account by this female journo, one of twenty five women arrested, highlights the tactics of the cops, as they systematically belittle and humiliate the women in their charge.

It also mentions, although only briefly, something far more sinister, the issuing of press passes and the embedding of local journo's with the cops. And that is something to really worry about.

Police State in Oakland? One Reporter's Arrest Contradicts Official Story

Oakland has spent more than $1 million on Occupy policing, but nearly all of that overwhelming force has been used against innocent people.
By Susie Cagle
November 6, 2011

"Everybody on the ground, you're under arrest! Everybody on the ground, you're under arrest!" the officer yelled through his gas mask, gesturing with his baton.

As I slipped my camera in my pocket and dropped to the ground, I couldn't help but think: This wasn't part of the plan.

At least not my plan.

A series of escalations at Occupy Oakland following Wednesday, November 2nd's General Strike culminated in 101 arrests between 1 and 2 am on Thursday morning -- including my own.

Interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan called the arrestees "generally anarchists and provocateurs" in a statement later Thursday. Despite Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's claims that the city would not be calling for mutual aid--a call for supporting forces from surrounding police agencies to reinforce OPD--in future engagements with Occupy Oakland demonstrators, Jordan called in the order around 4 p.m., following the vandalizing of several large banks, a Whole Foods and a few smaller businesses in the downtown area.

While police from around the Bay Area geared up for a confrontation, Occupy Oakland was shifting strategies. Shortly after 10 p.m., occupiers descended upon the foreclosed Traveler's Aid Society building at 520 16th Street. It was a calculated escalation, at least in theory: forcing the police to defend the rights of the property owners or the people, effectively choosing loyalty to the 1 or the 99 percent. The scene was joyous but chaotic, a dance party punctuated by calls to "reinforce the perimeters." Just before 11 p.m., as local agencies led by the Oakland Police Department drove south toward the plaza, a banner was unfurled from the top of the building, declaring it a community center and free school.

At the same time, barricades were built up at either end of 16th street. Garbage cans, tires, wooden palettes and furniture were piled in a vain but aggressive attempt to protect the occupied building. A police helicopter circled lower and lower overhead, drowning out the arguments between peaceful protestors and those looking for confrontation. At 11:33 p.m., I tweeted, "nearly run over by black bloc pushing dumpster into growing barricade."

At some point over the 15 minutes it took me to make my way north to document the police mobilization, those barricades were lit on fire. As I stood at 17th and Telegraph looking south from behind the police line -- first held by Oakland police, then less hardcore troops from San Leandro -- a column of black smoke snaked up between the office buildings. 12:01 a.m.: "three minutes to leave, police: 'mask up!!'"

As police blocked streets leading to the plaza and began firing tear gas down Telegraph, I was not the only one tweeting with urgency. Mayor Quan was also on the soapbox, urging protestors to get in touch in the midst of the melee.




12:06 a.m. Reports that tires are burning and barricades set up on 16th. Protestors need to call my office now.

12:09 a.m. OPD has not taken action. Smoke is from burning barricade. I'll say it again, protestors need to call now.

She hasn't updated since.

At 12:25 a.m., as the flames continued to grow, a dispersal order was made from an LRAD (long range acoustic device) at 17th and Telegraph calling for demonstrators to "disperse down Broadway and Telegraph" directly to the south.

The skirmish line one block to the west at 16th and San Pablo seemed comparatively peaceful. At 12:45 a.m., reporters were clustered behind two lines of police at the intersection, just north of the entrance to Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza.

On the other side of the line, occupier Scott Campbell was filming the police just a few minutes later when one of them shot him in the thigh with a "less lethal" projectile. "The dispersal order I heard said, go south down Broadway," Campbell told me later. Go to page two

Milliband Speaks Out (in Favour) Of Occupy

Ed Miliband: politicians must listen to the St Paul's Cathedral protesters

Labour leader says only 'most reckless' will ignore danger signals from Occupy London protest
Daniel Boffey and Mark Townsend
Saturday 5 November 2011

Ed Miliband says the protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral present a stark warning to the political classes and reflect a wider national crisis in confidence about the values of those in business and politics.

The Labour leader says that, while some have dismissed the cause of the protesters, they present a wake-up call, though they should not be allowed to dictate the terms of such a critical debate.

