Gibson writes: "What we should do is continue to build our own evidence locker against the bankers, continue to announce their crimes to all who would hear, and keep risking arrest to get the truth out. Maybe we can finally turn the cops against the real bad guys."

Arrest the bankers. (photo: DeviantArt.com)

FBI Should Investigate Bankers, Not Protesters

By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News

01 January 13

Reader Supported News | Perspective

ecember 16th of 2012 marked the 239th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, when activists clad in Native American costumes protested a tax code that benefited a multinational corporation at the cost of taxpayers, and committed one of the biggest acts of property destruction in history by dumping the East India Tea Company's product into the Boston Harbor by the crateful. For nearly fifty years, the act was either shunned or ignored by the populace. But today, those activists' names are among the revered "founding fathers" of our country.

Yet, while we celebrate the radical activists behind the Boston Tea Party, today's activists protesting corporate greed and a rigged tax system are labeled "terrorists" by the federal government and investigated as such. This week CNN reported what most of us in the movement already knew and assumed - that the FBI had been closely monitoring the Occupy movement since its infancy and considered the movement's organizers a terrorist threat. And judging from a photo of my #S17 arrest in the CNN article's slideshow, it's safe to say I'm probably being closely monitored as well. Maybe they're reading this article. Maybe they'll at least learn something.

Since September 17, 2011, police have arrested at least 7,719 people affiliated with Occupy Wall Street. But since September of 2008, when banks, ratings agencies, corrupt regulators and complicit economists helped cause the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, not one banker or corrupt government official has been jailed. The fact that the federal government has used extensive resources to help coordinate law enforcement response to the Occupy movement is well-documented. The FBI's budget request for 2013 is $8.2 billion. Surely, with 34,000 employees and an impressive budget, the FBI could glean all the information they needed for the arrests of those who rooked families out of their homes to make excessive short-term profits. There's certainly no shortage of evidence that can be found for free with a simple Google search.

According to redacted FBI documents, federal agents had been warning the New York Stock Exchange of a coming "anarchist protest" since August of 2011, a month before the movement even began. Surely they also knew in advance that Moody's and Standard and Poor's were intentionally giving AAA ratings to worthless mortgage-backed securities that Goldman Sachs eagerly sold to state pension funds on the open market, then referred to as "shitty deals" in private emails with one another. If the FBI spent the same amount of time and resources on gathering evidence to use against corrupt bankers in court as they did on profiling Occupy Wall Street activists, we might not even be protesting right now.

It's offensive that our government, which was founded on revolutionary war against tyrannical government and protesting the multinational corporations they colluded with, puts nonviolent protesters in the same classification as terrorists. It's offensive that it is now considered criminal activity to peacefully protest economic inequality. But it's disgusting that our government is letting real terrorists and criminals get away while going after the very people trying to make things right.

It shouldn't shock anyone anymore to say that the United States is now a police state, or that walking on a sidewalk in New York City while protesting can end up with your head in between a cop's knee and a sidewalk, or that the I in FBI stands for Intimidation rather than Investigation. Hoping that President Obama will suddenly start caring about the rights of protesters in the United States or appoint a new Attorney General that will prioritize the protection of the First Amendment is naÔve and silly. But what we should do is continue to build our own evidence locker against the bankers, continue to announce their crimes to all who would hear, and keep risking arrest to get the truth out. Maybe we can finally turn the cops against the real bad guys.

Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Old Lyme, Connecticut. You can contact Carl at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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+51 # tomtom 2013-01-01 21:15

I had this weired vision that America was turning a new leaf, by starting the new year by feeding our fellow hungry countrymen, countrywomen and countrychildren . As easy as that would be to do, it isn't being done. We need some systems analysts to do a little flow charting, to clean up and straighten out the way we budget our money and do some serious rearranging of our priorities. I'm trying but I'm not seeing change. If a guy has 500 apples and only needs one to sustain life, and a person living next door has no apples, will get sick and die without an apple; what isn't clear about this picture?

