On money and billy clubs

[Ian Livingston]

One must account for the probability of the presence of agents provocateurs
among the protesters. That is one of the favorite methods establishment
policing agencies use to discredit anti-establishment trends and movements.


On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 8:31 AM, Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com> wrote:

> The first amendment does not grant everyone to live wherever they please
> for as long as they want.  When peoples emotions make them lie and say
> incorrect things, it's bad for their movement unless that movement has
> actual political power, which OWS does not have.  It may feel good to shout
> things, even when they're wrong and counterproductive, but it sets real
> progress back.  Rather disgusting, actually.
>
> AsB4,
> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
> Henry Mu
> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 11:21 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>>  Published on Thursday, November 24, 2011 by Robert Reich<http://robertreich.org/>
>> The First Amendment Upside Down. Why We Must Occupy Democracy
>> by Robert Reich <http://www.commondreams.org/robert-reich>
>>
>> You’ve been seeing this across the country … Americans assaulted,
>> clubbed, dragged, pepper-sprayed … Why? For exercising their right to free
>> speech and assembly — protesting the increasing concentration of income,
>> wealth, and political power at the top.
>>
>> And what’s Washington’s response? Nothing. In fact, Congress’s so-called
>> “supercommittee” just disbanded because Republicans refuse to raise a penny
>> of taxes on the rich.
>>
>> Meanwhile, the Supreme Court says money is speech and corporations are
>> people. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year ended all
>> limits on political spending. Millions of dollars are being funneled to
>> politicians without a trace.
>>
>> And a revolving door has developed between official Washington and Wall
>> Street – with bank executives becoming public officials who make rules that
>> benefit the banks before heading back to the Street to make money off the
>> rules they created.
>>
>> Other top officials, including an increasing proportion of former members
>> of congress, are cashing in by joining lobbying power houses and pressuring
>> their former colleagues to do whatever their clients want.
>>
>> Millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street and in executive suites
>> aren’t contributing all this money out of sheer love of country. Their
>> political spending is analogous to their other investments. Mostly they
>> want low tax rates and friendly regulations.
>>
>> Why else do you suppose tax rates on the super rich are now lower than
>> they’ve been in three decades, and why – even though the long-term budget
>> deficit is horrendous – those rates aren’t rising? Why else do the 400
>> richest Americans (whose wealth is larger than the combined wealth of the
>> bottom 150 million Americans) now pay an average tax rate of only 17
>> percent?
>>
>> Why do you think Wall Street got bailed without a single string attached
>> – not even being required to help homeowners to whom they sold mortgages,
>> who are now so far under water they’re drowning? And why does the financial
>> reform legislation have loopholes big enough for bankers to drive their
>> Ferrari’s through?
>>
>> And why else are oil companies, big agribusinesses, military contractors,
>> and the pharmaceutical industry reaping billions of dollars of government
>> subsidies and special tax breaks?
>>
>> Experts say the 2012 presidential race is likely to be the priciest ever,
>> costing an estimated $6 billion. “It is far worse than it has ever been,”
>> says Republican Senator John McCain.
>>
>> If there’s a single core message to the Occupier movement it’s that the
>> increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top endangers our
>> democracy. With money comes political power.
>>
>> Yet when real people without money assemble to express their
>> dissatisfaction with all this, they’re told the First Amendment doesn’t
>> apply. Instead, they’re treated as public nuisances – clubbed,
>> pepper-sprayed, thrown out of public parks and evicted from public spaces.
>>
>> Across America, public officials are saying Occupiers have to go. Even in
>> universities – where free speech is supposed to be sacrosanct – peaceful
>> assembly is being met with clubs and pepper spray.
>>
>> The First Amendment is being stood on its head. Money speaks, and an
>> unlimited amount of it can now be spent bribing and cajoling politicians.
>> Yet peaceful assembly is viewed as a public nuisance and removed by force.
>>
>> This is especially worrisome now that so many Americans are in economic
>> trouble. The jobs recession grinds on, seemingly without end. Homes are
>> being foreclosed upon. Qualified students cannot afford college. Or they’re
>> forced to take on huge debt loads they can’t repay in a jobless economy.
>> Schools are firing teachers. Vital social services are being axed.
>>
>> How are Americans to be heard about what should be done about any of this
>> if they are not allowed to mobilize and organize? When the freedom of
>> speech goes to the highest bidder, moneyed interests have a
>> disproportionate say.
>>
>> Now more than ever, the First Amendment needs to be put right side up.
>> Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.
>> © 2011 Robert Reich
>>  [image: Robert Reich] <http://www.commondreams.org/robert-reich>
>>
>
>


-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds
the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in
reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness
groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest
urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
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