The Trap

I've recently grown fond of saying--in response to the inevitable "What do you do?" inquiry--the following:

I used to be a Professional Paranoid.  Now, I do it for free.

When I represented corporations and various city and county governments (or their liability carriers), I was always asked one question-- regardless of topic and in so many words:

Can we avoid paying a dime in lawsuits?

I would have looked into it--like I just did--and told them roughly* the following:

The Supreme Court of the United States has already held, very specifically, that a government may ban camping in its parks, so long as the ban has the purpose of preserving/protecting a public space for public use. However, the Supreme Court also stressed that the ban at one park--in the heart  Washington, DC--was permitted at least in part because the National Park Service allows camping elsewhere in the system.

As you know, the City of Eugene does not permit camping in any of its parks.  Thus, to avoid liability for violating the rights of free speech,  free assembly and of that to petition the government for redress of grievances, we recommend that the City permit camping in a designated area.  As can already be seen elsewhere in the country, camping protesters will eventually run afoul of safety and/or sanitation regulations, if not drug, property, and other criminal laws.


The City may then remove the protesters without significant exposure to liability, assuming, of course, the police don't misbehave.

While the City (and the local MSM) go on and on about how cooperative and supportive they are (at least as of 2 weeks ago), everything they've done up to this point is congruent with the above. 


The city is just as likely to be waiting us out, for a legal and politically advantageous way to shut the camp down, as they are to be actually supporting Occupy Eugene

Peace.

* "Roughly" 'cause there are other arguments the protesters could make to prove civil rights liability against the city, and I'm not tipping my hand--just stating the obvious.

My UO

peeps were apparently unreliable sources, because the University caved exactly as the City did last week, and now the Occupation itself is on campus...but only until Monday.

I went out to the quad outside of Knight Library (Nike: Little Hands Make Good Shoes) at 11:00 and not a creature was stirring, except one non-student drummer, the single point left from the circle, who assured me that he didn't need help if he got pinched.

"I've been in county plenty of times," he said, squinting over a Brit-style rocket. "It won't be long."

So next time it looks like a throwdown, I'm not going to say anything about it unless it passes appearances and bursts into reality.


The erratic sleep is taking its toll.  I've promised analysis, and analysis will come, but first, a towering coffee and LO duty at the millrace.

UPDATE 1

Washington's Blog has more--a LOT more--examples of various brutality against peaceful people--and the groundswell of support among police and military.  I was going to cover it, but they've already done their typical research blitzkrieg (if you'll forgive the word choice) that makes us mere mortals tremble in awe bordering on fear--

UPDATE 2

And the National General Strike is called.

Clear November 2nd, eh?

A Faction

of Occupy Eugene has decided to occupy the University of Oregon campus.  The UO, after meeting for several hours with the lawyer representing the occupation, announced that after 11 p.m., anyone occupying the quad would be arrested.  About 90 seconds later, the students announced that they would be getting arrested.

My UO peeps assure me that this is no empty threat, like that from the City Manager on Friday.  And this is strange: after receiving about 60 emails a day in a more or less steady stream, I have received nothing since the campus protest started. 

In any event, they're not buying the public forum argument, or if they do, they figure they've got the cash and legal muscle to do what they wish.

Well, we are beyond debating the wisdom of this move.  They are young--and fearless--and they need our support.

More in the morning with pics and video--including why I think the city has laid a bit of a trap, but I'm napping before going out again. 

This is not a drill.

Peace.

Not a Single Cop

has been injured by a protestor.  But they sure tee off on us.


Oakland cops hit a marine in the head with a tear gas grenade:

Legal Observer gets run over: then clubbed and arrested (I apologize for including Olbermann's talking head, but the clip provides both the cops' and the LO's story):

In a way, I welcome the police violence.  Who was it that said we expose the fascist state by making them act like one?

