Who Is Behind The Occupy Movement? — on The Brewster Gang

FRONTPAGEMAG.COM/  By Josh Brewster

On this week’s Glazov Gang, Josh Brewster filled in for Jamie Glazov as host and was joined by Gang members Ben Shapiro, Shari Goodman and Rob Nelson. In this third segment of a three part series, Brewster, the host of “Duck Calls,” the Anaheim Ducks’ postgame radio show on AM830 LA/Orange, CA., nurtured an animated debate between the guests on the Who Is Behind The Occupy Movement? To see Part I, which dealt with Egypt’s Election and Rising Islamists, click here. To see Part II, which focused on Getting Tough on Illegal Immigration, click here.

[For the whole story behind Occupy Wall Street and how this movement marks a new phase in the rebirth of the communist Left, read the broadside by David Horowitz and John Perazzo, Occupy Wall Street: The Communist Movement Reborn. This essential pamphlet exposes the roots, leaders and hidden agendas of the radical movement and its war on capitalism and free societies.]

Legend Thomas Sowell On The Occupy Cry Babies

#OWS is now in main cities worldwide

Occupy Wall Street - Pamphlet

Return of the Summer Socialists and Sunshine Terrorists!

CFP/   J.J. Jackson
Occupy Wall Street is back and gearing up for its latest round of attacks against America.  Not surprisingly, the OWS crowd set May 1st, aka May Day, aka International Workers’ Day, aka a socialist holiday, to once again disrupt society and launch their spring offensive.  Based on history, OWS is sure to become more and more “offensive” as the year rolls on.  And yes, lest there be any doubt, I am indeed talking about the odor that the unbathed hordes will be giving off from the filth they will be wallowing in by about June 1st. More >>

Ohio bridge bombing suspect was Occupy member

WND/ By Aaron Klein

Five men, at lease three of them self-described anarchists, have been arrested in an alleged plot to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, the FBI said today.

WND found some of the men participated in Occupy events and that one suspect was described by news media in March as an Occupy member.

The FBI criminal complaint seems to go to great lengths to not mention Occupy. Instead, the 21-page document – reviewed by WND – refers a number of times to “events” attended by the suspects. The “events” were Occupy protests.

Get Aaron Klein’s “Red Army: The Radical Network that must be defeated to save America” from WND’s Superstore

WND was first to report last week that Occupy had partnered with anarchy groups to engage in joint “direct action.”

Douglas L. Wright, 26; Brandon L. Baxter, 20; and Anthony Hayne, 35; were arrested yesterday by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force on charges of conspiracy and attempted use of explosive materials to damage property affecting interstate commerce.

Also arrested were Connor C. Stevens, 20; and Joshua S. Stafford, 23. Charges are pending against them.

The FBI said it had a source and an undercover agent who infiltrated the anarchy ring, which plotted to detonate the explosives last night on Ohio’s Route 82 Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge.

The bridge carries a four-lane highway over part of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in the Brecksville area, about 15 miles south of downtown Cleveland, the FBI said.

Occupy members

Multiple news media outlets today quoted sources in the Cleveland-area Occupy as recognizing the suspects.

Johnny Peskar, an Occupy leader, told msnbc.com that Occupy organizers had seen a few in the plot hanging around earlier events, but their actions were “autonomous,” he said.

“We don’t need any implications in this nonsense,” Peskar said.

Occupy Cleveland canceled today’s May Day protests upon news of the arrests.

The London Daily Mail also quoted an Occupy Cleveland member as saying at least some of the suspects had attended the group’s events.

WND found Baxter was described in March as an “Occupy member” by Cleveland’s Plain Dealer newspaper.

On March 5, the paper reported that “five members of Occupy Cleveland were arrested Monday after they protested property foreclosures by interrupting a sheriff’s sale.”

The paper quoted “Brandon Baxter of Lakewood” as saying “he had no regrets for making sure people heard the message.” The FBI document notes Baxter is from Lakewood.

Continued Baxter: “I took the risk of getting arrested because I feel the powers that be, whoever they might be – on all levels of government and those who hold corporate power – are not listening because not enough people are actually taking a stance” against foreclosures, he said.

“I was hoping that this would be a great way to get Cleveland more involved by showing the potential that a small group of dedicated people can have in making an impact. Even though we are not in any government position or in Congress, we do have the power.”

WND further found that Baxter set up an Occupy Facebook page titled “Stand with the Occupy Movement Against Suppression!”

The FBI complaint, meanwhile, seems to go out of its way to not mention Occupy. It details how a confidential FBI source attended an Oct. 21 protest “event” and “identified four suspicious males with walkie-talkie radios around their necks.” Three of the four had masks covering their faces.

While the event referenced wasn’t named, that very day Occupy Cleveland held its Occupy the Banks operation.

