Night Raids, Mall Attacks, BOA Internal Memos

Here's my question. So when Homeland Security's Urban Shield kicked into gear all over our nation – how did they plan on handling the lawsuits that will result from things like a petite woman happening upon a mall antiwar demo in Austin, TX, briefly holding someone's sign, and getting three broken ribs for it? Pepper spray in NYC and then Davis, tear gas canisters in Oakland, batons everywhere, cherry pickers, ropes and ladders in Wash DC.

Won't a lot of judges have a lot to say about a lot of this thuggery on the part of police -- eventually? It's clear corporations own the Supreme Court, but does the 1% think it controls the entire judiciary?

Hooray for LA, which passed the first city resolution I've heard of to overturn the Citizens United ruling! Corporations are not people, is one of the core beliefs of the 99%.

Militarized urban police departments turning out against unarmed, nonviolent protestors hasn't looked good, and there will be a raft of lawsuits – at the taxpayer's expense. This is the sort of thing community policing was supposed to address. There have been mass actions with police violence prior to this, and the chief of police of one of them, in Seattle, has now recanted, but I think we have clearly entered a new phase. Homeland Security is giving out tanks for “free” to cities.

This is what comes of taking lessons from the skilled and brutal security forces from Israel and Bahrain. Top cops all over the globe are putting their heads together at secretive meetings, and the result is cops start aiming “non-lethal” tear gas canisters directly at people's heads, as they have been doing for years at West Bank demos. Scott Olsen became an instant hero of the revolution by getting his skull cracked at Occupy Oakland, as we all saw the dramatic images of his companions rushing to his aid. Bradley Manning has been there all along as a dramatic victim, too, and will finally get his first day in court next week. I wonder if he knows how much of a celebrity he is. It's clear he knew he was doing the right thing, but he wouldn't have known he would get so famous.

Stuff people were allowed to pick up after Zucotti Park raid. photo: Mel, Codepink NYC

So people are getting evicted over and over again, losing their stuff, their laptops, disrupting their lives even more than the meltdown of the economy as we knew it – which continues apace.

This week an internal memo showed Bank of America recognizes it has a p.r. problem around foreclosures, as the 99% turned from the cold, raided streets toward occupying foreclosed or threatened buildings. 

Nonviolent methods needed now, more than ever. Let's win! (The video I wanted to use here, of UC Davis students' powerful use of silence on the university chancellor ,has 1 million+ views.)

99% to UC Davis Police: "You Can Go!"

I think this video strikingly demonstrates why education, and colleges in general, are dangerous to the 1%. You can practically watch the movement build before your eyes, employing disciplined nonviolent methods against brutal tactics of paramilitary policing. First you see the pepper spraying of students sitting calmly on the ground with linked arms, on their own campus. Standing onlookers react with disbelief, then a long chorus of strong, repeated "Shame!" Many opportunities to examine the faces of the police for signs of shame; little evidence of that, imo. Many looked wary.

Just about the time I thought the crowd might switch to, "The whole word is watching!" the cameraperson stepped back and showed a sea of other cameras recording events on Nov. 18, 2011.  at UC Davis. Then a mic check initiated a statement to the police that they were being given a moment to just go without anyone "bothering" them. And they started to back away! The chant then became a resounding "You can go!" that kept up until they, in fact, went. Cacophony of cheering, whoops and whistles, an announcement for the time and place of the next action (Monday! noon!) and then the roar of "Join our strike! Join our strike!" with delight in their own collective power tangible.

UC Davis is the ag college of the state system, traditionally, and I suppose it is only fitting that its current students assume a leading role in the movement of the 99% who understand that Earth is our home, and there is none other. Corporate control of the food supply, and the concomitant forced dependence on petroleum for our food supply, will become the central facts of 21st century survival. That's why in Maine small farmers operating under local food control ordinances are being harassed by the state, for selling unauthorized milk.

We are all Farmer Brown.

As each brutality is unleashed against students, farmers, veterans, little old ladies, legal observers, journalists, it both swells the ranks of activists in that segment, and reveals the ugly hand of your tax funded police state.

The demand to bring our war $$ home does not mean, bring weapons home from Iraq to attack people domestically. Our vast prison for-profit system and localized brutal policing have targeted segments of the population for years. Those are not social programs that we demand our hard earned tax dollars be used to fund.

Can taxpayers finally get outraged enough when they see that their city always seem to have enough money for pepper spray, tear gas, assault weapons, LRAD, and a gazillion hours of overtime -- but not enough for people's needs?

Needs like an authentic education, learning to collaborate nonviolently, perhaps to produce food for the future of the 99%...