You should know that beginning next week, assorted Occupations are coming together to shut down the ports on the West Coast of the US.

With each week, violence increases against Occupiers and in response, Occupiers are multiplying. They are coming to the pinnacle of thought that occupying is not just about being visible, but that through numbers they can stop the money train.

Corporations are not dumb (because obviously they are now considered people) and will let activists take up as much space as they want, because the corporations can just look from the tops of their corporate suites and watch their planes, trains, and ships move across the country.

When those modes of transportation cease to move, their eyes will finally look elsewhere, and what they will see is a sea of people saying NO MORE.

The members of Soldiers for the Cause bring this Motivation Monday video to you so that everyone can stand in solidarity and shout that enough is enough, take notice of Occupy, the game is up, we are no longer just the consumers that pad your pockets. Occupy is the antithesis and will be seen, heard, and recognized.

Part 1

67:28

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Part 2

123:48

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Part 3

74:31

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Sound edited by Karol S. Olesiak. No censorship was used in this podcast.

‎’The first deterrence, nuclear deterrence, is presently being superseded by the second deterrence: a type of deterrence based on what I call ‘the information bomb’ associated with the new weaponry of information and communications technologies. Thus, in the very near future, and I stress this important point, it will no longer be war that is the continuation of politics by other means, it will be what I have dubbed ‘the integral accident’ that is the continuation of politics by other means.’ Paul Virilio

My primary area of expertise in the Navy was digital cartography. My rate, Quartermaster, an ancient maritime job that involved sextants and azimuths, nautical charts and star charts, a Bowditch (the bible of all that is nautical and maritime), and rolls of paper from every corner of the world, beautifully crafted to precision, stacked from wall to wall, demanding space. This is how Joseph Conrad would have felt before he made his journeys and wrote about them.  Imperialism crept its ugly head into the romantic musings of a boy, and I, like Conrad, saw that the world did not look like those charts. It had owners.

All of my ancient instruments and I, endowed with ancient knowledge, were  sent to a corporate school run by Sperry Marine to learn how the knowledge of the ancients had propelled humanity into the digital age. Digital Chart Overlays and Voyage Management Systems are not classified anymore and available on the open market in varied forms. When I worked as the assistant to the executive director of Legal Aid Society of San Diego I tried to implement software called ARC GIS. It used geocoding and GPS data to track populations of migrant disenfranchised individuals who needed translators and pro bono legal representation. I never imagined how maliciously this kind of software could be used but I should have known.

When I returned to the East Coast my first encounter with a hybrid of this tech was someone that I knew who worked for a large grocery delivery chain in New York. They were using data compiled on household median income and chart overlays to calculate where their delivery area should be. My second encounter clicked only in delayed reaction when I realized that banks during the housing crash were using similar data compilations to foreclose on homes based on median household income in a given area.  This is only the navigation end of the military industrial complex seeping out into commercial use; imagine where really malicious technology ends up.  Imagine now how the Intelligence Industrial Complex has been distributed amongst corporations that have higher GDPs than most countries. The largest corporation is the 27^th largest country.  This seepage of information could be viewed as accidental.

Paul Virilio, a theorist in calamities, believes that integral accidents are inevitable with any technology and the rate at which these accidents are probable is related to the speed of the science of the respective culture. Every time a ship is invented, so is a shipwreck. The onset of the locomotive leads to the derailment and so on. This correlation between creation and destruction is implied and does not have to exist in any actuality outside of individual and group consciousness to effect material reality. Virilio believes that apocalypse is an inevitability. I say that the moment when someone points it out the inevitability becomes less probable. Creation and destruction cycles inherent in the psyche do not excuse war. And the price of war is always an inflated military regime.

One thing that the ancients understood that we don’t, besides creation and destruction cycles, was that technology was sacred. Technology, for them, could only come from a place that was divine. Each creative thought is a gift from somewhere less profane than here. It was meant to be respected. Perhaps Mr. Virilio is right about velocity of science determining the rate of integral accidents. However, he misses quality (direction) of the respective science. If scientific advancement is spurned by profane utilization: war, the accumulation of wealth, and the consolidation of power, there will always be a “quality” of accident. But if scientific advancement is led by a desire for humanistic values people as a whole hold a sacred the “quality” of that accident would be different. I would challenge what an accident means to Mr. Virilio. An accident could always be a happy one.

This should be on a recruitment poster somewhere. “Only you can make the inevitable accident happy.” The balance of the human race will require something new. Something that has not existed before. Creation and destruction cycles are only the ebb and flow of our minds trying wrap themselves around the wonderment of being alive, aware. The only way to prevent Virilio’s apocalypse is to be better. It always starts with you. Guilt will not get us there and neither will shame. Neither will violence for that matter.  We all have to reach into that sacred place and respect what is brought back.

Vice Magazine Interview with Virilio

What is Hooverville?

During the Great Depression, shanty towns popped up first in New York then all over the country almost spontaneously:

“…the episode of the encampment at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, demolished by the city on Aug. 17, recalls the ‘Hooverville’ of shacks housing more than a score of homeless people in the emptied Central Park Reservoir in 1931-1933.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/29/realestate/streetscapes-central-park-s-hooverville-life-along-depression-street.html

 

Almost the entirety of Central Park become a shantytown and for 10 years police, all over the country, tried evict these kinds of settlements. History does not have to be cyclical if we learn from it.

What happens to us now will depend on our collective memories and how far they stretch. Hooverville’s memes almost never make an appearance in today’s media. It is a part of our history they would rather not remember, but there are important parallels in this historical comparison that need to be taken into account.

In Washington D.C. today city inspectors condemned a structure that I can only compare to the skeleton of a starter home. As I write this a joint task force in conglomeration with the D.C. metro police are trying to remove occupiers from a structure that appears superior to any pictures I’ve seen of the Hooverville Occupation.

Police gave demonstrators a one-hour deadline to start dismantling the two-story plywood structure Sunday morning and then began moving in when that deadline passed. Police on horseback cordoned off the area, and officers removed protesters one-by-one before putting them in handcuffs and taking them into custody.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post_now/post/occupy-washington-demonstrators-arrested-by-us-park-police/2011/12/04/gIQA3RSiSO_blog.html?hpid=z1

 

Hooverville played an important part in changing the callousness of the public mind and making parachute reforms for the common man.  An economist I respect, a graduate of the London School of Economics, tells me that we are living in another depression. We just cannot feel it because of the parachutes already in place from the Great Depression era.

So what does this parallel bring to light about our present situation? Occupiers all over the country are being evicted and everyone seems to be missing the point. There is no space left to occupy because corporations have, through bad faith, swindled the masses out of the American Dream. The 99% are the proverbial native Americans in this metaphor. They were given entertaining trinkets in exchange for their birthright of space.

What does it say about our culture that these are not shantytowns but tent villages? What does it say about the occupants’ skill sets? During the Hooverville Occupations the disenfranchised artisans built solid encampments, while those without skills used cheap materials. Now we have tents. Not only is the knowledge of building shelter not readily available but the space where Hooverville-like encampments would have popped up are being kept as vacant parking lots over public interest.

“Like human pack rats, ordinary people were forced to carry, wheel and drag bits of lumber, tin, cardboard, tar paper, glass, composition roofing, canvas, and other materials to the sites of America’s new real estate boom. Some fortunate men were skilled in carpentry, and were capable of constructing fairly solid structures, while others less skilled scraped together packing boxes and other discarded items to provide shelter. Unemployed masons salvaged stone blocks and old bricks to create 20-foot tall shanties. However, more unfortunate men were reduced to sheltering themselves inside empty water mains.”

