Excerpt: "One thing is clear already: if this illegitimate wave of repression is allowed to stand ... if the powers-that-be succeed in suppressing or marginalizing this new movement ... if people are once again 'penned in' - both literally and symbolically - things will be much worse.... This is a call for massive demonstrations - soon - carried out in public spaces where they can have maximum impact and exposure and where the authorities cannot pen in, suppress, and otherwise attempt to marginalize these demonstrations."
Occupy Wall Street activists are forcibly removed by New York City Police from Liberty Plaza, 11/15/11. (photo: Lucas Jackson, Reuters)
A Call for Mass Action Against Suppression of Occupy Movement
30 January 12
hese past several months have witnessed something very different in the US. People from many different walks of life came together to occupy public space in nearly 1,000 cities in the US. They stood up to vicious police violence, they broke through the confines of "protest as usual," and in the middle of all that, they built community. Even in the face of media attempts to ridicule, distort, and demonize these protests, their basic message began to get through. People throughout the US - and even the world - took notice of and took heart from these brave and creative protesters.
The political terms of discourse began to shift; the iced-over thinking of people in the US began to thaw. Standing up to the unjust brutality and arrests became a badge of honor. People began to listen to and read the stories of some of the victims of this economic crisis, and to share their own. And most of all, as the protests spread to city after city, the fact of people occupying public space forced open debate and raised big questions among millions as to what kind of society this is, and what it should be. Why does such poverty and need exist in the face of a relative handful of people amassing obscene amounts of wealth? Why do the political institutions of society seem only to serve that handful? Why do so many youth feel they face such a bleak future? Why does the insane destruction of the environment continue to accelerate? And what is needed to overcome all this?
Those who actually wield power in this country regarded these protests, and these questions, as dangerous, and reacted accordingly. Time and again those who wield power violated their own laws and ordered police to pepper spray, beat with clubs, and shoot tear gas canisters at the heads of people who were doing nothing more than non-violently expressing their dissent and seeking community. This reached a peak in the recent coordinated and systematic attacks of the past few weeks against all the major occupations. In fact, the mayor of Oakland admitted on BBC to being part of conference calls that coordinated national strategy against the occupiers. On top of all that, and in another blatant show of illegitimate force and power, they attempted to prevent journalists and photographers from covering these acts of repression - unless they were "embedded" with the police.
To put the matter bluntly, but truly: the state planned and unleashed naked and systematic violence and repression against people attempting to exercise rights that are supposed to be legally guaranteed. This response by those who wield power in this society is utterly shameful from a moral standpoint, and thoroughly illegitimate from a legal and political one.
Now this movement faces a true crossroads. Will it be dispersed, driven into the margins, or co-opted? Or will it come back stronger? This question now poses itself, extremely sharply.
One thing is clear already: if this illegitimate wave of repression is allowed to stand… if the powers-that-be succeed in suppressing or marginalizing this new movement ... if people are once again "penned in" - both literally and symbolically - things will be much worse. THIS SUPPRESSION MUST BE MASSIVELY OPPOSED, AND DEFEATED.
On the other hand, this too is true: movements grow, and can only grow, by answering repression with even greater and more powerful mobilization.
The need to act is urgent.
As a first step in the necessary response, there must be a massive political mobilization on a day, or days, very soon to say NO! to this attempt to suppress thought and expression with brutality and violence. This mobilization should most of all be in New York, where this movement started ... but it should at the same time be powerfully echoed all around the country and yes, around the world. This is a call for massive demonstrations - soon - carried out in public spaces where they can have maximum impact and exposure and where the authorities cannot pen in, suppress, and otherwise attempt to marginalize these demonstrations.
These demonstrations must be large enough to show clearly that people will not tolerate that which is intolerable ... that people will not adjust to that which is so manifestly unjust. Such demonstrations, along with the efforts to reach out and build them, can draw many more people from passive sympathy into active support and can awaken and inspire even millions more who have not yet been reached. Such demonstrations can powerfully answer the attempt by "the 1%" to crush and/or derail this broad movement. Thousands and thousands in the streets, acting together, can seize new initiative and change the whole political equation. The urgent questions raised by Occupy - and other urgent questions that have yet to be raised in this movement - can once more reverberate, and more powerfully than before.
The repression of the Occupy movement must not stand. Act.