+7 # Firefox11 2013-01-02 15:43

Thank you. Unfortunately, some of the "haves" do not see the "have nots" as equals, but as lesser; thus, they can look the other way with impunity, as has been done throughout the ages. America is an idea that requires a common vision which seems to be lacking, a ground floor from which to build a social structure for the citizens: universal healthcare, quality education, earth-friendly technology, people-friendly business, a cooperative foreign policy, sensible gun laws properly enforced, a safety net for the poor, the sick, the old.

+1 # johnfike 2013-01-05 08:18

I agree, but many others may not. In an age of values pluralism, how do those who value diversity and pluralism as hallmarks of a democratic society invent new processes to carry on the kind of dialogue that can elicit share values and commonly shared purpose?

+42 # MidwestTom 2013-01-01 21:23

The OBama administration waited until the statute if Limitation has expired to attack the banks, thus assuring tat no individual bankers can be charged with a crime, thereby causing loses to shareholders, but not to bankers. All bankers still got their bonus this year.

+7 # Firefox11 2013-01-02 15:44

Not what some of us voted for in 2008.

+2 # cybersleuth58 2013-01-04 11:30

What was the alternative? That's the real question. If you could go back, would you vote for Palin/McCain? No!

Therein lies the conundrum!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said:

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

Giving us a vote without giving us any real options gives us the appearance of liberty & nothing more? What do you think?

0 # aulstrue 2013-01-04 13:37

Yep

+5 # wantrealdemocracy 2013-01-02 19:45

The government of the United States will not take any action to get the banksters under any moral standard of behavior. It is up to us to starve the beast that is devouring us. The banks feast on our money. Take your money out of the banks and pay for what you need with cash. If you have any left at the end of the month, buy something of lasting value. Putting your money in a savings account allows the banks to loan that amount out five times over which brings down the value of the dollar. The pittance they pay in interest on your savings doesn't even keep up with the inflation. U:sing a credit card to buy stuff allows the bankers to charge both the seller and the buyer. This is what leads to the 1% having all the money and buying the rotten government. Starve the beast! Use cash!

ngs account

+61 # Holmes 2013-01-01 21:46

"Peoples of the World Unite, you have nothing left to lose!" When that attitude prevailed in the Eastern European Empire, the Empire and the Wall fell. Copy Iceland and tell the bond holders that they, not the people, have to take a cut, and put the locals responsible in jail.

+1 # brux 2013-01-01 22:11

Did Iceland do that ... do you know a link to that story, I had not seen that.

+1 # Firefox11 2013-01-02 15:44

Also, copy Canada.

+3 # Firefox11 2013-01-02 15:53

google...icelan d no debt

-6 # CandH 2013-01-02 13:20

"What is actually going on in Iceland,
Posted on 29 December 2012 by Baldur Bjarnason,
Because I’m tired of you people spreading untruths"

"Since people continue to spread the factually dubious statement that Iceland “told creditors & IMF to go jump, nationalised banks, arrested the fraudsters, gave debt relief and is now growing very strongly, thanks” I find I have to write this here thing.

(This specific example comes from twitter but is almost identical, word for word, to the standard ‘Iceland is an economic utopia’ mantra that is being repeated ad nauseam.)

Because, for some reason, people won’t believe Icelanders when they say that the above is not quite the reality as most Icelanders experience it."
http://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/what-is-actually-going-on-in-iceland/

+34 # brux 2013-01-01 22:09

> FBI Should Investigate Bankers, Not Protesters

Short, sweet and to the point! Yes!

+23 # ghostperson 2013-01-01 22:30

Since ordinary citizens are irrelevant, it will take big celebrity firepower to hammer this issue, the Judds, the Afflecks, the Streisand's.

My additional thought was that instead of flash mobs--maybe that too--there could be flash emails, flash face books so that ire is presented in a way that it cannot currently be impeded by those in business and their handmaiden's in law enforcement.

No doubt methods of prevention will be developed but for now, it is something.

Who would have thought that we, the people, would have to fight our own government to exercise our guaranteed right of free speech under the 1st Amendment.

+34 # 4yourinformation 2013-01-01 22:30

Banksters run the place!

Both parties are owned.

When will we learn?

+34 # JSRaleigh 2013-01-02 04:07

Quoting 4yourinformation:

When will we learn?

Wrong question. We have already learned.

When, and HOW, do we take our country back from the banksters?