One suspect, Wright, said he believed leaders at the “event” were conspiring with corporate America and police, and he needed to recruit from outside that group, in homeless shelters and neighborhoods, the FBI complaint states.

The FBI document described how an undercover agent sold faulty C4 explosives to the group, purportedly to be detonated on the bridge last night in the lead up to today’s nationwide May Day protests.

The FBI document relates that at end of March, Baxter talked about getting a permit for an “upcoming festival” in Cleveland and believed he was going to have a difficult time getting one.

Once again, the FBI document doesn’t identify the festival. However, WND found that “Occupy and Friends” in April announced its “Occupy the Heart Street Festival.”

Occupy partners with anarchy group

While Occupy leaders attempt to distance their group from the Ohio anarchists, WND reported last week Occupy has partnered with an anarchy movement to deploy joint chaotic actions aimed at protesting capitalism.

Two weeks ago, Occupy D.C. and an anti-capitalist group calling itself the Anarchist Alliance D.C. Network caused a ruckus at an International Monetary Fund convention. Protesters reportedly attached climbing ropes to security barricades outside the main IMF entry checkpoint and pulled them down. Other ropes were used to pull down obstacles along the path delegates used to attend the meetings.

Protesters stormed several hotels where IMF delegates were staying, including the Washington Circle Hotel and the Mayflower.

A Facebook “anarchy” page was created in the run-up to the IMF event. The page, titled “Anarchy Spring training and IMF protest in DC-April 19th to 20th-2012,” served as an online planning forum.

The Occupy Wall Street website initiated a subsection titled “anarchy” in which related events are posted. The site boasts of a Manhattan protest earlier this month, following an anarchy book fair, in which agitators marched through the streets turning over trash cans and spraying anarchy symbols on local businesses. Protesters reportedly used eight-foot-long metal pipes to smash the windows of a Starbucks in New York’s East Village.

One group, calling itself the First of May Anarchist Alliance, has partnered with Occupy to protest the Trayvon Martin shooting.

The anarchy tactics apparently come directly from the playbook of a direct-action organization known as the Ruckus Society, which helped to spark the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle that turned violent.

Ruckus is directly tied to Occupy. WND previously reported how official direct-action training resources for Occupy events include several manuals from the Ruckus Society.

Ruckus was also listed as a “friend and partner” of Occupy events, including the movement’s Days of Action held in October 2011.

Ruckus is funded by the George Soros-financed Tides Center, which has been involved in Occupy since the movement’s onset.

Another grantee of Tides is the Adbusters magazine, which first announced the Occupy movement. MoveOn.org, which has joined Occupy, is funded by Tides.

With research by Brenda J. Elliott

May 1st Blockade Called For New York Bridges, Tunnels, and Ferries — Commuter Delays Expected

By OccupyWallSt

NEW YORK – On May 1, 2012, autonomous direct action groups within Occupy Wall Street, as a part of the global mobilizations for general strike and economic non-compliance, will block one or more Manhattan-bound bridges or tunnels to protest the shameful opulence of the 1%. Working and unemployed people across this country have seen no improvement to their lives in spite of all of the chatter about a recovery from the Financial Crisis of 2008. We don’t care what Obama or Romney say because only working people —domestic laborers, rank and file union members, undocumented workers, restaurant, retail and chain-store workers— can solve today’s problems.

Last fall, when Occupy Wall Street blocked the Brooklyn Bridge for several hours, we were acting within a long line of protest in New York City that stretches back to the so-called Fiscal Crisis of 1975, which much like now, was a bank led assault against working people. In the summer of 1975, striking hospital employees, including doctors and nurses, blocked the Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge was even blocked by thousands of laid-off police, the very people who act as the guard dogs of the 1%. More recently, both the Brooklyn Bridge and the Holland Tunnel were shut down during protests of the shooting death of Sean Bell. But this May 1, we will create the biggest shut down the city of New York has ever seen.

We are announcing these blockades now as a fair warning to the rest of the working people of New York and New Jersey who are considering joining the strikes and mobilizations of the day: the city will be shut down, so enjoy the day without the 99%!

“Occupy” Surges Back with “99% Spring”

Occupy Wall Street is coming back, with a “99% Spring.”

Thousands of activists are being trained, all over the US to create mayhem come the spring and summer, on streets, campuses, public buildings, businesses, ports and transport hubs, all over the United States.