A free society would at least tolerate the current protests, and probably lustily join in.  In many places, they have--like Albany,  where cops told Governor Cuomo to suck it when he issued an arrest order for the local Occupy camp.  In Chicago, despite 1968 (or perhaps because of it), 175 Occupiers were arrested, one at a time.

We shall see.  While the Eugene Police and the city government is ostensibly supportive, I was a lawyer for the original robber-barons for 10 years, and for city and county governments for three years after that.  I know how these swine think, and I guarantee they had a serious talk with their lawyers on how best to limit exposure to lawsuits--and bad PR.

I'll detail it tonight, but I promise that the city's actions are completely congruent with a campaign to shut the protest down by 2012 and be left largely unscathed by the flurry of lawsuits to follow.

The thumbnail:  if we applied conspiracy laws to attorneys and governments, we'd have to free all the pot smokers to warehouse them all.

More on that, soon.

In the meantime, look how well the Greeks tolerate cops trying to shut down their voices:

Given the overwhelmingly peaceful protests here, why, exactly are U.S. cops cracking heads?

Don't they see how their violence only results in more unrest?

Of course they do.  The Constitution is already gone.

The facade will soon be removed, and folks will finally wake up to find a boot grinding their face forever...

Limbo

It's not even 8 p.m. on the west coast, and I'm knackered.

I wanted to make a meeting at 4 for the action committee and another at 5:30 for legal, but I had several "facilitations"--which is occupy-speak for mediated dispute resolutions, not because I'm a mediator, but because I happened to be in the vicinity at the camp.  In any event, they are emotionally taxing.

There is a faction that wants to occupy the campus, a move almost certain to rankle some locals,  especially after the city "gave" us Alton Baker Park just five days ago.  This, and the strain the move has put on things in general is showing already.

Without community support, we'll die a slow death, but if we go  SACPOP too soon, they'll go all Oakland on us.

The Oakland incident, where the cops take someone out by shooting point blank with a tear gas grenade, is an old trick.  Ask Ruben Salazar.

I really hope the hint of despair I feel tonight has something to do with the bowls of Lucky Charms I ate. 

Think I'll get off sugar and do something healthier, like smack.

Hopefully some cohesion will emerge tomorrow.

Peace.

The Eugene City Manager

has proposed to bring a motion to the council that will permit the occupation to camp at Alton Baker Park until a permanent site is selected.

This is probably the best of all possible worlds.  I only hope the new site is in-your-face visible like the site we just left.

But in the meantime, the movement is experiencing strife from within, as street people, the merely poor, and the relatively-well-fed-and-housed supporters in the community try to figure out how to present a unified front. 

The homeless Occupy members have pointed out that for most of them, their lives have been tough for generations, and they feel little in common with the recently fallen middle class. They are glad to see us and for our support, but it is they who must sleep outside regardless, while many of the daytime occupiers return to homes.

With the recent move and a critical city council meeting tonight, marches and protesting have virtually stopped.  I hope the city and the movement can agree on a highly visible permanent location after the meeting tonight.

From what I heard today at the camp, so do they.

Stay on Target

Chris Hedges, who has witnessed other revolutions:

The power elite are frantically searching for the ideological weapon that will discredit the movement. But the clarity of the protests, the painful personal stories of dislocation that are the heart of its message, and, most important, the self-discipline, despite police provocation, which has kept these protests nonviolent have advanced the movement and discredited the forces of control. The power elite, held together by the glue of force and fraud, are seeking ways to communicate in the only language they know they can master—unrestrained force. And as we enter the second month of demonstrations, the power elite fear that the core message and the calls for resistance, which resonate with a majority of Americans, will lead to a direct confrontation with the corporate state. If the movement starts to pull hundreds of thousands of people together, if it leaps across class lines, as I saw during the peaceful revolutions in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, then the corporate state is probably finished. Our corporate overlords know this. And they are doing everything in their power to make sure this does not come to pass.

Read the rest here.


If you didn't get the pop reference, go here.