+4 # mdhome 2013-01-02 08:45

AND is it possible? They have all the money and control all the police.

+7 # Capn Canard 2013-01-02 09:57

we have to make an effort or just standing here and wringing our hands gets nothing done.

+1 # Christopher Warren 2013-01-02 10:38

Yeah! The Democrats are the ones that fill that need! and not much else!

0 # cybersleuth58 2013-01-04 11:30

Bingo!

+3 # tpmco 2013-01-02 14:21

I think more and more people are starting to get the picture. Some investigators have been turning up the volume lately, and the amp needs to go higher.

+33 # Barkingcarpet 2013-01-01 22:32

Bankers=Legitim ate Rapists.
Politicians are self serving profiteers.
We, the people, ARE the power, and are sleeping in consumerland.

+22 # MainStreetMentor 2013-01-02 05:51

Yes, bankers ARE legal financial rapists; Politicians ARE self-serving profiteers. We, the citizens of the United States, elected those politicians to office, and the largest percentage of them are lawyers. We must do two things: 1. STOP voting for lawyers! 2. Stop watching “Dancing with the Stars“ and sports programs, and GET INVOLVED WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF OUR COUNTRY. Write letters, make phone calls to elected officials; Letter-to-the-E ditors of local newspapers are helpful; speak out at city council/town hall meetings. Be HEARD. Be involved. Use the tools our democracy provides, and defeat our miscreant avarice-loving opponents.

0 # cybersleuth58 2013-01-04 11:32

Stop voting for lawyers? Well, Reagan was no lawyer but he managed to do as much or more damage. Romney was a "business man" and he wasn't any better.

+26 # KrazyFromPolitics 2013-01-02 00:05

If bankers were investigated, much less be indicted, I would need to be treated for anaphylactic shock. The myth of blind justice disappeared years ago, or never exited in the first place. Our legal system is too corrupt to even consider fairness under the law. It's just a tool for corporations, and the wealthy. However,if American citizens ever awaken...

+7 # mdhome 2013-01-02 08:47

The concept of blind justice never existed in my lifetime (67 yrs)

+29 # gdp1 2013-01-02 03:27

...steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king.....Dylan

+3 # mdhome 2013-01-02 08:48

You need to steal enough to buy the courts and make sure you do not steal it from someone with more power in the judicial system.

+22 # Smokey 2013-01-02 06:02

In Dercember, 2011, some of the Occupy folks in Boston reclaimed the Boston Tea Party.

The new rebels gathered at the site of the original Boston Tea Party - ironically, it was the place where the Occupy camp existed, before it was destroyed by city officials - and there was a lively demonstration. The demonstration was confronted by cops, and ignored by the mass media, but it
brought something good back to Boston.

The first Boston Tea Party was a protest against "crony capitalism" and the political influence of a global corporation. Keep that story in mind.
It should be celebrated every year.

The modern Tea Party - the crowd that gets money from the Koch brothers - is a tool of global capitalsm. It's a sham.

+32 # walt 2013-01-02 06:16

Sen. Bernie Sanders said it correctly: "Congress doesn't control Wall Street; Wall Street controls Congress.

A look at our government shows two massive and shameful failures: the refusal to investigate and prosecute those who lied the country into the Iraq invasion, and the prosecution of those responsible for destroying the economy and peoples'pensions.

No matter which party controls the government, this shame remains. The people should demand action or the little faith in government that may remain will perish completely. Failure to take action will haunt the nation as the rest of the world looks on.

+7 # mdhome 2013-01-02 08:50

Proud to have voted for Bernie.

+6 # Capn Canard 2013-01-02 10:00

sure, but you are very fortunate to have an excellent Senator who actually represents the People.

+2 # cybersleuth58 2013-01-04 11:35

Unfortunately, too many of "the People" watch Fox and are unaware that the "haves" benefit greatly by stirring the pot and keeping us at each others throats.

+13 # Bruce Gruber 2013-01-02 06:25

Unfortunately it took the imperial power of the military against the Bonus Army to embarrass the plutocracy's ever present plan for austerity by the needy. Bayonets and tanks mobilized against poverty, want and citizen petitions of grievance is hardly a new control technique.