From Democratic Socialists of America‘s Talking Union Blog:

This is the 99% Spring and you can join with more than 100,000 activists from unions, community, faith and other progressive groups to take the economy back from the 1% and challenge corporate greed.Starting Monday, April 9, and running through April 15, hundreds of training sessions around the country are set for activists to learn how to take back the economy. The sessions will prepare you to tell the story of what happened to our economy and who’s responsible and learn nonviolent direct action tactics.
Participants in the training sessions will focus actions on Tax Day (April 17), when across the nation they’ll raise their voices to demand the 1% pay their fair share.
The 99% Spring activists will focus on at least 40 companies, including Verizon and Wells Fargo. In what’s been dubbed Shareholders’ Spring, activists will protest at shareholder meetings—including Bank of America’s annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C.
Other actions will include home occupations to prevent foreclosures and student-led protests against Sallie Mae and other entities that have profited from student loan debt.
The coalition of unions and progressive groups points to the Occupy movement and the fight for workers’ rights in Madison, Wis., that drew hundreds of thousands of ordinary people to the streets as inspiration for the 99% Spring.

The ‘new’ Occupy will resemble its former incarnation, in name more than substance.

The old anarchist led Occupy is gone. Permanent land occupations may continue in some places, but will be the exception, rather than the rule.

The movement’s new leaders, the unions and the nation’s largest Marxist groups, will turn Occupy into a movement  of  flying strike teams, ready to occupy and shut down a port, a school, a bridge, a shareholder’s meeting or a state capitol at a moment’s notice.

This new Occupy will be a much more mobile, disciplined and dangerous beast.

More at  New Zeal Blog >>

American Bolsheviks – The Second Act

NoisyRoom
By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Hat Tip: Nancy Jacques

Well, look who’s sprouting out of the radical ground! It reads like a who’s who of Communists…

From MoveOn.org:

99% Spring Action Training
We’re at a crossroads as a country. In recent years, millions have lost their jobs, homes have been foreclosed, and an unconscionable number of children live in poverty. We have to stand up to the people who caused of all this and confront the rampant greed and deliberate manipulation of our democracy and our economy by a tiny minority in the 1%.
Inspired by Occupy Wall Street and the fight for workers in Madison, Wisconsin, the 99% will rise up this spring. In the span of just one week, from April 9-15, 100,000 people will be trained to tell the story of what happened to our economy, learn the history of non-violent direct action, and use that knowledge to take action on our own campaigns to win change.
We’ll gather for trainings in homes, community centers, places of worship, campuses, and public spaces nationwide to learn how to join together in the work of reclaiming our country through sustained non-violent action.
Will you rise with us and join a 99% Spring action training?
Host your own 99% Spring Action Training event
Right now, there are 900 gatherings planned.
Already hosting or signed up for an event? We can e-mail you a link to your tools.
The following organizations have called for a 99% Spring: Jobs With Justice, United Auto Workers, National Peoples Action, National Domestic Workers Alliance, MoveOn.org, New Organizing Institute, Movement Strategy Center, The Other 98%, Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, Rebuild the Dream, Color of Change, UNITE-HERE, Greenpeace, Institute for Policy Studies, PICO National Network, New Bottom Line, Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, SNCC Legacy Project, United Steel Workers, Working Families Party, Communications Workers of America, United States Student Association, Rainforest Action Network, American Federation of Teachers, Leadership Center for the Common Good, UNITY, National Guestworker Alliance, 350.org, The Ruckus Society, Citizen Engagement Lab, smartMeme Strategy & Training Project, Right to the City Alliance, Pushback Network, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Progressive Democrats of America, Change to Win, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Campaign for America’s Future, Public Campaign Action Fund, Fuse Washington, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, Citizen Action of New York, Engage, United Electrical Workers Union, National Day Laborers Organizing Network, Alliance for a Just Society, The Partnership for Working Families, United Students Against Sweatshops, Presente.org, Get Equal, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Corporate Accountability International, American Federation of Government Employees, Training for Change, People Organized for Westside Renewal (POWER), Student Labor Action Project, Colorado Progressive Coalition, Green for All, DC Jobs with Justice, Midwest Academy, The Coffee Party, International Forum on Globalization, UFCW International Union, Sunflower Community Action, Illinois People’s Action, Lakeview Action Coalition, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, Resource Generation, Highlander Research and Education Center, TakeAction Minnesota, Energy Action Coalition
MoveOn.org Civic Action is hosting the online event registration process but is not responsible for the content or programming of the trainings or for the planning or organization of any specific actions. The 99% Spring is a collaborative effort between many organizations to train over 100,000 Americans in the basics of nonviolent direct action—not an electoral campaign.

They’re baaack… the American Bolsheviks. Can’t you just feel the violence in the spring air? Communism in bloom – just look at the list of them above. Occupy Wall Street is coming out of hibernation just as we predicted and they are good to go, ready for revolution and chaos. The American Spring is about to be born. Stay as far away from these useful idiots as you can.

The movement kicked off last Friday and was dubbed National Occupy Washington (NOW). It sprung into action with a march on the Environmental Protection Agency – accompanied by a brace of alpacas, a large polar bear and an even larger blow-up of planet Earth. I kid you not… But, before you write them off as looney (and they are), remember they are also dangerous and violent and coming to your town and neighborhood.