Signers of this Call include:
Prof. Cornel West
Gbenga Akinnagbe, actor on the HBO series "The Wire"
Carole Ashley
Fr. Luis Barrios
Renate Bridenthal, Professor of History, Brooklyn College, CUNY, retired
Elaine Brower, World Can't Wait & Military Families Speak Out
Craig Phipps, Ombudsman, Casa Esperanza
Cynthia Carlson, artist
Nina Felshin, independent curator
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC
Harmony Hammond
Barry Holden
Camille Hankins, Founder and Director: Win Animal Rights and No Kill New York
Ray Hill, producer/host of Ray on the Raydio Internet radio show, Houston, TX
Lee Siu Hin, National Coordinator, National Immigrant Solidarity Network
Judith Henry
Rev. Dr. James Karpen, Church of St Paul and St Andrew, New York City
Chuck Kaufman, Executive Director, Alliance for Global Justice
Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Harlem
Jim Long, artist
Waqas Malik, artist
Lydia Matthews, Dean of Academic Programs, Associate Dean of Parsons/ Professor
Ann Messner, artist
Travis Morales
Dorinda Moreno, Fuerza Mundial / FM Global / Hitec Aztec, US Liaison Secretariat, International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement/TICPM
Nick Mottern, ConsumersforPeace.org & kNOwdrones.org
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
Bradley Olson, Psychologist, Activist
Rosemary O'Neill
Lindsay O'Neill-Caffreyv
The Rt. Rev. George E. Packard, Retired Bishop of the Episcopal Church for the Armed Services and Federal Ministries
Ana Ratner
Suzanne Ross, PH.D., Clinical Psychologist
David E. Rousline, Ph.D. Berkeley CA
Rev. Juan Carlos Ruiz, New Sanctuary Movement
Jayce Salloum, artist, Vancouver
Irving Sandler
Donna Schaper, Senior Minister, Judson Memorial Church
Stephen Soldz, Director, Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility
Bob Stein
Rev. Max Surjadinata, Area Coordinator of Friends of Sabeel North America
David Swanson, warisacrime.org
Matthew Swaye
Debra Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait
Athena Tacha
Dennis Trainor, Jr, Writer, Producer & Host of Acronym TV
Marina Urbach, independent curator, other projects, New York
Nancy Vining Van Ness, Director, American Creative Dance
Jim Vrettos, Adjunct Professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Jen Waller
Vince Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights
Andy Zee, Spokesperson, Revolution Books
David Zeiger, Displaced Films
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Comments
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"When the Power of Love over comes the Love of Power - We will know Peace" Jimi Hendrix
And this is where the 1%, our government & the police all have something in common.
While on subject of GOP - the candidates' motto to "beat Obama" If you are (or know someone who will vote GOP in 2012 "What besides beat Obama will their GOP choice do for the USA" Here's a question to ask a candidate "what can you do for me - if you get into office" -
I will guess a GOP pResident will "suppress any Occupy movement" (at the least) and move on to reduce the taxes of the top 1% (that is in their tax plans now).
I know anyone voting GOP will have "buyers' remorse just like those who put Walker in as gov in Wisconsin - look at the # who signed the petition for recall.
Ask your GOP relatives/friends/ whomever "don't you remember the "W" years and still feel the result of those 8 years"?
But listen to their answers - don't over-talk them. Why? They run out of answers before they start when asked "WHY"
VOTE in 2012 - the most important election to date and vote Dem (unless a win can come from a 3rd or 4th party ticket)
Obama also kept the tex cuts for the wealthy. Obama just signed the NDAA after he got Congress to change some wording to give him unilateral power. Obama wants to have a Nat'l Internet ID card so everyone gets a gov't issued password for all your online action including your bill paying, banking, buyin, blog comments and emails, what sites you visit etc.
So Obama along with Demorats and Republicans have turned America into a full-fledged police state just with the NDAA, nevermind the rest. And everything else they have all done is in the best interest of the 1 percent - Wall St., the banksters and themselves.
So why would you vote for a Dmeocrat instead of a Republican? It doesn't matter. It's a one-party system.
If you vote for a Democrat, you are showing that all they have done is OK with you. You become an enabler.
Either vote third party or stay home.
The Voting history in the US has been in decline over the past 160 years, as more and more of us opt out af the Fraud... example in 1840 the Federal voter turnout was 80.2% it remained fairly high but steadily declining almost year over year, until 1920 when it fell below 50% for the first time, and with the exception of only 2 elections 1960 and 1964 never went over 60% again. Even when Obama was "elected" the turnout was only 57.48% ... What this means, I believe, is that an almost equal number of qualified voters feel disenfranchised from the system.
What is even more striking is not the percentage of voter turnout but of voter registration itself which has also declined year over year.
An observation: In 1960 we actually had more votes cast than registered voters by a margin of 4 million votes...If I recall that was due to Chicago and the number of persons who were deceased but still managed to vote.