That the media, owned and controlled by that same elite gentility, should consistently justify, apologize for, or ignore the excesses of 'order' is not a surprise. Nor is the need for a Bonus Army to OCCUPY the corridors of self-congratula ting pompousness.

Change will require GREAT PAIN and entail universal suffering. Wealth does not share its power and, ultimately, yields only to force.

+5 # Firefox11 2013-01-02 15:54

Change will require GREAT PAIN and entail universal suffering. Wealth does not share its power and, ultimately, yields only to force

Agree, which is why most of us are not fully participating in the Occupy Movement though we agree with its principles.

+12 # fredboy 2013-01-02 07:18

Silly people! the FBI works for and reports to the bankers!

+4 # Texas Aggie 2013-01-02 07:30

Pretty much what I was going to say.

+7 # Kathymoi 2013-01-02 08:09

The cops are employees. They don't go after bankers or protesters. They do what they're told. Who is going to tell them to arrest bankers? Who is going to issue the warrant? Who is going to press charges? Please detail this procedure. The cops enforce what the big corporations want. How does that work? The FBI was warning the banks on wall street that protesters were coming. They were on the banks' side. How does that work? Please explain. There is no chance that cops are going to arrest bankers. Please explain the truth.

+17 # rsnJoe 2013-01-02 08:19

Obama has 4 more years with a congress that will fight him tooth and nail and always, always get their pound of flesh for their wealthy clients. The one thing that he can do right this minute is to direct (or replace) Holder and investigate the bankers. If he really wants to help the middle class, he needs to clean up Wall Street and put some people in prison. Not many people; 200 would be a good start. If Holder won't do it, there's a newly elected Senator in Massachusetts who would. We need equity now. We have not gotten what we voted for.

+13 # mdhome 2013-01-02 08:56

I have great hopes for Elizabeth Warren, but realize that she has massive job to get anything done, any successes she gets will only increase my respect for her. She has my best wishes for getting some fairness back into the system. Time for those with the gold to treat others with a modicum of decency.

+12 # fredboy 2013-01-02 10:15

Remember, the FBI and other agencies recently found a bank was laundering money for terrorists and a Mexican drug cartel--and were told to back off, and no charges were ever brought.

Need any more proof than that?

+2 # reiverpacific 2013-01-02 13:30

Quoting fredboy:

Remember, the FBI and other agencies recently found a bank was laundering money for terrorists and a Mexican drug cartel--and were told to back off, and no charges were ever brought.

Need any more proof than that?

Yep, that was the UK bank HSBC but with several offshoots here.

0 # Firefox11 2013-01-02 15:58

I did not hear about that; what is the reference so I can look it up.

+7 # reiverpacific 2013-01-02 10:40

The FBI, CIA and in the UK, MI5 and 6 have ALWAYS acted of behalf of the Corporate rulers and owners of their respective countries from the British East India Co though the national and global hubristic perambulations of J. Pierpoint Morgan and Andrew Carnegie to Monsanto and their peers, drafting or suckering with nationalistic jingoistic propaganda, their own poor into their militaries against the natives of lands they devoured for extraction and the natives of the Americas.
The banksters are part and parcel of this and they and their lawyers help to re-write the rules and constitution to suit the insatiable agenda of greed and power.
So what's new?
Well, I hope, Occupy the Globe in solidarity and critical mass; it's the only chance we've got.
Democracy is still a dream, especially in the US and these medievalist bastards have never -and never will- give anything up without dirty tricks and direct force as necessary, spurred by their shills like Rove, Norquist, Muck-doc and the coalition of finks.
A couple of statements to remember; of the Indians in justifying "Assimilation" by Senator Henry L. Dawes, in precocious disapproval of their "communistm" "There is no selfishness (among them) which is the basis of civilization (Thatcher would ha' loved that one)". And from the other side, Sitting Bull, "The Wasicu (White Man) can make many things but does not know how to share them".
Nothing's changed, innit?

+4 # Uranus 2013-01-02 11:17

After the end of Occupy OKC, Kerr Park, where the demonstration took place, was torn out by an oil industry company, SandRidge.

SandRidge also tore down the Petroleum Club building, a.k.a. Globe Life building, which overlooked the park.