From Yahoo! News:

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Kevin Zeese, one of the coorganizers, says by cell phone while marching under the overcast capital skies.
“We are preparing to give people the skills and training they need for longer and more powerful involvement,” he says, adding, “the tents were just a tactic, not the purpose of this movement.”
While many have seen the disappearance of the signature tents from downtown parks from New York to Oakland and Boston to Los Angeles as a sign that OWS had lost both its appeal and vigor, Mr. Zeese counters that long-term social campaigns such as the civil rights movement unfolded over years and took many forms as they progressed.
“We may be less visible, but we are just getting started,” Zeese says.
Spring is inspiring other OWS-related activism as well, including the 99 Percent Spring, a coalition of progressive groups launching large-scale nonviolence training for its members and a national call for a general strike on May 1.
OWS is in transition, says Mark Tatge, journalism professor at DePauw University in Indiana. “I don’t see it dying, I see it morphing into something beyond just an attack on the big banks or Wall Street,” he says via e-mail, adding that the seeds of this movement can be seen elsewhere.
“There is really more than one ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement underway,” says Professor Tatge, pointing to coalitions of groups mobilizing over issues such as immigration, fights over creationism in schools, a fierce battle over health care now before the Supreme Court, and the recent shooting of an unarmed teen in Florida.
“I expect more, not less, political activism over the next five years,” he says. “Most of this is because of the widening split between the haves and have-nots in this country.”

Class warfare at its finest. The Marxists are gearing up to attack us, possibly physically as well as philosophically, on every major front. They are coming and don’t discount them; that would be a fatal mistake. Almost as bad as joining them. Do I need to remind everyone what happens to useful idiots once they have served their purpose? Death, death and death. No cake. All of these hapless fools are looking for a free lunch and in the end, all they will get is a lead sandwich. Nothing is ever free.

From Sultan Knish:

That is Utopia’s free lunch, a magic dance through the air, arm in arm with Wile E Coyote that ends when we realize there’s nothing underneath us and someone has stolen our shoes. It’s the magic of idealism mingled with corruption, dissonant musical instruments playing a mad waltz that ends with everyone falling down. A reminder that we can make a better world, but not by closing our eyes and believing in free lunches and fairies.

So, are you ready for the American Bolsheviks – The Second Act? I hear it’s to die for. They are lying just like the Russian Communists did. They characterized themselves as the majority in Russia then, just like they are here, trying to recreate the Bolshevist meme – it wasn’t true then and it’s not true now. Behold the violent minority! Or, we can get rid of these freaks and work industriously at restoring the Constitution, smaller government, way less debt and the freedom to succeed or fail without big brother breathing down our necks. Hmmm, decisions, decisions…

“Seeds of Revolution Are Being Planted at Occupy Protests…..”

New Zeal Blog

Meet Lisa Fithian: The Anarchist Leaders Behind The ‘Leaderless’ Occupy Movement

BigGoverment/ by Lee Stranahan

• Longtime community organizer and direct-action agitator
• A key organizer of the violent demonstrations that caused the shutdown of the 1999 WTO meetings in Seattle
• Served as a human shield in actions conducted by the International Solidarity Movement in the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Nablus
• Has accused Israel of “slaughter[ing] Palestinians every single day in Gaza and the Occupied territories”
• Seeks to “create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible”
• Is the top street-level organizer of the Occupy Wall Street movement 

The #OccupyWallStreet movement that been embraced by Democratic politicians, liberal pundits, progressive groups, Big Labor and celebrities was actually created and is being led behind the scenes by far-left anarchists whose goal isn’t reform, but the total annihilation of the American economic and political system.

“Occupy Everything” is the culmination of a decades-long effort by militant radicals to create and fund a mass movement that has broad popular appeal. With the enthusiastic help of the institutional left, that effort finally seems to be working.

Case in point: Lisa Fithian. Fithian is a career “community organizer” and anarchist who specializes in “direct action” protests, and who has close ties to labor unions. She has been on the ground at the #OccupyWallStreet demonstration since its inception.

Local television station NY1 interviewed her as an ordinary “woman on the street,” presenting her as just another well-intentioned New Yorker who’s worried about the big, mean banks.

NY1 did not mention that Fithian lives in Austin, Texas, and failed to inform its audience about Fithian’s true motivations or her lengthy activist resume.

“Wall Street is certainly the heart of why we’re here. It’s the corporations — the big banks in this country have been destroying this country.”
Lisa Fithian says she’s not part of any official group–that this event is the work of many people coming together with the same message.
“Overfees or high mortgages, student loans–the banks are touching every aspect of our lives.”
She says banks and the wealthy have taken money for their own interests and their own survival.
“And the people here are saying enough of that.”
Inspired by events around the world, she drew the analogy to Tahrir Square in Egypt, and says the power of the people is leading to change.