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1642.html

Comparably the Occupations that have popped up in response to The Great Crash have been cleaner and more organized than Hooverville ever could have been.  Perhaps this is their failure, because the most powerful images that have come out of various occupations have been the violent indiscretions of the police. It is difficult to find power in memes of organization and civility.

The major arguments that are used against the various occupations are historical ones. Historically things are not as bad as they once were.  The world is less violent than it was a hundred years ago. But perhaps that is because the violence has to be more discreet.  Perhaps we have been conditioned to expect very little like the occupants of the Hooverville.

Many Occupations invited the homeless to live amongst them and shared their food. That is more than the powers-that-be are willing to do.  Many of these homeless are simply down on their luck veterans. There have been many urban strategies to expunge the poor out of city limits rather than dealing with the problem of poverty.  All of the New York mayors in the last three decades have engaged in this forced exodus of the poor through real estate deals and city ordinances.

Michael Muskal from the Los Angles Times has already made this point but my simple contribution is a question. What does the eviction of a transformative metaphor say about us? Hooverville changed the dialogue of American politics and made FDR president. The new deal was enacted by FDR but only in answer to the call of the desires of the public mind. Not everyone lived in squalor during the Great Depression but those who didn’t live in the shantytowns had to see them on a regular basis. They became ingrained in the public mind and that mind became thirsty for change.

First of all, in a normative situation, its intimidating and the horses are defecating. Secondly, it is incredibly dangerous to have an animal deal with large crowds of politically energized people, but more than that, it is cruel to the poor animal. If police need to be so much higher above a crowd, why don’t they just get stilts? The whole thing appeared very medieval.

After the long night of siege at Occupy Philadelphia the police decided to bring out the riot horses. Up to that point the Philadelphia police had been a model for how law enforcement should behave, but one outdated practice will probably cost them millions in damages.

It is not the overtime that the taxpayers have to beware of in these situations, it is the lawsuits. NYPD paid out $3 million in the Tompkins Square riots on the lower east side. I caught up with Occupy Philadelphia and did a phone interview with Occupy Philadelphia’s public relations representative in the wee hours of the morning.

Occupy Philly Interview 11302011 by Karol S. Olesiak
The music is from No, really. The album is entitled ‘Thousand Yard Stare.’ Please support.

The next call I let the answering machine pick up.  The good nurse must have finally figured, “screw the privacy policy,” and she gave Bob’s last name, and a call back number.  Like I said, end of the day, I’m in fade out.  Unless you’re identifiably one of my closer friends or a family member, and you want the verbal me, you gotta call before six, after which I’m mixing my martini, and starting to prepare for dinner and an evening that does not include talking on the phone.

Anyway, I snapped to.  Christ, what a jerk I’m swearing at myself, as I rush to the phone.  It’s Bobby, a dear friend, old comrade from the day, the GI project in Wrightstown outside Fort Dix, and then part of our activist circle on the deserter amnesty issue before he took the union buy-out and fled to the hills of Vermont.  Bobby, who took his first plane ride at 19 en route to Vietnam, schlepped an M-60 all over the Delta with the 9^th Division.  He was third generation printer’s union at the Daily News, and had barely ever traveled from Brooklyn past Manhattan – maybe a time or two over to Jersey.  Bob is one of those rare Brooklyn Yankees’ fans, worshiped the Mick, day dreamed about playing center field in the house that Ruth built while gazing out the window in grammar school until Sister Mary Malpractice put a knuckle sandwich upside his head.

Bobby wasn’t much of a student.  If he survived Nam, there was Charlotte, his HS sweetheart waiting at home in Sheepshead Bay, and the union card as a legacy from his grandfather’s own bashed head when the newspaper workers battled the publishers’ goons for the right to organize.   It was one of those womb-to-tomb life plans, and if that wasn’t the American Dream for the average working stiff, nothing was.  I don’t need to tell you that Nam pretty much put a major crimp in that scenario for my friend Bob.  As I dialed the phone, I feared the worse.  But the voice was the same old Bob, and it’s not that we’ve ever been out of touch for very long since the early 70s, never more than a couple of months at a time.  Sometimes he’d come to Maine, or I’d go see him.

The news was that Bob was in the psych ward at the VA in White River Junction, about an hour and a half from his place in Vermont’s so-called Northest Kingdom.  PTSD became a ratable service-connected disability by the VA in the early 80s, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Bob had been among the first to get his diagnosis and his hundred percent.  He’s been through all the substance programs, the in-patient clinics, with their twin accents on group therapy and meds.

Alcohol is how Bob deals with his demons.  And Dames.  Charlotte divorced him, but they remained neighbors and stayed close; when a brain tumor took her, Bobby lost his best friend, the one he could always lean on to regain some semblance of balance after each bounce off the wagon, and each prolonged binge into oblivion that followed.  Bob tried and tried to build another relationship.   But he smothered women with kindness – No, Michael, really, this is the one, I know it – and in succession, they would flee, breaking his heart and, in some cases ripping him off in the bargain.  It was the latest broken heart that sent him back to White River Junction, that and the open casket funeral of a local boy one town over who’d been killed in Afghanistan.

I’d always get on his case about his thing with women.  Take it slow, I’d say.  Don’t try to rescue her and the two kids, or get involved with the scum bag dead beat dad, all in the first month.  Or whatever.  About the dead kid in the casket, that registered on me.  Bobby is a sweetheart and a funny, sensitive guy, a softy.  But when he offered that dead boy as causa prima for his latest bout with the deep, deep blues, it caught in my throat too, and I could feel the mist starting to rise.  It’s that deep, unappeasable thing that makes a Nam vet bawl whenever he goes to the Wall in DC.

Anyway, Bob hadn’t tried to hurt himself.  I was thankful for that.  He was feeling better and was going to check himself out in a day or two against the advice of his keepers, but that was to be expected.  None of them can imagine, given their own far less turbulent heads, how any of these toxic grade PTSD guys ever survive from one day to the next.  But I knew Bob’s resilience, and could hear in his voice that he’d landed on his feet again, and still had some rounds left in him.

A couple of days later Bobby called to tell me he was back home.  He became uncharacteristically talkative about his time in Nam.  All the years I’ve known him, he’d never go into detail, not even with me.  He didn’t have to.  I could read between the lines.  The 9^th Infantry Division was based in the northern Mekong Delta, some forty miles below Saigon.  Till the late sixties, American units only operated sporadically there, and the South Vietnamese Army hardly at all.  This warren of waterways, rice paddies and canopied woodlands was densely populated and traditionally a stronghold of the Vietnamese resistance, the guerrilla forces of the Viet Cong.  I always figured Bob had gotten into some heavy shit, and just couldn’t bring himself to talk about it.

Suddenly, I couldn’t get him off the phone.  He’d started looking through old boxes he’d dragged from the barn to his living room, mostly articles Charlotte had clipped every day while waiting for her soldier to get home, from the Daily News and the Times, particularly if they mentioned the 9^th.   Bob was rambling on about some home coming parade involving his unit, and how they’d been attacked by antiwar protesters.

Bob, I interrupted, what the hell are you talking about.  That welcome home shit was something Reagan’s people manufactured trying to get Americans to stop feeling bad about Vietnam so they could stick it to the rebels in Central America, go from covert to overt, which the public wasn’t buying.  There were a lot of cry-baby vets, who couldn’t get their dad’s “good”  war out of their imaginations, and who knew goddamned well that Vietnam was no noble cause, the pap Reagan was doling out, but who couldn’t make the emotional break because to them, if the war was bad, it meant they were bad too.  The hat vet organizations like the Legion and the VFW are filled with vets who think like that – or who don’t do a lot of independent thinking about their war experiences, or the world in general, is the way I view it.