Funny how

while the MSM is nattering on about "getting" Libya's Qadaffi, Bank of America shoved another $75 Trillion in toxic debt (or 75 thousand billion, or 75 million millions) down the taxpayers' throat.

Notice how that's many times the amount they claim they need to fund the entire fucking government for a year.

The mainstream media simply sucks ass.  It serves only to misinform and divide us.

I've been approached a few times at the protest by TV or print journalists, and when they ask me questions, I tell them that a free press was guaranteed because an informed voting populace is a requirement for a functioning republic.  I tell them the media, including your paper/station, is owned by a corporation that cannot understand that the movement no longer considers them relevant, and indeed considers them an imminent threat and active participant in the subjugation and degradation of billions of human beings.  I tell them that unless they quote that part first, they can't quote anything I say.

They never do.

In any event, I thought I'd point out some particularly powerful, informative pieces on the root causes of the Occupation.  You know, stuff the MSM just completely ignores/obscures.

For more on the banks--and one of the best group of writers on the net--read Washington's Blog. Start here.

The following bits emanate from some of the clearest minds around on How We Got Here.  Except for the last two, they're a bit long, so settle back with a joint or some wine (or both, you'll need it)--or some killer hard cider like we made this year, and enjoy.

Naomi Wolf breaks down our descent into corporate fascism:

Chris Hedges on the Death of the Liberal Class:

Glen Greenwald on Obama's unbroken continuation and acceleration of the worst of Bush's civil rights  policies:

Noam Chomsky on the previously mentioned corporate usurpation of government:

And The Master summary:

That's a lot of information, sure, but I know few of you have the time to find these things.



Peace.

Well, That Was Easy

Occupy Eugene has moved, and no arrests were made.  That's a good thing, of course.

Indeed, Eugene Police (who have had an armoured personnel carrier for over a decade and aren't afraid to use it) broke out their $1400 cop Cannondales and blocked traffic for the two mile March across the Willamette River (pronounced WillAMette, damnit) and into the massive Alton Baker Park.

The whole thing was taking on the aura of a siege just a couple of days ago.  The planning meetings were (and still are)  held in secret and you can't attend unless you're vouched for--pretty much like the mafia as depicted, in, say Donnie Brasco, except for the whack-you-and-your-family-if-you're-wrong part. This is an attempt to keep out cops, COINTELPRO,  FBI, DHS, and just plain good Germans who somehow buy the absurd admonition spewed from the truly dangerous Janet Napolitano to be a  narc--to become, as Burroughs warned in A Thanksgiving Prayer and elsewhere -- A Nation of Finks.

But suddenly the city is cooperating, despite the dire warnings the legal team received late Thursday that arrests would commence, en masse, belongings seized, and, I think in a particularly cruel twist--dogs sent to the pound. Lane County Animal Control is notoriously  tiny, and a large influx of animals would require  many to be euthanized.  Nice, eh?

But the City Council, Mayor, Chief of Police and City Manager were bombarded with thousands of calls--a phone tree that grew faster than a celebrity sex tape--

Poof.  Crisis averted.  Like ju-jitsu as Ghandi might do it.

So, you know, I was all fired up and LOTS of lawyers massed there, ready for gas and batons and tasers--and then, utter calm.

I admit, 'twas a bit of a comedown.  But the best result, for now.

While I personally don't like the new site, as it is removed from any major traffic, the word is it's just for now.  And the protesters aren't staying put at camp all day.  They sent word they plan to march back into downtown this morning.

So I don the Green Hat, and off I go. I will try to get some decent video and pics up soon.

Peace.

Immortal Technique: OWS Does Not Support Obama

Thanks for clarifying.

The clip clarifies a lot, if you will sit through it...it's about ten minutes long.

MSM, it ain't.

Headed back out there.

Not planning on getting arrested today, but if I don't post again before dawn Saturday, you can assume I'm in the stripy hole.

It's On

The Eugene City Manager has assured Occupy Eugene that anyone camping anywhere after curfew tonight will be arrested.