It doesn’t take much digging to discover the real Lisa Fithian.
Here’s how Byron York described Fithian in his 2005 article on her role in Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war protests near President George W. Bush’s ranch in Texas:

Fithian is a legendary organizer who operates in the world of anti-globalism anarchists, antiwar protesters, and union activists; an advocate of aggressive “direct action” demonstrations, she protested the first Gulf war, played an important role in the violent shutdown of Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, was a key planner in protests at the Republican and Democratic national conventions in 2000 and 2004, and organized demonstrations at trade meetings in Washington, D.C., Prague, and Genoa.

Fithian went on to try and co-opt volunteer work that was being done in post-Katrina New Orleans, and helped train protestors for the “RNC Welcoming Committee,” an event that led to the widely publicized story of two young men being convicted of making Molotov cocktails and shields with sharp screws that they intended to use to keep Republican delegates away from the convention.
Her webpage shows that Fithian also has extensive ties to the labor unions that have embraced and Astroturfed the #Occupy movement. In the 1990s, for example, she began working with the AFL-CIO and United Auto Workers across the country performing “direct action” protests, such as harassing employers or staging displays of civil disobedience whose intent was to provoke police into arresting hundreds or even thousands of people.
As York noted:

In November 2003, Fithian was profiled by The New York Times Magazine as she prepared to take part in protests at the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Miami. As she did with NRO, Fithian demurred when asked if she was a leader of the demonstrations — she claimed that the movement was “nonauthoritarian” and “nonhierarchical” and had no leaders at all — but the Times was not convinced. “To say that Fithian is not a leader is an admirable political idea, but it’s not entirely honest,” the paper reported.
And she was a tough-minded leader, not at all a peace-and-love type. Her specialty was action; she wanted to break in, cut through fences, and shut things down. “You don’t go to Fithian when you want to carry a placard,” the Times profile said. “You go to her when you want to make sure there are enough bolt cutters to go around.” Asked for a fuller explanation of her role in the protests, Fithian said, “When people ask me, ‘What do you do?’ I say I create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.”

Last year, in a radio interview, Fithian confirmed these descriptions in talking about her own activist philosophy:

“I am not a pacifist. Part of the way I talk about that is that I was raised in this culture, which is a very violent culture and I understand that I have some violence in who I am.” (about 19:00 in)

In that interview, Fithian also discussed (about 49:00 in) the tactical use of masks, describing how groups wearing black handkerchiefs were deployed during the Seattle protests.

It was many young people, masking themselves, covering their identity and engaging in property destruction…or not. They might just be more aggressive in their energy, right? They have some powerful and effective energy out there. But it has been really hard to build a mass movement because that type of approach is – vulnerable. It scares a lot of people and it makes it hard to do mass building, as well.

In #OccupyWallStreet, that black handkerchief has been largely replaced by the Guy Fawkes / V For Vendetta masks that appear at nearly every major demonstration site.
Fithian’s statement to NY1 about the “work of many people coming together” is her standard line when she is involved in protests: she downplays her own involvement while directing the action behind the scenes.

If history is any judge, when Lisa Fithian shows up in your town and starts saying that she’s “not part of any official group” and that something “is the work of many people coming together”, it’s time to expect riots, mass arrests, and violence in the streets.
That’s the true background of the movement that the Democratic Party and its cheerleaders in the mainstream media have embraced.

Occupy Wall Street Gets Big “Thumbs Ups” from Third World Revolutionaries

New Zeal Blog/

The Occupy Wall Street movement got big cheers at a recent international gathering of “resistance fighters,” mainly third world communist parties and front organizations, in Dhakar, Bangladesh.

A delegation attended from the ruling communist party of North Korea, plus a cadre from the ultra-militant US Workers World Party.

The Third International Conference of the International Anti-Imperialist and Peoples Solidarity Coordinating Committee met in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from Nov. 27 to 29. The conference’s theme was “Imperialist Attack: Economic, Political, Cultural and Military Aggression and Occupation.” Special reference was made to imperialist aggression in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Cuba and the Democratic Peoples ­Republic of Korea.

The international program opened with an outdoor rally of 20,000 militants organized by the Socialist Party of Bangladesh, a co-sponsor of the assembly. It was followed by a militant march through the capital city’s crowded streets.
The 800 official delegates represented anti-imperialist forces from 24 countries. There was strong representation from South Asia, including from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Two women guerrilla fighters were sent from Nepal. The DPRK sent a delegation. Resistance organizations were represented from Middle Eastern and African countries, including Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Sudan, Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco and Chad.
Straight from Tahrir Square in Cairo, an Egyptian delegate gave greetings from the revolutionary people of Egypt. A representative from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militantly greeted the assembly. Additionally, representatives came from Europe, the United States and Canada.
Manik Mukerjee, Secretary General of the IAPSCC, gave the keynote speech. He said, “Today we are witnessing … throughout the world, including in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, and even in the metropolitan capitalist countries and in the very citadel of imperialism, waves of people’s movements surging forth.”