No, no, no… Michael, Bob persisted, we had a parade.  I’ve got it right in front of me.  They jeered at us, it says.  Again, I jumped his train of thought, onto a digression about how the whole spat-upon vet thing was an urban myth.  No documented evidence has been produced, and besides, I said, how did all those GI-hating hippies get on the tarmac of a U.S. air base to sling their spit at guys just getting back to the World?  And even when you out-processed, and left the base, it’s not like you were in uniform, even if you hadn’t been discharged yet.  The average GI hated the uniform by then, and couldn’t wait to get it off when on his own time.  But Bob was still adamant.  He just couldn’t string it out in a way that made any sense.  Finally, I said, make some copies of what you’re talking about, and send them to me, okay?  And, listen man, those clips sound interesting; they should go to a library.

When the clips came I could see immediately that Bob had sent me something important.  It was a copy of a very brief AP story, only three paragraphs, datelined Seattle July 10, 1969, under the heading, “Returning GIs, Hailed, Jeered.”  The other clips Bob included tell the whole story.

In the ‘68 presidential run up, Richard Nixon promised, if elected, to begin withdrawal of American troops from active combat in Vietnam, to be replaced by the forces of South Vietnam.  This strategy quickly became dubbed in the media as, “changing the color of the corpses,” because the American Air War, and presumably the war itself, was on the books to continue indefinitely.  Nixon, in fact, would fulfill this promise, and, in doing so, unwittingly set the stage for the victory of the Vietnamese people and the reunification of their country.

To implement Nixon’s policy, the Pentagon chose a battalion of the 9^th Division to play the public role of being the first homecoming unit, first among 25,000 U.S. troops that would be rotated home over a seven week period.  On July 8, 1969, 814 GIs, “draped in leis and grinning broadly,” stood at attention for two hours at Tan Son Nhut air base just outside Saigon, participating in a farewell ceremony that saw them harangued by the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, General Creighton Abrams, as well as South Vietnam’s president, Nguyen Van Thieu, “a late arrival,” according to the story in the Times.

After the ceremony, the GIs boarded the giant C-141 transports that would, after 18 hours, return them to the World.  A few GIs are quoted in clippings from the New York papers. The men are understandably ecstatic, since for many of them it means cutting short, if only by a month in one case, their one year combat tours.  Most of them have seen heavy action in the Delta, which is also described in many articles Camilla had saved for Bob.  And I know from my own experiences, some of horrors they’d dealt with, and, one guys says it all, “I’m just lucky to be getting home alive.”

When the transports landed at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, another dog and pony show awaited the returning heroes, 3000 people, some of them relatives, and a brass band.  The men off the first plane got a hand shake from former Vietnam commander, now Army Chief of Staff, General William Westmoreland.  The South Vietnamese Ambassador to the U.S. is also there, as are 100 little leaguers in uniform.  The battalion is due to be deactivated, and many of the men will be discharged.  But not quite yet.  Two days later there’s an official home coming parade in downtown Seattle.  And that’s where it happens.  The AP story reports “the jeers of antiwar protestors who demanded, “Bring them all home now.”  So, it appears from the slogan quoted that the protestors weren’t “jeering” at the GIs, but at the likes of Secretary of Army Stanley Resor, and the other pro-war officials, who watched them march past from the reviewing stand.

Now, here’s the tough part.  Bob felt like he was being jeered at, and I’ll bet that was how most of the other GIs that day felt too.  When we talked Bob told me that, not only had his unit been verbally abused by protestors in Seattle, but he’d experienced similar treatment when he went to Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn to report for his induction physical.   But Bob, I reminded him, that happened everywhere.  The antiwar movement was all over the inductions centers, in the major cities anyway.  They were protesting the war and the draft, not the draftees.  Besides, I added weakly, you weren’t even in the Army yet.

I was missing the point.  Most of the protestors had enough middle class privilege to avoid military service.  Blue collar guys like Bob didn’t get that option; they went to war.  The fact that Bob misunderstood the words the protestors were yelling that day in Seattle is disturbing; what’s even more disturbing is that he’s still misinterpreting them after all these years.  Class resentment runs deep and gets tragically misplaced in this society, while divide and rule fuels the myth that vets were spat upon, even when they weren’t.

When I was growing up my education caused me to believe certain things. Education is not just what you learn in school. It’s what you learn at home, from TV, newspapers, the movies, from music, art, etc. I got a consistent message from all these sources. I learned that we Americans were special. We were better than others. Our form of government was the best; our economic system was the best; our leaders were more intelligent and just; we were more honest, smarter, more trustworthy and brave. God was on our side. And I learned that there were bad people in the world. Communist were bad back then. We wore the white hats and people in bad countries wore black hats. And there were weak countries that, like us, wanted peace and freedom. We had to protect them from the bad guys. A nice and simple picture to understand the world was painted for us. Good versus evil.

So, in 1963, young and patriotic, I enlisted in the US Army for a three year tour of duty – a chance to kill commies for God and country. I took certain written tests and I was told I had very high scores. I was told that I could pick my own MOS, military occupational specialty, i.e., job

Nevertheless, I volunteered for the infantry, to be a grunt. Visions of being John Wayne, a hero, danced in my mind. Heroes always got the fast cars and pretty girls. I was proud of my high-test scores. I thought I was smart. With hindsight I came to realize that the tests did not measure intelligence. The test results proved I had been successfully socialized and propagandized. My high scores told them that I’d do whatever they wanted. I’d be a good robot.

Two 1/2 yrs after joining, in December 1965, I was 21 years old and stationed in Alaska. I was a sergeant in charge of a 10-man machine gun squad. The squad had two M-60 machine guns; awesome and deadly weapons.

It is important to remember that members of a military unit become very close, good buddies. Troops, 40 in total, slept together in a large bay; 10, a squad, in one row; 4 rows per bay; 4 bays per company. We woke up together. We did physical exercise together, ate meals together, trained and worked together, showered together, spent our off duty time together, usually drinking beer. We did everything together every day. We bonded. We became really close buddies. I now know this was no accident. You see, we had all only been in the army for months or at most for a few years while our government had a two hundred year plus tradition of militarism. Our leaders knew that when we were thrown into combat that all of our heroic visions would disappear, that our wanting to fight for freedom, democracy or God would quickly vanish. We’d be fighting to stay alive and for one another.

A necessary corollary to this bonding is the military’s dehumanizing the people we were to fight. During the time of my service the Vietnamese were dehumanized. Our leaders referred to them as gooks and slant eyes. Today the enemy is referred to as rag heads and sand niggers. It’s hard to kill human beings so they must be made less than human.

In December 1965, my outfit received orders to ship out to Vietnam. We were one bunch of frightened young boys. The immediacy of being in the heat of deadly battle started to work against my desire to be a hero. We started getting ready to ship out. We sharpened our bayonets and the edges of our folding shovels. The shovels were designed to dig foxholes but somebody figured that in close combat they’d be good to swing at the enemy and maybe cut off his head.

We were told the purpose of our mission. There were two countries: North VN and South VN. The North was evil and was trying to forcibly impose communism on SVN. SVN was one of those weaker countries that, like us, wanted peace and democracy so we had to protect it from the bad guys. We had been getting the same message on TV, in newspapers, magazines, on the radio, everywhere.

Just before my outfit was due to be shipped out, my commanding officer, a captain, summoned me to his office. He explained that since I had less than 90 days remaining in my three-year tour of duty that I would not be going to VN. My orders were changed from going to VN to being discharged from the army and being shipped back home to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to safety, to the bosom of my family, while my outfit, my buddies, would be going to VN, into harm’s way. I was so naive and stupid that I had no idea what this would mean to me later on.