Needless to say, I'll have to be out there and could well get arrested myself, even if I am wearing the LO Hat--

Looks to be a long day.

Some Advice

for demonstrators:

Don't forget to eat before the march.  You'll pay for it, as I am now, when the adrenaline burns off like a Nigerian gas flare.

But I can tap out a little bit here, before I crash into a  very deep sleep.

Occupy Eugene marched on Chase, B of A, Wells Fargo, among others.  The Chase folks were the most entertaining: They actually closed the bank.  A woman in an ill-fitting suit spoke somewhat frantically into a cell phone, one imagines to either Headquarters (The Barbarians have come!  We are following The Procedure, closing the bank and barring the door, sir--) or her husband (The hippies have come to kill us! Tell the kids I love them--), but we'll likely never know.

There was some chanting, some good old expression of displeasure:

and then we marched somewhere else.

Sure, there was one guy who carried a (paper mache) pitchfork with an effigy of a man in a suit impaled on its tines--and some will no doubt argue that takes it too far--but it is only a metaphor--

If you participate in the most massive financial crimes in history, you should expect to piss a few people off.

Some William Black will light a fire in you if you're unclear just how crooked the banks have become.

So now, with that, I hope y'all sleep well.

I know I will.

Man from Nantucket

Sure.

We all know about this guy, the thing he could do, and the thing he would do if his ear was a different orifice--

But this most infamous of the nasty limericks (ever notice how "limerick" sounds dirty, all by itself?) contains a profound observation regarding human behavior--

If it's there, we'll exploit it.

If it can be fucked, we'll fuck it.

So with no small measure of dismay and horror I will head out into the hinterlands this summer, hoping to see a bit of what's left, before we dam it, cut it, pave it, burn it, harvest it or otherwise fuck it--

I have just enough gear and money to make it till September. Keep your fingers crossed that plenty, or at least sustenance, awaits on the other side.

More, later.

Why

did you come out?

The woman standing next to me held a sign in the shape of an upraised fist.  The question obviously gets asked frequently at any Occupy camp, and everyone places their personal spin on the End Corporate Control meme--

But I think her answer is easily the best reason...maybe the only true reason.

She said: "I was tired of being sad about this by myself." Then, beaming, "Now I'm not so sad."

The Occupation

continues.  I held a sign for three hours today, at this corner.

The vast majority of drivers honked, waved, raised a fist or flashed a peace sign.  A pretty woman in a black truck dropped off a tureen of soup and hugged the sign holders before the light changed.  She pulled away, closing the door behind her and blowing kisses.  One of her bumper stickers read: Should You Trust the Government?  Ask a Native American. 

There was the occasional stony faced driver, staring straight ahead, afraid to look, of what they might see, and of course a few middle fingers flying high, and one loon who kept circling 'round and calling us "Obama's useful idiots."  

Then, out of nowhere, Terry Sherven plugged in a guitar and sang Can You Hear? (video from YouTube as I can't get blogger to upload the video I shot on the street in Quicktime):

He's hitting Western state Occupy movements, and the tune could well become a rallying cry.

If you haven't dropped in on your local gathering, I encourage you to do so.  If you can't stay long (most of the occupiers are the long term un-and-under-employed like me) then stay just a little while, bring some cookies,  tarps,  medical supplies--you get the picture.

We're staying out there.  We'll eventually get busted, but we--and occupiers across the world--will keep coming back, in ever increasing waves, until the corporations and their servile politicians are swept out to the Fukushima sea...

Peace.

Frame This

George Lakoff, a distinguished professor at UCal Berkeley, claims in an article published today that some protestors at OWS had asked for his advice, and he waxes eloquent about properly framing the issue--with the purported goal of prevailing in the 2012 elections.

Lakoff clearly cannot see very well from the parapet of his ivory tower.

The OWS protest has exactly jack to do with any election anywhere--except as a wholesale rejection of that system.

