Is Occupy Wall Street Over: No, it's just begun

The violent eviction of campers in public parks around the country had many conservative pundits gloating that Occupy Wall Street has been effectively vanquished.

They want you to believe that Occupy Wall Street, and the many encampments nationwide,

have been ignored by average Americans as if they were stepping over homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters are fighting greed and seeking legal and financial reforms that stop 1 percenters (and their trolls) from rigging the system.
They are working on:
1) Ousting corrupt politicians by getting money out of politics
2) Reforming laws that need change
3) Bringing the finance sector back under control

They are organizing marches against the military industrial complex, war profiteers, and irresponsible mass foreclosures by banks. Instead of camping out in public parks, they are occupying government buildings in Washington and Indiana and university offices and even a vacant bank in Santa Cruz, Calif. I call that an upgrade.

But it all started with the movement to reform big finance: Wall Street.

Many financial systems, of all different kinds, can work if operated with transparency and honesty. That stopped happening in the United States. Without rigorous and frequent public examination of financial institutions, they can easily subvert the democratic societies they intended to help prosper.

When people around the country began protesting against abuses by the largest actors in the financial sector, which they call "Wall Street," the street retaliated. The finance sectors pushed the politicians it owns to use the police to dismantle the protests. The police did what they were told: they donned ridiculous riot gear that made them look like space invaders and some tore into protesters with batons and pepper spray. The police officers who used brute violence may be unhinged individuals, but what was more troubling was that government had deployed police to fight against people who were protesting. Protest is at the heart of what makes democracy a democracy. Protest is self-expression and self-determination for the people of a nation. So when the politicians directed the police to violently suppress protest, they called attention to themselves. (Forbes tech blogger E.D. Kain writes that is more likely that the police themselves are responsible for the sheer brutality of the crackdown, not corporate overlords or political hacks.It's possible)

For clear evidence of how brutal the police repression has been, just watch the two minute video of police pepperspraying students at the University of California - Davis Campus. John Pike sprayed students quietly sitting on the ground three times point blank with military grade pepper spray (classified as a chemical weapon - something US soldiers don't use on the battle field).

Here's another video of an Oakland police officer beating up a protester who served in the US Marines. The soldier, who never retaliated, suffered a ruptured spleen.

But the politicians' willingness to use the domestic police force to quash dissent attracted enormous attention to the fact that politicians are willing and able to use force to suppress protest. That complicates US foreign relationships. How can we be a shining beacon of freedom when it is not permissible to protest in our own country. Police brutality toward protesters underscored the message the protesters had been trying to send. And this message is evident to everyone, including many who have never set foot in the Occupy protests or seen them firsthand.

The disbanded camps are now forced to reorganize around more specific goals. The violent evictions did not merely attract attention to Occupy Wall Street, but forced the protesters to organize and articulate more specific goals.

In a survey of photographs by major media, I see a lot more signs calling for the full reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, for the revocation of corporate personhood (a legal fiction created by the courts for convenience, not by legislation or the constitution), and a call for the revocation of Citizens United, a landmark Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns. There are further rumblings about increases to the capital gains tax (a move that would have a tremendous impact on the 1 percent).

Violence by police at the direction of politicians following the orders of their corporate leaders has added to the Occupy Wall Street agenda. (This is just my observation from reading OWS postings online). Now there is greater concern about addressing the militarization of the police, worry about standing armies in the United States used to subjugate the US citizens, and growing trepidation over the privatization of prisons. After all, if corporations can make money by sending people to jail, might they not lobby for more arrestable laws.

The American population is learning about the limits of its rights and freedom - and many do not like what they are learning. For that reason - this is not over.

I hope this post does not ruin anyone's day. These are real concerns, but we have to remember that life still consists of love, laughter, friendship, hopes and kindness. These are our foundation and based on them we can rest secure today while working toward a better future.

Cry the Beloved Country: Blood on "Wall Street"

As blood trickled down the forehead of Brendan Watts,

the integrity of the New York City Police Department collapsed in ashes. The police justified their actions by accusing the young protester of grand larceny (for knocking off an officer's cap) and assault (the basis for this charge is unclear - unless the police dreamed this one up to defend charges of excessive force and police brutality.)
There's more to this story. Photographs posted on Flickr by someone going by "Alex Bucky Arbuckle" show a protester (who the photographer says is Brendan Watts) staring at police, kicking a barricade and most bizarrely, leaving toothpaste on their gloves. These are not illegal acts, but they 1) distract attention from the point of the protest - a broken economy and corrupt political system and 2) turn the police into the focus of the protest instead of the financiers, bankers and politicians and 3) are rude.
I can't condone any of that.
However, we count on police to maintain civility and order, to protect us from violence and chaos. To react with the level of violence they did toward Watts shows a lack of self-control that could easily spiral into even greater violence. I commend officers who act with self control. I urge protesters to treat police with civility and respect - just as you would with anyone. Police lose the moral high ground when they resort to excessive force over minor pranks. Is toothpaste and a knocked off cap really worthy of a skull fracture?
Combined with the acts of Sgt. Anthony "Tony" Bologna, who pepper sprayed innocent protesters like some madman in the streets, and other officers treating protesters as criminals, the police lose credibility and authority to act.
Brendan's blood tarnished their authority.

It's over for the NYPD. It's over for Bloomberg, a mayor whose name will be remembered for what amounts to a betrayal of public trust. This mayor has no claim to acting in the public interest, no defense in acting for the public safety.
Bloomberg and his personal police department have become a threat to public safety.
They have trampled on the Bill of Rights.

Brendan Watts, 20, of Philadelphia, is a young protestor who represents American frustration with corruption in politics, crony capitalism and the heartlessness of our institutions. He was part of the Nov. 17th march and protest in New York. For doing his duty as an American citizen with much on his mind, police beat Brendan with batons, fractured his skull and arrested him and charged him with crimes he denies.

They should have arrested themselves for assault and battery. They arrested two city councilors, injuring one in the process. I wonder how their actions will be remembered those councilors deliberate on the how much the city should set aside for police pensions. Their actions will be long remembered.

There is another group that lost their honor as the blood of protestors soaked in the dirty streets of New York City. The do-nothings. As much as the lazy and the complacent may resent it, these protests have not gone away. The persistence of the protesters casts judgment on those of us who stand idly by doing nothing. Many who insult and slam these protesters are probably trying to justify their own inaction.

The attacks on the Wall Street protesters - across the country - should provoke sharp self-examination on the parts of those responsible for attacks.

No one can be considered a keeper of the peace if he or she is ordering or carrying out assaults on people for exercising political free speech.

It is time for the apathetic and disengaged to become politically active - join town councils, run for office, actively support progressive candidates running for office. The United States will not be a free country until protesters are safe to exercise their right to free speech and peaceable assembly. To those that say the protesters don't have jobs - hello - that's why they are protesting.
They carry signs that say: I will never pay off my debt, I will never own a home, I will never get a job in this economy. That's why they are at the protests.

The first photograph was taken by Andrew Burton for AFP/Getty Images, the second by Craig Warga of the New York Daily News. The third, from the Washington Post, is of Brendan Watts prior to Nov. 17.
The fourth by Karen Zraick at the New York Daily News is of New York City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, a protestor, injured by police officers trying to stop the protest with force.

Other photos are also from the New York Daily News.
I'd like to thank the New York Daily News for its excellent presence and boots-on-the-ground coverage of the Nov. 17th protest.