After I got home, I started getting letters from my friends who were in VN. The letters told of horror after horror. One buddy, Jimmy, 18 or 19 years old, was somebody who would make us all laugh but he’d remain stone faced, not even smiling at we who were engaged in uncontrollable laughter. We’d look at him, see that he was not even smiling and we’d all stop laughing momentarily to ponder how he could keep such a serious demeanor. Then we’d all break out laughing all over again because it was just so funny that he could get us to such uncontrollable laughter but he wouldn’t even crack a smile. Well, Jimmy was standing among a group of his buddies when a hand grenade was thrown at them. Jimmy instinctively jumped on the grenade and clutched it to his stomach. None of his buddies were hurt but he had been blown in half. I called his parents. Their grief was mine. We cried.

I got a letter about a buddy from Missouri. He was a six-foot tall African-American who was quiet, honest, polite and respectful. He was a joy to be with. It was obvious he had been raised with loving care. He was riding with his squad in a helicopter. A .50 caliber bullet fired from the ground went through the belly of the copter, through the canvas seat he was sitting on and into his buttocks and then spine. He became a quadriplegic. He would lie on his back forever, never to have a job, a wife, children.

I then got a letter about John.  John and I were close. He was from New England. He was fit, lean and strong. He was a reliable and serious young man. He was the lead man in a jungle patrol when the Viet Cong sprung an ambush. It was sprung early and only John was in the ambush zone. The VC caught John alive. The VC wanted to entice the rest of the American patrol members into the ambush area. It was all set with booby traps and explosives. To do this they began to torture John. They started by stabbing him in his arms and legs with his bayonet, they cut off his ears and tongue and his penis, which they stuck in his mouth. John, while he could, screamed uncontrollably in fear and pain, begging for help, but his buddies knew it would be instant death to try to save him. When John’s body was retrieved nobody could recognize him because he had been so badly mutilated. Naturally I was sickened. I felt like I had abandoned my friends by getting out of the army and coming home. I felt as though I had let them down. Maybe I did.

Then I got the most important letter I had ever received. A buddy wrote and said, Sandy, everybody here hates us. I wondered, how could any of them hate us? My friends were dying to protect them from communism, from the North. We were spending billions of dollars in VN. How could they hate us? We were the good guys, we wore the white hats. I was confused. Things didn’t add up. I began to critically think – possibly, for the first time in my life. Up until then, I had believed what I had been told by my government on faith. Faith is the belief in something for which there is no proof. I started going to the library and I read everything I could on VN.

Prior to WWII, VN was a French colony. When WWII started most of the French occupying force in VN went back to Europe to fight the Germans. After the end of WWII, France wanted VN back as a colony. The US supported the French. The US transported French troops to VN to fight Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist who wanted freedom for VN. The problem for the US government was that he was infected with a deadly virus, he was a communist. Nevertheless, the American enlisted men on the transport ships protested in a letter to then President of the US, Harry Truman. They wrote that it was against US principles to help subvert freedom of a people and to help those who would oppress them. Truman ignored the enlisted men. The US financed the French in a bloody war but nevertheless the Vietnamese beat the French in a big battle at Dien Bien Phu and the war was over.

The warring parties signed a peace treaty, the Geneva Accords. The accords called for a temporary division of VN, north and south, to take account mostly of the then relative strengths of the respective opposing forces and provided for free and fair elections to be monitored by the international community. The Vietnamese were to finally determine their own fate. There never were two separate Vietnam nations. The CIA told the then US president, Eisenhower, that if the elections were to occur that Ho Chi Minh would win with over 80% of the vote, even in the southern portion of VN. Eisenhower sabotaged the elections and US troops began replacing the vanquished French. So much for democracy. With this history, it all came together for me. I was no longer confused. The US was not fighting in VN to prevent the forced imposition of a form of government that the Vietnamese did not want but to impose one on them that they did not want. The US was the oppressor. That’s why my friends were hated. My own elected leaders, whom I had revered, had lied to my friends and me and had duped us. I felt violated. Raped. My friends were dying for lies told to them by their own elected leaders. I was angry and hurt. I continued to read.

My grandfather served in WWI. The American people, before the US entered the war, were overwhelmingly anti-war. The US government formed a propaganda organization, the Creel Commission. The commission was so successful that within six months most Americans were pro-war. President Woodrow Wilson told Americans that the purpose of the war was to end all wars. That it was a war to make the world safe for democracy. However, after WWI, in a speech in Ohio, President Wilson said: Is there any man here, any woman, nay any child who does not know that WWI was a war caused by commercial and industrial rivalry. After 10 million dead, after no immediate need for more warriors, the truth was told.

I studied about Smedley D. Butler, a Major General in the US Marines, who was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor, the highest medal given by the US government for bravery in combat. In 1938, in bitter reflection on his military career, he said: I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. Looking back on it I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in 3 city districts. We marines operated on 3 continents.

My parents and uncles served in WWII. In high school we were told that on December 7, 1941 Japan engaged in a surprise attack against Hawaii (a US colony at the time), a day that would live in infamy. We were taught that the attack was particularly dastardly because the Japanese had delegates in Washington DC to talk peace. The peace talks were top secret back then. I started to read about the peace talks, which had been declassified. I learned that the Japanese had invaded Nanking, a province of China. The Japanese were very harsh occupiers. They tied human beings to telephone poles to be used for bayonet practice. They raped young children, middle aged woman and the elderly. They used live Chinese for germ, arctic and chemical warfare experiments.

In the peace talks the US never objected to what the Japanese were doing to the citizens of Nanking. What the US wanted from the Japanese was access to the Nanking markets on the same terms as the Japanese enjoyed. Japan refused. The Japanese explained that the US had the Monroe Doctrine that provided for the US to dominate Latin America and to protect its markets in the same way the Japanese were doing in Nanking. The Japanese promised to honor the Monroe Doctrine and wanted the US to recognize that Japan had the same right in Nanking. The US refused and placed an embargo against the Japanese islands that effectively denied Japan of needed oil, steel and other resources.  Only after the embargo which strangled Japanese industry did the Japanese attack. Sixty million people died in WW II, another war due to commercial and industrial rivalry.

George Kennan was a high-ranking US State Department official. After WW II, in 1948, he drafted and the US government adopted Policy Planning Study 23 which provided: We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming and our attention will have to be concentrated on our immediate national objectives. We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democracy. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans the better.

PPS 23, in 1948, was top secret. In PPS 23 the planners were talking to one another. To pacify the public about wars the planners still found it necessary, even to this day, like about Iraq, to trumpet idealistic slogans.

Shortly after WWII, while the earth was still wet with the blood of 60 million dead, American business interests were gleefully counting their war profits. WW II years were the best years ever. US businesses wanted a permanent war footing for the country because it was good for business. A US business magazine lamented that Stalin might accept Truman’s peace overtures and disrupt the profits associated with militarism. Communism was the perfect threat to excuse away Mr. Keenan’s straight power concepts and to keep the profits rolling in. Just like today, terrorism is the perfect threat to justify the use of “straight power concepts” to retain the US wealth disparity. And the lies continue from our leaders as a raging river causing so much destruction to the people and property in its path.

Thomas Jefferson, the third US president said: Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject as that which has been employed to persuade nations that it is their interest to go to war.