SandRidge says they will rebuild the park, and made a statement saying the Petroleum Club's replacement will serve as a place to observe.

+2 # 213mhayes 2013-01-02 18:10

I am very young, just growing up in this country. This news terrifies me. We are not the country we say we are...

+4 # reiverpacific 2013-01-02 19:02

Quoting 213mhayes:

I am very young, just growing up in this country. This news terrifies me. We are not the country we say we are...

Short answer -NO!
Please take the trouble to read the late Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States", Peter Mathissen's "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse", anything by Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti's "Against Empire" and Greg Palast's "The best Democracy Money Can Buy" -and that's just for starters. You owe it to yourself, your peers and your descendants.
Then get active.

+1 # cybersleuth58 2013-01-04 11:22

Quoting 213mhayes:

I am very young, just growing up in this country. This news terrifies me. We are not the country we say we are...

Then you are light years ahead of me. It took me too long to reconcile what I learned in school vs. what life was showing me. We most definitely NOT are the country we say we are.

0 # historyrepeats 2013-01-02 19:40

I appreciate the fact that Smokey saw the irony... that the original Tea Party
"protested a tax code that benefited a multinational corporation at the cost of taxpayers" while the present Tea Party wing of the Republican Party supports the corporate rape of the middle class.
-- What is incredible is that those who stand to be hurt the most have given their vote to those reactionaries against the efforts to give government back to the rest of us.

+3 # cybersleuth58 2013-01-04 11:20

OK - please tell me who is surprised by this? In the past, it wasn't OWS but peace activists who got "special" attention. And what did peace activists tell us? Whenever someone in the group agitated for violence, it was a red flag they'd been infiltrated by law enforcement.

Greenpeace was also labeled a terrorist organization. (I laugh my ass off at the thought of my elderly ultra conservative Republican - yet animal loving - mom faithfully donating to Greenpeace as often as she could as long as she lived).

Bucking the status quo and embarrassing the "haves" was always the way to make yourself an enemy of the US!!

I am both sad and stunned that we appear to have learned NOTHING from Watergate or Viet Nam (or the Red Scare or any other awful period of American history).

Nixon's reputation has been sanitized. I just hope I don't live long enough to see Bush/Cheney lauded as American heroes.

+1 # Jonathan Levy 2013-01-04 17:04

RE: The headline of this article. Please, now tell me the ground is below my feet and the sky is above my head. Barry O will never let this happen as he is working for the banks.

0 # FederalReserve 2013-01-04 21:41

the FBI is actually friggin bunch idiots, obviously.

0 # FederalReserve 2013-01-04 22:05

should has become americas favorite word.

+1 # johnfike 2013-01-05 08:10

Let's require every employee in the financial industry to wear a prominently displayed badge that says "Caveat Emptor," since neither truth nor prudence are valued in that arena.

+1 # ProfPeteB 2013-01-06 08:53

Since the Death of JFK of to the policies of several groups of self-appointed “elites” both here and overseas and their sick plan to diminish the earth’s human population by 90% beginning with “Austerity”, ending Social Security, Medicare, Pensions, jobs, high gas prices and no interest on savings, toxic chemicals in foods, air, water and land, as well as Destabilization of our nation.

Bush, Obama and Romney are in the same game and YOU and your family and everyone else’s are the targets.

There is only one way to replace the 31 million jobs lost since Reagan and that is as below::
They are bragging about creating 168,000 low paying jobs a month while 31 millions are either out of work or severely underemployed…h owever…we need 833,000 jobs a month for the rest of Obama’s term of office to replace all of the jobs lost by the treasonous greed deployed by corporations.
The only way to reemploy all of those out of work is to do something neither Bush Nor Obama nor Romney would or will do.
What is that secret? WELL Harry Truman used it to reemploy those coming home from WW II and it is simple yet neither Bush, Obama, McCain, nor Romney ever even mentioned it.
Here it is:
Place Excise Taxes On All Outsourced Jobs And Imports, Raising Their Cost To 5%-10% Higher Than The Cost To Manufacture The Products In One Or More Of The 50 States!

I should amend that because as I said above, they have no plans to create jobs and will not use my plan.

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