Sara Flounders, a Workers World Party Secretariat member, who is on the ­IAPSCC’s executive committee, expressed solidarity with the conference at a time when people of the world are rising up. When she mentioned Occupy Wall Street, the “crowd roared.”

Sara Flounders’ party is neck deep in the Occupy movement, especially in centers such as New York, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

The mood of the gathering was optimistic. Participants definitely saw the tide of history surging their way.  More >>

Cruickshank: Occupy is only part of what's needed

AMERICAblog/ By Gaius Publius

I've been operating at the 15,000 foot level lately, discussing constitutional coups and rule of law (one of which we have, and one of which we'd like to have).

But there are many layers below that. One is the presidential layer — whom to vote for, whether to primary Obama or support him, whether to push for a 3rd party challenge or not. (I'll have more on that shortly.)

The layer below that — the organizing layer — is Robert Cruickshank's specialty. He's a California-based organizer who understands winning coalitions and how to get things done at the state and local level.

He's recently written about the Occupy Movement, what its effect has been and what steps are needed next. The whole article is well thought out (and is being studied in a number of quarters).

Cruickshank's bottom line is that to really fix the country, we need an "inside game" and an "outside game" (not his language, though the meaning is the same).

While the whole piece should be read (it's clear and not that long), I'd like to point you to this. In arguing that office-holders are needed to implement policy, he says this:

[I]t is those who are best organized who will prevail even if street action leads to major political change.

That is the key lesson of history. In February 1917 a mass movement took to the streets of the Russian Empire and overthrew the tsar. But because they were the best organized, it was the Bolsheviks who ultimately prevailed, even though most Russians seemed to prefer a more moderate and democratic outcome. In February 1979 a mass movement that had been in the streets of Iran for nearly a year finally toppled the shah. Many of the leaders of that movement wanted Iran to become a western-style liberal democracy. What they got was the Islamic Republic, because the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers were by far the best organized group in the country.

In February 2011 a mass movement took to the streets of Egypt and overthrew Hosni Mubarak. But because they were the best organized, it was the Muslim Brotherhood that won the fall elections and is now poised to govern Egypt. The people of Tahrir Square are struggling to maintain their vision of the revolution and are finding that taking to the streets is a tactic that can work at times, but isn’t enough to produce long-term change. If it were, the occupations of Syntagma Square would have stopped Greece from imploding on austerity, and would have brought down the neo-Thatcherism of the Cameron-Clegg government in the UK.

Progressives were not wrong to care about winning elections and making sure the right people were in government. That matters a great deal. Who controls the levers of government, whose ideas prevail in a campaign, which ballot initiatives win and lose, which budgets get cut and which budgets get increased – all of these things are crucially important. And ultimately, if we are going to take our money back from the 1%, it’s going to require governmental action.

What progressives were wrong to do was to make electoral organizing such a central focus of their work, almost to the exclusion of everything else.

This makes two points. One, that office-holders — for example, Darcy Burner, whom he endorses — are needed. (I'd add Ilya Sheyman in Illinois as well, and will offer a full list in due course.)

But the other point is about cadre revolutions. Cruickshank is not the first to note that Lenin didn't topple the Czar, he toppled the movement that toppled the Czar. (My thoughts here.)

His question is important — if the Occupy Movement does destabilize the regime (or "elite establishment" if that term is more comforting), who will pick up the pieces?

Cruickshank's answer is exactly right: the most organized group will win the round after that.

O.W.S. Activist: ‘Police Rank and File are Professional Class Traitors’, But We Should Attempt to USe Them Against the ’1%ers’

From Big Government, by Trevor Loudon

An Occupy Wall Street activist and veteran of the Trotskyist International Socialist Organization, Pham Binh,  has written a widely circulated article, which explains how socialists should attempt  to  manipulate rank and file police officers against society’s so called rulers – the “1%ers”.

According to Pham Binh;

Occupy is a once in a lifetime opportunity to re-merge the socialist and working-class movements and create a viable broad-based party of radicals, two prospects that have not been on the cards in the United States since the late 1960s and early 1970s. Occupy is broader in terms of active participants and public support and, most importantly, is far more militant and defiant. Tens of thousands of people are willing to brave arrest and police brutality. ..

Binh goes onto outline how some of the numerous Marxist sects operating inside the O.W.S.  movement have attempted to inflame hatred against the police;

One of the socialist left’s most consistent criticisms of Occupy has concerned the issue of the police. PSL’s Liberation News ran an article entitled, “Are the police forces part of the 99% or tools of the 1%?” The Internationalist Group attributed the predominance of whites at OWS to its “line” on the police: “A main reason why there are relatively few black and Latino participants in Occupy Wall Street is this positive attitude toward the police, who day-in and day-out persecute the oppressed.”