My buddies died believing they were fighting for a better world, that they were a force for good, just like many US soldiers now serving in Iraq believe and just like many soldiers who served their respective countries throughout the years believed. It is a good sign that leaders must lie to their citizens to get them to fight. This proves that if the people knew the truth they would not fight. One of the most critical lies in every war is that others, the so-called enemies, are less than human.

If we the living don’t work non-violently to bring that better world about, my buddies and millions of other veterans from all over the world who likewise thought they were fighting for the good and the right, will have died in vain. We must realize that people are complicated and nobody wears all white or all black hats, the hats are gray. Nobody is all good or all evil; nobody is better than anybody else merely by reason of what country he or she is born in. To engage in the effort to bring about that better world so my buddies will not have died in vain, what we call: Abolish War – The Last Campaign, I joined Veterans for Peace. I will not abandon my buddies again.

I have been speaking to students to tell them my story. I ask that students do not take what I say as truth. If students do, then, in a way, I will have done to them what others did to me as a young person. I will have caused them to believe something by blind acceptance, on faith. What I told you is my truth. I ask that you not accept what anybody tells you as truth. Not your parents, not your teachers, not your religious leaders. You must explore, by reading, discussing and critically thinking and find your own truth and then to act on it for the benefit of all the peoples of the world, our brothers and sisters.

SanfordKelson

8231 South Canal Road

Conneaut Lake,PA16316

814-382-4887

Cell: 412-310-8007

Email: sandkel@windstream.net

I woke up to disappointment today after reading the Senate had passed the National Defense Authorization Act while simultaneously rejecting the Udall, Webb Amendment.

For those who are unaware, which seems to be the majority of the United States, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) bill was drafted in secret by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). The bill redefines America as a “battlefield” and authorizes US troops to conduct military arrests of US civilians on US soil, and to indefinitely detain citizens without charge or trial. The Udall, Webb Amendment cosponsored by Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) and Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) would have stripped sections from the bill that authorize the military to indefinitely detain individuals without charge, to force police officials to transfer a large number of terrorism suspects into military custody, and to further institute restrictions on the transfer of cleared Guantanamo detainees. Click here to see how your Senators voted.

Does that scare you? I hope so, because it should. I am more fearful now than I was after George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act into law in 2001. How many of your friends know about the NDAA bill? I post updates to various social networking sites on a regular basis in an attempt to inform my friends and family about important issues that they should care about. I have noticed not many care, though there are a few who do, and I am more thankful for them than they could ever realize.

I am having a hard time understanding how the American populous can be so apathetic when it comes to the important issues. The media, of course, plays a large role in the non-exposure of truth to the general public. We have been dumbed-down so much that we no longer care about the real, true current events. Instead we care about the latest American Idol winner or Lindsay Lohan’s continued drug addiction or Pippa Middleton’s newest beau. Why is it that many of my friends can name every member of the Kardashian family, but they cannot tell me who Herman Cain or Michelle Bachmann are? I have friends who vote in every X Factor poll but have yet to cast their vote when it really counts. That troubles me to no end.

What other factors play a part in this ignorance? I have friends who complain about being unemployed. I tell them what the Occupy Wall Street Movement is. I tell them that they should be a part of the movement because unemployment is one of the major issues being discussed. “No, it’s just not my thing,” an unemployed and longtime friend told me. Well, wake up friend, because this is exactly your thing.

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” -Plato

It is time for everyone in America to wake up. In fact they should have woken up a long time ago, as all signs have been and are pointing to major national and global revolutions.

American apathy is one major issue that has kept me awake many nights these past few years. I am quite sure that I will lose even more friends over this article than I have already for my incessant Facebook postings pertaining to economic, political, and social issues that affect us all.

I am okay with that because I know I am doing the right thing, and when all hell breaks loose on American soil, maybe I will no longer be seen as the guy always wearing the proverbial tinfoil hat.

 
 
Photo credit here.

From Fox News on Senate Bill 1867, entitled the National Defense Authorization Act (2012) by Senators Carl Levin and John McCain:

It is not just this legislation that makes the conspiratorially minded nervous. SOPA has also caused mass mobilization in Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU), and many others. The opposition to this bill has been so strong that, in my opinion, it doesn’t have a chance. Americans should be angry with Hollywood for supporting a flawed bill such as SOPA.

From Russian Times:

Link for petitions to stop SOPA:

http://americancensorship.org/

Alex Jones and others have been talking about FEMA camps for a while and it is dismissed by the mainstream. Most of the comments we have received from our readers are dismissive too. But as my colleague Matthew Baker points out just because it is improbable does not mean its impossible. FEMA camps, as a possibility, are Black Swans. Black Swans refer to improbable events that don’t exist in the public’s ability to predict against and hedge risk. Before Europeans ventured into Australia only white swans were known and black swans were considered highly improbable. From what I know having been an employee of the government, the government hedges risk and when the climate intensifies they plan accordingly. This does not mean that government will or can use the force they prepare for. The first report of 20k troops deployed domestically did not come from Mr. Jones but The Washington Post.

Mr. Jones puts the dots together in his own way and I presume that he believes in a big evil that has an agenda. I don’t. I think the conspiracy is in the human heart. In the emergent decay in the human soul. If we allow ourselves to let places like Guantanamo exist we will always share possibility that the same can happen to us.  If we wage wars and tamper with stability of other nations we will always anticipate that same can be done in repercussion. It is classic guilt in group-think. That is not to say that it can’t or won’t happen.

Senate Bill 1867, SOPA, FEMA camps, and the rumors of buildups of domestic troops do not prove a conspiracy. But do provide a preponderance of evidence to the dire climate we live in. There is an old Jewish curse that says: ‘May you live in interesting times’ and, unfortunately for us,  these are interesting times. I believe that the root of conspiratorial thought is the knowledge that we all let these possibilities be actualities. We allowed the military industrial complex to grow so large that our American idealism has been compromised to status of a world bully. That allowance can only be equated with making the need for energy a national security issue. This is why I am apprehensive to advocate making climate change a national security issue. By buying things we didn’t need and teaching consumerism to our children we made debt and consumerism inter-generational. Therefore, we made slavery a birthright. If there is anything to blame it is our own desire and the blindness it causes. When we find ourselves awake (once in a while) we look for categorizations of ‘we’ and ‘they’ to conjure up evil that has wronged.

The ACLU and EFF use the same kind of narrative logic that Alex Jones does. It is a logic of extremes that assumes what can happen will happen. All three are not wrong because once a law is enacted individuals and groups with varying agendas use that law as a template that supersedes morality. The ends always justify the means when people feel strongly about an issue. We must never fall into that trap as individuals. In order to be individuals we have to choose the higher path.

Applying Occam’s Razor to all 4 issues (without assuming a conspiratorial stance) leads to these conclusions:

Senate Bill 1897: After an accretion of the military industrial complex and state national guard and a winding down of war time activities there is a surplus of soldiers on the government payroll that no longer have a purpose. The deadline to pull troops out of Iraq is December 31st.

FEMA Camps: The failure in disaster relief efforts during Katrina leaving state national guard on ready call with climate change issues (national security issues) is a probable move. There is also a possible push to relocate Guantanamo prisoners stateside. Most likely this a sign that the powers that be don’t see our economy improving anytime in the near future and are preparing for instability.

SOPA: Like in the European Union this issue is usually pushed by media giants. That is not to say that they are not joined by other groups but that is usually where the money will lead you.

Rumors of Buildup of Domestic Troops: I suspect that this is connected to the Senate Bill. We do not have an evil government but they do think about things in terms of classical economics. They hedge risk. They prepare for all scenarios but that does not mean that we should panic. Without the bill above soldiers coming home and staying on the payroll is not a threat. The reader must also understand that many troops serving in Iraq are National Guard. The national guard belongs to individual states.