Writing in the Observer, Miliband describes the Occupy London protest and others around the world as "danger signals" that only the "most reckless will ignore". He says: "The challenge is that they reflect a crisis of concern for millions of people about the biggest issue of our time: the gap between their values and the way our country is run."

He adds: "I am determined that mainstream politics, and the Labour party in particular, speaks to that crisis and rises to the challenge". The Labour leader has until now made no comment on the furore around the protests, which have led to a debate about whether the camp should be forcibly removed.

His intervention will be regarded as a risky manoeuvre designed to hit home the theme of his party conference speech of a need to rid the country of "irresponsible, predatory capitalism". Miliband was widely praised after risking the wrath of some in the media by calling for Rebekah Brooks's resignation early on in the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and he will be hoping his comments today will chime with the wider electorate who he believes share some of the anger of those at St Paul's.

Miliband is careful to avoid endorsing the "long list of diverse and often impractical proposals" of the protesters. But he says their activities are a symptom of a wider crisis caused by record unemployment, rising inflation, squeezed living standards and turmoil in the eurozone which, he says, adds to the "sense that the economy is on the brink".

He says: "Certainly, few people struggling to makes ends meet and worried about what the future holds for their children will have either the time or the inclination to camp outside a cathedral. And many people will not agree with the demands or like the methods of the protesters. But they still present a challenge: to the church and to business – and also to politics."

The protesters settled on their current site three weeks ago yesterday after an initial plan to base themselves at nearby Paternoster Square, the private business and retail development housing the London Stock Exchange, was thwarted by an injunction. Since then the canon, chaplain and dean of St Paul's have all resigned amid confusion and indecision over whether the church should welcome the protesters or move them on.

Last Tuesday morning the Corporation of London was preparing to hand the camp a 48-hour eviction notice, but was forced to change its policy after the cathedral publicly backed the protesters. They have since been told that they will be allowed to continue to camp outside St Paul's until the new year.

While distancing himself from the methods and goals of the protesters, Miliband says this moment in time is similar to 1945, 1979 and 1997 in that a point has come where "business as usual is not an option". He says: "This is another of those moments because the deeper issues raised by the current crisis are too important to be left shivering on the steps of St Paul's."

The archbishop of York also criticised excessive salaries for top City executives, saying that large differences in income between rich and poor "weaken community life and make societies less cohesive". Dr John Sentamu said that excesses in the financial sector had helped to create big inequalities, "demonstrating how scandalously unfair our society is". He said: "If they [FTSE 100 chief executives] have a responsibility to their staff, it is hard to imagine a more powerful way of telling someone that they are of little value than to pay them one-third of 1% of your salary.

"Top pay has been found to bear little or no relation to company performance, but even if it did, isn't the performance of a company dependent on the work and wellbeing of all its staff?

"Among the ill effects of very large income differences between rich and poor are that they weaken community life and make societies less cohesive." gruniad

h/t Weissnicht

Occupy and the Militarisation of Policing Protest

I don't really know if this is worth posting, it's not as though it's previously unknown. But no matter, if nothing else, I shall go with it if for only this. The people have become the enemy.

USA Patriot Act. Section 802 expanded the definition of domestic terrorism to include persons who engage in acts of civil disobedience to coerce or affect the conduct of government by intimidation of the civilian population.

And it's not as though we don't have some of the things mentioned in the article, happening here in Britain. Nothing on the scale of America of course; not yet.

Occupy and the Militarisation of Policing Protest

Why, when protesters are peaceably exercising first amendment rights, is the machinery of counter-terrorism being mobilised?

By Ayesha Kazmi
November 03, 2011
The Guardian

In our not-so-distant history, protest in the United States was handled by local law enforcement that treated demonstrations and marches as mere nuisance, mediating and directing as needed. Today, observing the interaction between Occupy movements and law enforcement suggests something different is afoot. Present Occupy protests are now being defined by a bewildering set of law enforcement strategies – and current practices display a worrying new trend.

While riot police are not necessarily an everyday feature at any given protest, the sheer frequency with which we are witnessing their presence on city streets throughout the United States is enough to give average citizens cause for concern; the excessive force being routinely deployed is alarming.