See, George, we've tried elections, and regardless of whether "we" control both houses and the white house, or whether "they" do--illegal war, looting of the treasury, torture, rendition, assassination, wiretapping--all of it, not only continues unabated, but has only gotten worse under the current regime.

But I do see your point about framing the issue.  So I suggest that you, Professor George Lakoff of the University of California at Berkeley, immediately resign unless torture-memo author Professor John Yoo--(your esteemed colleague, paid and protected by tenure by the same organization) is fired immediately. (More on Yoo's allowable torture--it includes children's genitalia!--can be found here and here.)

Your trite "advice" in the article aside, the fact you have remained utterly silent on this abomination exposes you as ignorant and foolish at best--

Or complicit at worst.

Either way, your credibility takes a fatal hit.

Until you resign or Yoo does, then, shut the fuck up, eh?

In the meantime, I suggest you go down to the local #occupy gathering, and LISTEN.


I'll have more from our own Occupy Eugene later today.


Update 1:

To the critics who've written protesting my pillorying of Prof. Lakoff, saying, more or less, butbutbut Noam Chomsky works for MIT:

It is true that Lakoff and Chomsky have written extensively in what is generally a progressive vein. But Chomsky went out in the street and was bloodied alongside Howard Zinn. Chomsky had the fortitude to stand up and defend free speech when it was a holocaust denier speaking, because, as he eloquently noted: "If we don't believe in free speech for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

Chomsky acknowledges the futility of elections and the usurpation of the political process by corporations.

Lakoff just sucks off Democrats, wipes his mouth, and tells us the 2012 elections are important, after Obama proved unequivocally that Corporations rule.

As for what I've done, I don't think you want to get into a pissing match over who is "more authentic," which seems counter-productive, but for establishing cred purposes, I have spent twenty hours since Saturday as a legal observer for the local occupy movement, and I'm about to head back down there.

In any event, I don't think you can argue that Lakoff has written a syllable criticizing torture or his employer's overt support of it. Show me where, and I'll concede the argument.

My point is that Lakoff--and a whole host of nominally progressive writers, journalists, and teachers today--are stuck in the "Democrats are better than Republicans" paradigm.

I also humbly submit there are times when silence equals complicity; when your coworker takes the position that, should the president deem it necessary, he could have the testicles of a child crushed, it is, I think pretty goddamned obviously, one of those times.
Noam Chomsky never remained silent, knowing full well the damage he was doing to himself professionally. Watch "Manufacturing Consent"--it's free on the innertubes--and it'll clarify the distinction I make between Lakoff, who hasn't the courage of his alleged convictions, and Chomsky, who got his head busted and sucked Mace, and never went easy on MIT or the MIC...

I hope you are helping your local Occupy movement, cause electoral politics is the show they want us to watch.

We disempower them by making them irrelevant.

Photos from occupy Eugene.

This was reportedly the largest protest in the city's history...

and this is fucking hippietown.

Maybe there's hope, after all.

Squealing Swine

Goddamn.

That didn't take long.

Not even a month into the OWS protest, politicians smell blood in the water--

But this time, it's their OWN--

Most self-designated nominally progressive groups in the U.S. are no more committed to the true change needed--the utter dismantling of corporate power and a massive redistribution of wealth, both in the form of control of natural resources essential to sustain all life AND THE MONEY SUPPLY--than they are to, say, slowly pulling out their own eyes.

That is, when politicians are attempting to co-opt a movement, you can be certain they're worried.

Right now, they appear to only fear for their pensions, their salaries, the boatloads of campaign cash and a plethora of perks, and of course, mistresses and boytoys that won't be putting out after the sugar stops flowing--

But they also sense the possibility the system itself could be brought down, which causes them to fear the mob in the night.

Sure they do.

Their greed knows no bounds, and they provably, tangibly behave in a manner that can't but destroy us.

They have polluted our lands, our waters, our air, and our very bodies. They've polluted our souls.

Enough. It is time.

Join in, any way you can, and Take It Back. It has always been ours. It will always be ours--

Unless we fail to act.