The biggest problem with the senate bill is that there are no clear criteria for who is a terrorist and who is not. Here is Rand Paul’s analysis:

The reader must understand that it is a logical step after amassed militarization to treat social welfare issues as national security issues. This is the unknown known that the Egyptian people face. The inevitability of having a military that has become too big to fail because of public fear. In order to defeat our own demons we must stop fearing them. Inciting panic is not the way for activists. We have been ruled by fear for too long. “An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” Orlando A. Battista

You should be in support of OWS if for no other reason than they are exercising rights laid out for us in the US Constitution, the 1st Amendment in particular. There is no reasoned argument that can be made that makes the case of OWS evictions. Maybe you don’t agree with them, but you should support them.

On that note, here is another person you should support:

As reported by the Kansas City Star, Emma Sullivan, of Topeka, KS, exercised her right to free speech and tweeted her distaste for her state governor. Only to be ordered, that’s right, “ordered,” to apologize in a formal letter to the governor. I’m sorry, WHAT? Apologize, for what, for saying what you think? And what right does the government have to order you to apologize? None, that’s what.

The school, acting as Speech Police, is giving the young patriot talking points, and is attaching a report of the incident to her transcripts, potentially marring her college career before it even starts.

I know there are millions of people out there that publicly announced their distaste for every president the United States has ever had, and now, we’re forcing Americans to apologize, this is crazy.
This is just another example of our rights slipping away and nobody is taking notice, this is censorship in its purist form.

I urge everyone to speak their mind. That is what forums such as Soldiers for the Cause is for, that is the power of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, even Myspace.

Speak your opinions and don’t back off them. It’s your constitutional right.

If you don’t know what your rights are, here is the first 10 amendments to the Constitutional, affectionately known as the Bill of Rights, for good reason, if you know no others, know these:

1. Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

2. Right to keep and bear arms

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

3. Conditions for quarters of soldiers

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

4. Right of search and seizure regulated

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

5. Provisions concerning prosecution

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

6. Right to a speedy trial, witnesses, etc.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

7. Right to a trial by jury

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

8. Excessive bail, cruel punishment

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

9. Rule of construction of Constitution

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

10. Rights of the States under Constitution

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Bobby Knight began his coaching career in 1965 at Army where, at 24, he was the youngest-ever Division I coach. His first NCAA title came in 1976 when Indiana went undefeated, a feat no team has done since. He has won three national titles as head coach, all with Indiana.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/9857141

Bobby Knight is a controversial coach in the NCAA, regardless of any stray opinions, the man’s record speaks for itself. He also coached David Robinson (among others), the Navy veteran basketball great, who played for the San Antonio, Spurs. They called David Robinson ‘The Admiral.’ I have listened to this speech as motivational material consistently over the years (For those days that I can’t find it in myself to continue.) . And it works. There is strong language so if you are offended by profanity please refrain from watching.

It is a hard decision for every voter to make: whether to participate in uneven contest or forsake their voting capital. If enough voters boycott in great enough numbers then the legitimacy of the process as a whole can be questioned. But there are no guarantees.

Russian Times:

In the 2000 Florida contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush the evenness of the playing field was put into question. In 2004 Rolling Stone put the legitimacy of the Ohio Kerry/Bush contest into question as well. There have been numerous incidents of election fraud in the course of American history.

 ”straight line runs from Bush v. Gore through a series of election controversies in the past decade. We can walk it from the 2003 California gubernatorial recall circus with its 21 lawsuits to the “armies of lawyers” dispatched to battleground states in the elections of 2004 to the controversies over voter-identification laws. Next, bogus organizations made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. When the Department of Justice investigated, they found virtually none. Still, in 2008 John McCain ranted that the group ACORN was “maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history.” That election also featured the interminable Coleman-Franken election recount. This time around, disputes about how to spell “Lisa Murkowski” on write-in ballots are playing out in Alaska’s recount of its Senate race.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/12/election_hangover.html

But outside of delineated fraud there is the distribution of wealth that Occupy Wall Street has been beating into the public consciousness. The end result leaves American activists little room to advise the Egyptians on having fair elections. But maybe if we watch closely they can advise us. GOP run states have been in a scurry to change electoral laws since early September.

Under the Republican plan…in both houses of the state Legislature…Pennsylvania would change from this system to one where each congressional district gets its own electoral vote. (Two electoral votes—one for each of the state’s two senators—would go to the statewide winner.)…Congressional district maps are adjusted after every census, and the last one just finished up. That means Pennsylvania Republicans get to draw the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts without any input from Democrats. Some of the early maps have leaked to the press, and Democrats expect that the Pennsylvania congressional map for the 2012 elections will have 12 safe GOP seats compared to just 6 safe Democratic seats…if the GOP presidential nominee carries the GOP-leaning districts but Obama carries the state, the GOP nominee would get 12 electoral votes out of Pennsylvania, but Obama would only get eight—six for winning the blue districts, and two (representing the state’s two senators) for winning the state. Since Obama would lose 12 electoral votes relative to the winner-take-all baseline, this would have an effect equivalent to flipping a medium-size winner-take-all state—say, Washington, which has 12 electoral votes—from blue to red…Nebraska and Maine already have the system the Pennsylvania GOP is pushing…if enough states adopted it. But so far, only nine states (including DC) representing just 132 electoral votes have signed on—and they’re all solidly blue.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gop-electoral-college-plan-beat-obama-2012

A boycott of the 2012 vote would send a clear message challenging the legitimacy of the voting process as it stands. The risk is it has never been challenged this way before. The choice between two evils whose only conjoined motivation is power is unacceptable. Even if the Democratic party found effective ways to counteract the changes in state voting demographics that GOP is proposing in its favor, it would still leave Americans with leadership that only garners the support of just over half of the populace. Once they are in power they would use the GOP as an excuse for not passing good social reforms. And vice-versa.

If there is one thing that is fallacious about the ethos of American politics it is the that’s-just-the-way-it-is attitude that most voters play into. This defeatist sentiment conveniently allows for the perpetuation of itself in a feedback loop that maintains the nexus of power. In a sense, voters can’t be blamed because of the disillusionment that a clear view of reality brings. This does not mean that we should not aspire to a better reality.

We should be watching Egypt closely right now as activists and observers because some solutions to these problems might emerge as a result. As a teenager I was told to “rock the vote” by MTV but there is something ‘feelgood’ and emblematic about participating with imaginary political capital.

In my hometown district the Democratic vote didn’t mean much. As an adult I realize that the people that need political power the most are pushed down so low on the economic rungs that a well informed and fair vote is impossible. I am not proposing a boycott (because of the great risk to individual) but simply that we explore this idea fully. If an illegitimate government is elected into power the people have the avenue for redress. If we all give into the ‘lessor of two evils’ method then we boycott the right to protest with legitimacy.

The Geneva Convention’s Rules of Engagement (ROE) have fallen by the wayside in the urban warfare context. As I watch police brutality all over the country I am led to the conclusion that if we allow this behavior overseas then we or our children will be forced to relive it stateside. Michael Moore’s 2010 article, “Iraq War Vet: We were told to just to shoot people, and the officers would take care of us,” revealed many accounts from soldiers that painted the evaporation of Geneva Convention guidelines as the dominant ROE. This article appeared 3 days after the Wikileaks release and gives a number of examples of first hand accounts of unaccountable violence against citizens and reporters.