Within the first few days of Occupy Wall Street, protesters began to notice the presence of the NYPD's Counter Terrorism Unit at Liberty Plaza. Joanne Stocker, who has become a fixture since day one at Wall Street, recalls within the first few days waking up to a Counter Terrorism Unit van, parked on the fringes of Liberty Plaza, which was taking video of her and her friends while they slept.

Protesters at other Occupy encampments give similar accounts. Robin Jacks, a member of Occupy Boston's media team, relates being photographed multiple times by police. Dustin Slaughter, who has spent time both at Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philadelphia, attests to the presence of the NYPD Counter Terrorism Unit at Liberty Plaza, saying that the Counter Terrorism Unit have been at Liberty Plaza filming on a regular basis. Slaughter also comments: "Philadelphia Police Homeland Security Units have had a regular presence at the Occupy Philadelphia encampment."

Protesters are indeed correct to view the law enforcement they encounter at Occupy with a critical eye. The USA Patriot Act, which had its 10-year anniversary last week, gave the US government virtually unchecked powers to spy and track the activity of ordinary Americans without probable cause right after the 9/11 attacks. For that reason, it should come as no surprise that law enforcement agencies – thus empowered – have shown up at various Occupy protests armed with cameras, most certainly, to keep surveillance on protesters who are merely exercising their first amendment rights.

Reports of targeted arrests of informal "leaders" at Wall Street, Chicago and Boston indicate surveillance measures are operating. In Boston and Chicago, reports of extended and humiliating detentions of targeted occupy "leaders", typically from Direct Action, media, legal and medics groups, are disturbing. Dan Massoglia of the Occupy Chicago media team further reports that arrested individuals were deprived of their phone call, food and water, and that mattresses were removed from cells, while one woman was placed in solitary confinement.

Curfews placed on occupied city parks are equally perplexing. Legislative Plaza, the site for Occupy Nashville, was ordered to be shut down between 10pm and 6am, rendering its occupation impossible. The orders, however, did not follow standard procedure. Instead of being issued by Nashville municipality, the order came from the state of Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.

Nancy Murray, director of education at the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU, views the various signs of Department of Homeland Security involvement as important indicators that the federal government is orchestrating the policing of Occupy protests throughout the country.

"This would be a big concern because it would show that the federal government is possibly playing an active role in opposing people's rights to free speech and to peaceably assemble," says Murray.

Does this mean that protesters are being treated as terrorists? "It's too early to tell," says Murray. "But it's obvious the feds are watching and observing to get more information … It is possible that the Joint Terrorism Task Force is calling the shots."

"At the beginning of this movement, I could understand why there might have been a presence of Counter Terrorism Units operating at Liberty Plaza – because nobody knew who we were and what we represented," states Stocker. "Now, their presence is just overkill and antagonistic. What we stand for is clear and it is clear we are not terrorists."

Occupy protesters should make themselves familiar with the USA Patriot Act. Section 802 expanded the definition of domestic terrorism to include persons who engage in acts of civil disobedience to coerce or affect the conduct of government by intimidation of the civilian population. Furthermore, the US Department of Defence training manuals, until an amendment in 2009, equated protest with "low-level terrorism". Although the DoD changed the wording two years ago, human rights lawyers and activists have lingering concerns about whether the sentiment and intent has caught up with the change.

Finally, there is the disquieting issue of excessive force at Occupy. In the autumn of 2008, the Army Times reported that for the first time, the US Army planned to station an active unit under the control of Northern Command serving as an on-call federal response in times of both natural and man-made emergencies, including terrorist attacks. Training included a non-lethal package, elements of which the US Army has been using in Iraq, designed to subdue unruly individuals. "The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets."

Despite the existence of the National Guard, whose raison d'etre is to augment civilian law enforcement when its capabilities are exceeded, this additional unit, according to the Army Times, may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The excessive force exhibited at some Occupy locations – the use of tear gas; alleged use of rubber bullets and reported presence of sonic weapons – is becoming a pattern. A protester in California, who wished to remain anonymous, recalls experience of a long range acoustic device (LRAD) in Oakland last week:

"I had been tear gassed three times, so when I first saw the sound cannon, I panicked. When the cannon went off, I felt it pulse through me and I instantly felt dizzy and nauseated. At one point, I fell over. I noticed others around me had fallen over as well and some vomited."