Socialist Worker correspondent Danny Lucia concluded an article entitled “Officer not-at-all-friendly” this way: I’ll ask the same question now to all those chanting and blogging about the police being part of the 99 percent. When you chant and blog support for the cops, when you publicly speculate that maybe deep down the cops really like you, how does that make you appear to your darker-skinned comrades in the movement who have no doubts about how the police feel about them?
The New York City ISO even held a public meeting on the topic: “Our Enemies in Blue: Why the Police Are Not Part of the 99%.”
Socialists are duty-bound to object to politics, strategy, tactics and slogans we believe harm or impede movements of the oppressed and exploited. On this point there can be no debate.

Binh then goes onto explain that Marxist hatred of police was so intense and blindly ideological, that numerous criminal incidents, including rape and lesser sexual assaults were ignored;

However, the socialist left’s objections on this issue are not rooted in the needs of the uprising but in our desire to “teach” Occupy Marxist orthodoxy. According to the socialist left, OWS was and is too friendly to the police, when, in reality, OWS had the opposite problem: hostility to the NYPD was so strong that incidents of groping, sexual assaults and rapes that began almost from day one of the occupation went unreported  for weeks. This practice changed as the incidents escalated and occupiers realised it could not be handled “internally”,

None of the socialist publications acknowledged or seemed to be aware of this development within Occupy, nor did they offer any practical guidance on what to do about the sexual assaults that plagued occupations across the country.

Binh sees a problem with the socialist left’s analysis of the police as unequivocally part of the ‘1%” .  Binh’s approach is more sophisticated – in his view, the police are BOTH part of the “1%”, AND the “99%”.

To comrade Binh, this new analysis has implications;

The socialist left objects to the inclusion of the rank and file of the police force in what Occupy calls “the 99%” by which the uprising means everyone outside the wealthiest 1% who destroyed the economy, paid themselves and rigged the political system. These objections have been framed in a problematic way; the issues have been mixed up and, as a result, Occupy’s “friendliness” towards the police in the face of repression appears to be stupidity, insanity, or both.
No act of police violence will “finally settle the debate” about whether the police are part of the 99% because there is no debate, at least within Occupy. The police rank and file are part of the 99%. They are the part of the 99% that keep the rest of the 99% in line at the behest of the 1%. The police rank and file are professional class traitors. Shouting “you are the 99%!” at them drives that point home far better than calling them “pigs” or “our enemies in blue”.
To argue that the police are “not part of the 99%” means to argue that they are somehow part of the 1%, a radically and demonstrably false notion. This explains why the socialist left’s argument on this issue has gained zero ground within Occupy despite all the beatings, arrests, abuse and brutality.

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Anonymous Planning to Steal Credit Cards from the General Public to Fund the “Occupation”

patdollard.com

Stealing from and ruining the average joe’s credit – boy, that’ll sure gain them the support of the populus…it is no wonder that these twats no longer show themselves in public; then again, it isn’t as if the 450 pound Anonymous coward man-children could squeeze through their parents’ basement doors, anyway.

Gizmodo:

Two hacking groups, Anonymous and Team Poison, have joined forces to take on the banks, steal money and donate it to charities and protests. Reclaiming the “99 per cent’s money back”.

Apparently the plan is to swipe money from stolen credit card and bank details and donate it to charities and protest movements:

“Operation Robin Hood is going to return the money to those who have been cheated by our system and most importantly to those hurt by our banks. Operation Robin Hood will take credit cards and donate to the 99 per cent as well as various charities around the globe.”

PoisAnon is relying on the fact that the banks will reimburse stolen cash from victim’s credit cards, which is probably a safe bet, but would backfire horribly if that doesn’t actually happen. Both hacker teams have had success in the past hacking into banks and are confident they can do it again. The thought of internet Robin Hoods running around helping out the poor is a noble proposition, but I can’t see this not impacting your average Joe on the street. The money they intend to steal has to come from somewhere and almost everything ends up landing with the customer.

Inside the offices of Occupy Wall Street

This Just In blog

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The War on Police and UC Davis Pepper Spray Incident

New Zeal Blog/  By: Cliff Kincaid

Accuracy in Media

Rather than being victims of police brutality, a new video shows that Occupiers at UC Davis knew they were going to be pepper sprayed and didn’t mind it. Indeed, the new video evidence indicates that the entire confrontation with the police was staged for the benefit of the media, which took the bait and ran with it, making police out to be cruel and heartless villains. The new video evidence demonstrates that the police had not only warned the protesters in advance about what was going to happen but one demonstrator says to the police, “You’re shooting us?” and, after getting an affirmative answer, replies, “That’s fine.” Another tells her comrades, “Keep your eyes closed.” Several are seen covering their faces.