“I watched soldiers firing into the radiators and windows of oncoming vehicles. Those who didn’t turn around were unfortunately neutralized one way or another – well over 20 times I personally witnessed this. There was a lot of collateral damage… ‘We took fire while trying to blow up a bridge. Many of the attackers were part of the general population. This led to our squad shooting at everything and anything in order to push through the town. I remember myself emptying magazines into the town, never identifying a target…we were given a direct order that if any children or civilians got in front of the vehicles in our convoy, we were not to stop, we were not to slow down, we were to keep driving. In the event an insurgent attacked us from behind human shields, we were supposed to count. If there were thirty or less civilians we were allowed to fire into the area. If there were over thirty, we were supposed to take fire and send it up the chain of command.”

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/iraq-war-vet-we-were-told-just-shoot-people-and-officers-would-take-care-us

As police officers get tired across the country I wonder how many activists will fall victim to bad command decisions. How will the domestic ROE change when they are in the dead of winter and irritated by the cold? One Philadelphia police officer has resolved to trolling occupiers and taunting Occupy Philly with Philadelphia Mayor’s 5PM eviction curfew for Occupy Philly.

Someone going by the name of Mike Sidebotham—whose profile indicates he is a Philadelphia police officer—posted a menacing message to the Occupy Philadelphia Facebook page Saturday evening. He posted the notorious photo of Lt. John Pike, the University of California-Davis police officer filmed casually and cavalierly hosing protesters with pepper spray. The photo was captioned, Don’t mind me / Just watering my hippies. The post included a personal message: “5 o clock is coming.”

http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2011/11/27/menacing-posts-on-occupy-philly-fb-page-may-be-from-a-cop/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=menacing-posts-on-occupy-philly-fb-page-may-be-from-a-cop

It is these brands of cruelty we contend with my brother and sister warriors. A person I served in the military with, who shall remain nameless, used to beat up homeless people for kicks. One day he showed me a book written by a white supremacist author who told a dark detailed prophecy of a race war.  This same person is about to graduate from a police academy in the South.

There is a pattern of cruelty that funnels itself through authoritarian specializations. Studies show that police officers are oftentimes more prone to committing domestic abuse than other career paths. There is  a similarity in the psychological profile of those that enforce the law and those that break it. For anyone who has encountered the seemingly cruel, it is the chicken or the egg argument. Are cruel individuals created by these institutions or are they drawn to them? I scoff at attempts to explain this away as an aspect of human nature. Human nature, for the most part, will do what’s accepted in the society that it finds itself in.

Where there is a need for cruelty, cruel individuals will emerge. In the existential psychologist Victor E. Frankl’s book: Man’s Search for Meaning he makes no judgments on the concentration camp prison guards that he encountered as a Jew sent to the camps during WWII. To Frankl some of the guards were cruel and some weren’t.  But for those that weren’t cruel, their crime was watching. Observing violence apathetically has an almost crueler tinge. You see, the cruel usually don’t know they are cruel. Monsters don’t know they are monsters. But if one knows better there is no greater crime than just watching.

You can view the Occupy Philadelphia live stream below, and read our real-time news updates directly under the video feed.

Occupy Philly Flash Mob at Wells Fargo:

All times listed are EST

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the first capital of the union. Mayor Nutter gave Occupy Philly a 5 o’clock deadline tonight as of 9 o’clock the occupiers are still occupying.  There have been twitter reports of DHS on the scene and at 7:57 PM the General Assembly passed out quarters for from-jail phone calls. Activists from all over the country are taking buses to Philadelphia to join our brothers and sisters. In the background the sound of bells and sirens accentuate the voices of people’s mic. All the people statements begin with: ‘I want to live in a world that…’ Philadelphia police are saying that there will be no eviction tonight but activists are wary. Most of the national sweeps on Occupies across the country have come early in the mornings. That being said, Philadelphia police officers seem calm and supportive. We will be watching.

Bas Slabbers photos on the ground

The contraversey with the unions in Philadelphia comes because the city has a $50 million dollar project scheduled in the area that is being occupied (meaning jobs). As a resident of Philadelphia  before I moved to New York I can say I witnessed libraries and public programs diminish to nothing in the last couple of years. This plaza is a corporate band aid on a public gash that needs reconstructive surgery.

http://centercityteam.com/2011/11/17/daniel-j-keating-company-selected-for-dilworth-plaza/

All times listed are EST

UPDATE: Russell Simmons has asked Mayor Nutter: “to remember this is a non-violent movement – please show restraint tonight.” Nutter has responded via twitter that he agrees. The crowd is starting to thinkbut the mood is optimistic and victorious (12:26AM).

12:27AM Philly Weekly Twitter is posting that… “a police presence seems to be building, so #OccupyPhilly is now locking arms” http://twitpic.com/7kz00r @Baslabbers is tweeting a similar message that seems to suggest police are moving in.

12:56AM: There has been more chatter on police buildup behind City Hall (Josh Kinney @theJKinz reports). But there is no sign thus far of anyone moving in. I propose that we rename city halls nationwide sitting halls. There are no helicopters as of yet.

1:11AM: Activist-overnighters on the ground are reporting that there are only 6 police officers left. Yet, there are conflicting reports on twitter of buildup out of sight. There are reportedly 300-400 people still at Philly Occupies.

1:32AM: There have been reports of garbage trucks showing up. Some occupiers are seeing this as a sign of inevitable eviction.

1:43AM: Police have demanded that the Occupy Philly drum-circle cease and desist. Activists have refused. More reports of garbage trucks arriving have surfaced.

2:00Am Occupier have taken to the streets and began to march. There is no other sign of police crackdown.

6:00AM: Occupy Philly has now lasted 13hours without incident past Mayor Nutters eviction timeline. It is rumored that police are waiting for Mayor Nutter to return to Philadelphia on Tuesday to raid Occupy Philly.

You can view the Occupy LA live stream below, and read our real-time news updates directly under the video feed.

All times listed are PST

5:10 PM   Rumors on the Internet say that Occupy LA eviction has been postponed 72 hours.

5:18 PM   Occupy LA Facebook page posts video of an interview with a Captain of the LAPD. He says no raid will happen tonight. When asked how “tonight” is defined, he says: “Until the sun comes up”. Sounds like this will happen in the early morning. View the video below:

All times listed are PST

5:38 PM   The group Midnight Ridazz announces a bike swarm tonight at 9pm in solidarity with the occupiers. Read their announcement here.

5:59 PM   Crowd estimate: at least 700 people.

6:09 PM   Copy of the flyer being handed out to people at Occupy LA:

6:11 PM   LAPD media representative refutes earlier report that police would be postponing eviction. “There is no change in our current plan.”

6:46 PM   LAPD Captain will be available to media at 8:00 PM.

7:30 PM   Occupy LA General Assembly starting.

8:40 PM  General Assembly still happening. Committee updates are being discussed right now.

8:51 PM   LAPD helicopters circling LA City Hall.

8:58 PM   Live stream just reported more than 1200 people at Occupy LA.

9:42 PM   General Assembly still in progress. Hard to hear the speakers over constant whirr of helicopter blades.

10:40 PM Just announced at GA that a Department of Homeland Security Immigration Customs Enforcement bus parked just outside of the protest. They announced in both English and Spanish. It’s obvious that the government will do anything to scare people away.

11:07 PM   The police presence seems to be holding steady. Many different rumors about what’s going to happen, nobody seems to know anything for sure just yet.

11:20 PM   Click here to watch live over-head coverage of Occupy LA from the ABC7 News helicopter.

11:51 PM   Huge march taking place around Occupy LA perimeter. Streets are being occupied. Live stream is reporting that police will be moving in soon, but that is still unconfirmed. Big crowd at 1st & Spring St. You can see the crowd from the ABC7 News helicopter stream.