Such anti-riot technologies were characterised as inhumane by human rights observers when they were used to subdue unarmed, peaceful protesters during civil unrest in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2007. They have no place in a democratic country. They may be characterised by authorities as "non-lethal", but they can all too easily become lethal if misused by reckless law enforcement agents. The Occupy movement is explicitly a nonviolent exercise of first amendment rights, yet its policing bears all the hallmarks of a chilling militarisation of law enforcement in the United States. Guardian

Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk

We Definitely Don't Need No Oakland Yankies Mr Cameron

A follow up to: We Don't Need No Yankies Mr Cameron Written as a reply to Cameron's unstatesman like panic and knee-jerk reactions to the recent riots following the execution of Mark Duggan.

As you are probably aware, Oakland PD have been a tad enthusiastic in beating the shit out of it's citizens in dealing with the Oakland occupy protesters. I might have added: a tad enthusiastic beating the shit out of it's citizens in defence of corporate America. But I don't think that would have been entirely accurate, not judging by their past record and the sound of things. More a case of, because we can, and, because we like it, I would argue.

Oakland PD, having as it does, such a reputation for violence and systematic miscarriages of justice, it operates under the confines a Federal court order, telling it to behave itself.

Just the kind of role model we so desperately need to aspire to here in the UK, dontcha think?

Federal Judge Threatens Oakland Police Department With Court Takeover Over Ongoing Abuses
by Mark Karlin
Oct 1, 2011

Due to past law enforcement abuses, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) has been operating under the monitoring of a federal judge overseeing a consent decree since 2003.

Although it is difficult to set aside the deplorable record of the OPD in dealing with protesters for a moment - including Occupy Oakland advocates last Tuesday - it has a history of using excessive force on a daily basis. This includes the unnecessary drawing of guns, extortion and framing arrested individuals that is so egregious that the department may be put into receivership by the federal courts.

According to a September 11, 2011 article in the Bay Citizen, just a little over a month prior to the infamous Tuesday assault on Occupy Oakland, the federal judge overseeing the police department lambasted their conduct:

In a hearing that exposed the breadth of the problems facing Oakland, a federal judge blasted the Oakland Police Department Thursday for failing to make court-ordered changes designed to reduce police misconduct and abuse.

Before a courtroom full of city leaders and police department brass, U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson highlighted a series of issues that "indicate to me the city and the department still don't get it."

Shortly prior to the assault on Occupy Oakland, the superintendent of the OPD resigned - after the scathing report by the federal judge - and Howard Jordan was appointed as interim chief of police. What was Jordan's prior role as assistant chief of the OPD? According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Jordan:

has been the Police Department's top authority on bringing the force into compliance with a consent decree ordered after four officers were accused more than a decade ago of systematically beating and framing suspects.

The consent decree is the most critical issue facing the department, as a federal judge warned last week that the city faces the possibility of having its Police Department placed in federal receivership due to its failure to fully comply with the court order. Such a move could result in the city losing control over its police budget, its biggest general fund expense.

Jordan, as interim superintendent, oversaw and directed the police action against Occupy Oakland supporters.

This federal consent decree is separate from the accord that the OPD was compelled to reach in 2004, which prohibits the use of potentially lethal and harmful suppression techniques against peaceful crowds, which BuzzFlash at Truthout pointed out they violated last week.

There's a thin blue line in law enforcement between enforcing the law and breaking the law. It's clear to US District Court Judge Henderson that the OPD keeps crossing that line. buzzflash.com

Little wonder then that: The search engine (Google) received a request from police in the US to remove videos it was alleged depicted acts of police brutality, it revealed. Second article in this post.

Occupy Wall Street: Charlie Rose - Amy Goodman - Chris Hedges Watch

A discussion about Occupy Wall Street with journalist Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

A great little half hour, and interesting stuff from both participants, not just me girlfriend.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11961

I Know it Must Be Shite Because I read it Dacre's Daily Mail

Not to be confused with: It's Absolutely True Because I Read It In Paul Dacre's Daily Mail

When visiting my mother yesterday I had the unfortunate experience of glancing at this highly partisan article from Paul Dacre's shitty little rag, the Daily Mail. My initial reaction was one of, don't be reticent, tell people whose side your really on.