Its simple as far as this election goes - the candidate will stand with the 99% or with the 1%. This is the biggest reason Occupy will be repressed. Candidates want to run their traditional $$ wasting campaigns of lies & false promises and keep the status quo.
Someone needs to finish what JFK started and repeal the Federal Reserve so we aren't under the control of the Central Bank.
This is the question for all those who want to represent We the People.
I like many was pretty ignorant about the Fed but then I started reading and digging for the truth. You are right about JFK and since then no one has had the testicular fortitude to get rid of these monstrous bankers who control our entire economy and our government.
It is infuriating to recognize this fact and our only hope is to fight back through OWS and doing simple things like moving our money into community or credit union banks and just educating ourselves and becoming more politically aware.
Such a massive turnout by the people in solidarity with OWS is the only chance we have to change things.
Join your local movement and plan for the upcoming year!
Occupy! Occupy!! OCCUPY!!!
OCCUPY!
Every Town Hall meeting, Dem. or Rep., should have the Occupy Movement there in force so WE can change the make-up of the Congress to Progressive.
Force the Dem. candidates toward Progressive stances...and shame and ridicule the Rep. candidates for standing up for the 1%.
And on the way out, thank a Teabagger for showing us the way. ;-)
OCCUPY the TOWN HALL MEETINGS!!
The coverage of this movement is not unlike the media coverage of the poor and starving in America: They inevitably focus on some fat chick with a whole litter of brats. Now, thinking people know that one can be malnourished and still overweight at the same time. It's a fact; look it up. NEVERTHELESS, perception is what matters. If they actually found some skinny, hardened, pretty brunette like the one in that famous photo from the depression, someone that bigot white America could identify with, they might get more mileage. But the media doesn't want more mileage. They are on the other side.
In other words, like the sixties, middle white American needs to start seeing THEIR sons and daughters and wives and mothers and fathers and troops out there in OWS. Not a bunch of your typical poster boys for liberal causes. Bag the homeless vet look and force the media to see America out there.
Conservatives always get liberal when they see themselves: Nancy Regan and Stem Cells, Jim Brady and Gun Control, Newt/Dick and pie divers, James Baker and swimming pool regulation, etc. Otherwise it looks like the tip of the spear for OWS are the same folks we see panhandling by Wal-Mart ever day. Shrug shoulders.
The real resolve is to vote out the Republicans who are behind the suppresion of this movement, because they represent the 1%
Obama is behind the suppression of OWS. He's in charge of Homeland Security which is organizing and directing the police brutality. Homeland Security doesn't freelance.
Obama also represents the 1%. He has taken more campaign money from them for 2012 than all candidates combined. Democrats are also the corporations concubines. In 2008 Obama took just under $2 mil from the health insurance industry and Big Pharma to pass Obamacare - mandated health insurance. You are forced to purchse the broken product under threat of an IRS enforced tax penalty.
Obama just signed the NDAA into law after he made Congress change the wording so he and any other sitting president will have uniltaral power to indefinately detain Americans willy nilly. So your buddy, Obama, just turned this country into a full-fledged police state.
Wake up!
You are one scary person.
It is amazing how a person like Obama with such great looks and persuasive oratory skills can get away with so much crap yet people still like him and will vote for him in November. He's committed so much evil it is disgusting but from what the media says he will win this election.
In the African American community you've got Al Sharpton telling the masses to go out and vote for Obama. The so called "progressive" radio stations (Ed Schultz, Norman Goldman Leslie Marshall etc.) pitch the same slogan saying that it's better to vote for Obama than a Newt or a Romney. Nobody talks about how both parties serve the 1% and not we THE PEOPLE!
Think about Adolph Hitler! He also had great oratory skills! He mesmerized the German people to follow him into hell!
6 corporations control 90% of ALL media (TV, Radio, Newspapers & the Internet) and they too do the bidding of the 1% which is why there is little coverage and the coverage they do show spins Occupy as a maladjusted random rant by hooligans. We know this isn't true but immediately they start with the whole Democrat vs Republican spin as this is their main method of Divide & Conquer. Keep us yelling at each other while they continue to have their way with us.
I dont want to hear anymore about the GOP is the blame - We Are the blame - because we continue to fall into their same traps.
Occupy is about all of US 99% that are tired of the shenanigans and while the 1% depend on us to make their trillions, we ARE the enemy and are treated as such.
They have all of the cards and all of the resources to sell (Tell) us what we want. Beaten over the head long enough, we start to believe it and this is where we fail.
We need to stay focused, and remind each other that we are all together and we currently have no candidates willing to stand with US. JFK was the last president to create a bill to repeal the Federal Reserve and he was shot in the head for it. Nobody has dared challenge since.
We have the power & we need to stay firm in our resolve - Occupy !!!
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