Despite misleading stories about the “peaceful protest” at UC Davis, the campus police had been ordered by Chancellor Linda Katehi to remove the protesters using pepper spray, determined to be the best way to do so without causing long-lasting physical injuries, because they had erected an illegal tent city on campus and were blocking a sidewalk. The police could have used batons, like they did during an earlier confrontation at UC Berkeley, but that was ruled out by the UC Davis campus police chief. The video shows the police holding and shaking the pepper spray canisters during a time period of several minutes. They gave the protesters more than enough time to disperse.

On his NBC Nightly News broadcast, NBC’s Brian Williams had called the lawbreakers “kids” and implied that parents should be outraged over their treatment. There is no evidence, however, that these “kids” being sprayed on the sidewalk were all students. Chancellor Katehi said in a statement that non-students had been active on campus and part of the protests. Indeed, these non-students were undoubtedly the organizers of the affair.

As Brian Williams should know, since he claims to be so concerned about parents and their “kids” on campus, safety is a top priority because of the ability of outsiders to enter the grounds and threaten or assault students. Crime on campus is a major issue for parents and young people looking for a safe educational environment. Under these circumstances, it would have been utter dereliction of duty for any college or university president to condone what the Occupiers were doing at UC Davis. That is why Katehi ordered the tent city dismantled and the protesters evicted.

Despite the numerous stories about alleged police brutality, which have led to putting the campus police chief and two officers on leave, there is no evidence the police did anything wrong. The operations plan used by UC Davis included the use of pepper spray. The police followed acceptable procedures.

The public should be quickly educated by the media about what is really going on here. The so-called Occupy movement, underway for several months now, is based on seizing public and private property. Since the public has demanded that the protesters be evicted from these spaces, and many mayors are ordering the police to do so, the leaders have decided to move on to college campuses. UC Berkeley and UC Davis were some of the first targets.

The effort to discredit the police is an old Marxist tactic, designed to lay the groundwork for larger mob actions. Congressional investigations were held in the 1960s into how communists foment riots and disturbances. The aim is to demonize and then paralyze the police. Since members of the Democratic Socialists of America have discussed plans to take over city halls and state capitals in the next several months, we can see that the stakes are rising as the Occupy movement gets more violent and confrontational over time. This is the time to support the police, not undermine their ability to preserve law and order.   More >>

#OWS - The entire Occupy movement in one sign

PJ Media
Photojournalist El Marco has returned from a trip to New York during which he documented the final days of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park. His newly published collection of Zuccotti Park portraits contains many unforgettable images (one of which we already featured here), but one particular image summarizes the entire Occupy movement — and the entire entitlement mentality as well.
I hereby present the photo I have titled “JFK’s Greatest Nightmare:”

Alternate title: Cloward-Piven’s Revenge.
Winning the Most Clueless “Useful Idiot” of the Decade award is “Colleen, age 20, from Johnston State College in Vermont,” a Zuccotti Park Occupier who informs us that…

…because, y’know, that first Cultural Revolution worked out so well.
Look deep into her eyes: Is she the stupidest person on Earth, or does she actually know what she’s advocating? The brainwashing of our modern educational system goes deep, my friend, deeper than we can even fathom.
Want more? Because these two pictures are just a sampling of El Marco’s amazing Zuccotti Park portait gallery. Click this link to see the whole thing:

Zuccotti Utopia: Portraits of The New Revolutionaries

UPDATE:
To clarify matters for those few folks who think the question mark at the end of the “Ask not…” sign means the guy holding it is being sarcastic and is secretly a Tea Party counter-protester, or something along those lines: Sorry, no dice. As you can see at the bottom left of his sign, his name is “Marvin Knight” and he’s made plenty of other appearances at Occupy Wall Street carrying other indisputably left-leaning signs. He’s even been quoted in MSM articles about OWS saying things like this:

Marvin Knight, a 68-year-old pensioner who lives in Brooklyn, joined the Wall Street protests on October 3. Holding a large, handmade poster that read, “Jesus is not for corporate greed,” he said he lives on Social Security retirement benefits of less than $800 a month.
“I am here to protest this capitalist system we have here, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and there’s no end in sight,” Knight said.

There’s no way to wriggle out of this one: He’s an authentic and sincere Occupy Wall Street protester, and he’s completely serious about his sign.

Occupy Toronto secrets revealed: Tents empty!!!

Uploaded by sdamatt2 on Nov 18, 2011

Ezra grabs a heat-sensing infrared camera and makes a midnight run to Occupy Toronto where, naturally, hilarity ensues.

Occupy Oakland movement works to protect its non-violent image

TimeMagazine