And it is no small article, there are reams of the stuff; what a pity it's all bullshit. But hey, what are truth and facts to the Mail, it's not as though it comes as a surprise when they make shit up. No of course it isn't, it is after all the Daily Mail.

These are the damning images that prove the anti-capitalist protest that has closed St Paul’s Cathedral is all but deserted at night.

Footage from a thermal imaging camera taken late at night reveals just a fraction of the makeshift camp was occupied.

An independent thermal imaging company, commissioned by the Daily Mail, captured these pictures after similar footage from a police helicopter found only one in ten tents were occupied after dark. A host more shite here.

Yes, all very well, but herein lies a problem, it's all bullshit.

Following all the media hype (Telegraph, The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express) about 'empty tents' at OccupyLSX we decided to check out whether their thermal imaging evidence was true.

We got hold of *exactly* the same thermal imaging camera and showed that - surprise, surprise - you can't tell when people are in their tents.

So don't believe the lies - come down to OccupyLSX and join the vibrant community of people working for a better world. http://occupylsx.org

Oh! I almost forgot.

Surrender of St Paul's: Protest rabble force the cathedral to close, a feat that Hitler could barely manage The Wail

Nice headline.

But I do wish I had a nickel for every time the media have wheeled Hitler out. When all else fails, bring on Adolf

Pete Seeger Arlo Guthrie Occupy Wall Street Sing Along: Watch

Details and a couple more bits here.

And no show without Punch Bill Maher. I quite liked the way he included Rick Santorum in this three minute clip.

"These people down there, they're not the counter-culture."

"They're the culture."

"They don't want free love, they want paid employment."

Marine Sergeant - Honour and the US Military Occupy Wall Street

How I wish this big bad motherfucker had employed some other word than the one he has no right to use in the slightest; honour. Because... well I don't have to explain it do I? I will leave that to Bill Hicks in the third clip.

Other than that, I'm with him all the way.

Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas, of Roosevelt, NY, exercises his first amendment right to tell the NYPD to stop beating unarmed people who are exercising their first amendment rights:

Yes, you do just that Lord.

While I go and piss blood.

A Tale From The Concrete Jungle Book

Thought For Today: A State of Emergency - Martial Law

Will this be the opportunity for the establishment, in their impatience or in their fear, to lash out as the fearful do, and impose a State of Emergency or Martial Law?

Because if they do, unlike previous occasions, their will be no coming back from the next decree. And the infrastructure for just such a situation, is after all, already in place.

A few lines of semi-surreal writing, if that's the right description for it, to go with my little bit of philosophising. It's funny sometimes what you write in the middle of the night. What made me draw the analogy between what is going on all around us today and the few featured lines from Kipling's Jungle book, I have no idea; and it's not as though I have opened the thing this fifty years past.

Have a go at it then, see what you think, there's not but a few lines in any case. If you don't like the writing, the two little photo essays speak plainly enough. Reminding us I should say, that if things don't change, they'll stop as they are.

I, the man, have brought here a little of the Red Flower which ye, dogs, fear
He flung the fire pot on the ground, and some of the red coals lit a tuft of dried moss that flared up, as all the Council drew back in terror before the leaping flames.

And real was the terror for the Council feared above all, those Red Flowers of democracy. Knowing once lit, the Red flowers would join with other Red Flowers to rage through the land unstoppable. Sweeping before it, all the Councils of Mammon, their overlords and all their lackeys alike throughout land, back to the foul swamps from whence they came.

And in their fear the Councils invoked Tienanmen, the great God of repression, who called for all the Red Flowers to return to their pots. And the Red Flowers rose as one, and with a voice singular cried, 'Democracy!' Thus causing the great Tienanmen to order his war chariots to roar down on the Red Flowers, to crush and maim and extinguish this Spring of peaceful blooms that they feared so greatly.

And lo, all the right wing gun nuts who had prepared for just such a day, rose up, and became the true patriots of the land. And they too did rise as one and cry: Over my dead body! If needs must, replied the great God Tienanmen.

Kent State University 1970 Wiki & in depth.

Supreme irony.