12:02 AM   The deadline for occupiers to leave their encampment has passed. No sign of increased police presence yet, but there are multiple unconfirmed reports the police are walking southbound on Spring St. toward the occupation.

12:17 AM   Police moving down Main Street towards the encampment right now. They’ve stopped on the corner of Main & 1st.

12:20 AM  More police moving in on encampment. At least 13 police cars just pulled in eastbound on 1st St.

12:26 AM   Crowd now estimated at more than 2,000 people.

12:27 AM   KTLA announced LAPD has issued a city-wide tactical alert as the deadline for Occupy LA protesters passes.

12:41 AM   Photo of some of the police lining up. via @emamd on Twitter:

12:59 AM   LAPD is requesting backup at Spring & 2nd. Sounds like there are a lot of LAPD helicopters overhead.

1:05 AM   We’ve updated the live stream to show someone with a better camera – The now famous OakFoSho.

 1:08 AM   Unsure the total count, but there is a very heavy police presence now surrounding City Hall.

1:28 AM   OakFoSho doing an interview on the live stream with a veteran in his military gear named Sam. Always good to see veterans on the front line!

1:32 AM   Protesters chanting “Circle the park! Circle the park!” and attempting to organize and link arms. Pic from overhead view:

 1:48 AM   While there is a heavy police presence, it does not look like they will be raiding the encampment anytime soon. Police are only wearing helmets and they are displaying their badges and names prominently. They are not wearing flak jackets or other protective gear, and they do not even have zip ties with them.

2:13 AM   View screen captures from the over-head live streams on our Flickr photo stream.

3:07 AM   Occupy LA is relatively calm for having more than 2000 people there. It seems as though the police are just trying to keep people off of the streets and that they won’t be raiding the park.

3:29 AM   Live stream is showing interview with police spokesman. No arrests in LA tonight, and they are saying they will not arrest anyone if people move off the streets back in to the park. Police are telling people they would like to open the streets back up to traffic at 4AM. Both sides of the line have been very peaceful so far.

4:06 AM   Riot police have arrived in large numbers.

4:13 AM   Police have all pulled out their batons. Have not started moving in yet.

4:26 AM   LAPD slowly moving in. No known arrests yet. Everything still peaceful.

4:30 AM   KTLA5 starting interview with Commander Andrew Smith of LAPD.  Reported a bit of vandalism but no violence or arrests. The most important part right now is that protesters get off the streets for morning traffic. Says the occupation will have to end eventually, it is not sustainable. They are going to give one last dispersal order to the protesters on the street and hope to be able to open up traffic within an hour.

4:45 AM  A huge amount of riot police walking towards occupation. Crowd is humming the Imperial March from Stars Wars.

4:46 AM Police pushing in across intersection. Trying to circle the intersection.

4:50 AM  Lots of police surrounding protesters in the street.  LAPD has just issued the final dispersal order. Their only intent is to clear the street and not the encampment. Just declared the intersection of 1st & Main street and all surrounding streets an unlawful assembly. Threatening use of nonlethal munitions. Providing directions for crowd to disperse. Given 5 minute final warning.

 4:58 AM   2-minute warning given by LAPD. Crowd chanting “Police leave first!”

5:05 AM  Police pushing everyone on to sidewalks.

5:07 AM  Threatening to arrest media if they are not on sidewalks.

5:10 AM  Crowd chanting: “Who is blocking traffic now?” as hundreds of LAPD stand in streets.

5:15 AM  Starting to get physical between LAPD and protesters.

5:26 AM   Many officers are leaving the intersection in what looks like an attempt to open the streets back up to traffic. Still hundreds of officers on scene.

5:44 AM  No updates. Still hundreds of police and thousands of protesters.

5:47 AM Reported by @OccupyPolice that there have been 3 arrests so far at Occupy LA.

5:52 AM   Police lines are slowly backing up from protesters on the sidewalk.

6:02 AM  Police are now on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the protesters.

6:07 AM   Most police are now leaving. Rumored that streets will be open to traffic soon.

6:12 AM  LAPD just announced that 1st street is now open to vehicle traffic and that all violations will be enforced.

End of live updates

This looks to me like LAPD used this situation as a test run for the real raid on the encampment that is likely to take place within the next few days.  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more updates throughout the day!

All times listed are PST

I find the implications that this technology could bring to be worrisome, at the very least.  How long will it take before police start using this technology before every raid of our occupation encampments?

We have already witnessed law enforcement intimidating, arresting, and brutalizing the media throughout the United States, with many of the recent incidents taking place in New York.  It is obvious that the media is being stifled, so I do not think it is farfetched to believe the police would be the one of the first to jump on this bandwagon.

We have seen a lot of great photo and video evidence come from within the Occupy Movement.  Obviously the police would not be able to shut down every single person’s phone or camera. There will always be a way to get around their tactics, but I wonder how much of our current evidence would not exist had iPhone users not been able to use the camera feature on their phone.

This technology is still in the very early stages, but I believe it is important enough to warrant keeping an eye out for any further advancements.

May I humbly beseech our country, our government and every American citizen to never forget but rather “learn” from the events that unfolded 43 years ago at the tiny village of My Lai.

So here is the story:

It was March 16^th 1968, and things seemed peaceful. The weather couldn’t be any more beautiful.  Hugh Thompson, a 24 year old Army helicopter pilot, serving in Vietnam, was thankful for the clear weather.

He and his two man crew left their compound and headed for what they were told was a suspected North Vietnamese stronghold. As they arrived at the small village of My Lai, Thompson maneuvered his helicopter between two tree lines. His crew member, Larry Colburn said:

Thompson decided to move out of the area and check another nearby village. Once again no enemy was encountered. They swung their helicopter around and headed back to the village of My Lai.

They dropped below the tree line and were skimming across the jungle floor. They could clearly see the villagers but this time nobody was moving. They were all dead. Women, children, infants and old men and women were piled up like cord-wood in a long irrigation ditch. To the horror of Thompson and his two man crew, they were witnessing an American army platoon, lead by Lt. Calley, in the process of systematically murdering 400 to 500 innocent Vietnamese villagers.

Hugh Thompson landed his helicopter. He placed his two men between the soldiers and the ditch. He instructed his two crew members to open fire on their American comrades if they attempted to kill one more villager. Hugh Thompson went about convincing ten terrified villagers to come out of a small earthen bunker that they were hiding in. He also discovered an 8 year old boy in the ditch. He was alive and was clinging to his dead mother. Thompson called for additional helicopter support and they transported these few remaining villagers to a hospital and saved their lives. Hugh Thompson personally brought the young 8 year old boy to the Quang Nhai Hospital which was run by catholic nuns.  The mother superior met Thompson and only at that time did he release the young boy to the care of the nun.

Paula Bock, a journalist for the Pacific Northwest Magazine, who was reporting on this tragedy said:

The unspeakable actions of these American soldiers are not to be condoned however they are, in my opinion, symptoms of a deeper problem that exists in our country.

Could the real problem be that our government has developed a bias for violence and war? This bias for violence has been systemically institutionalized into the thinking of many American citizens. Our government’s “Might Makes Right” mantra is constantly communicated in the newspapers, TV and in the war games that we allow our children to play. Yes, our government is creating more Lt. Calleys and more My Lai massacres.

So why are we surprised when young soldiers do things similar to what was experienced in the tiny town of My Lai?  It’s because they have been exposed to violence throughout their entire life.  Our country inexplicably draws itself to violence and war, much like a moth draws itself to a lit candle.

Symptoms of this show up in some startling statistics. The United States currently has 760 military installations throughout the world and argues that it is not empire building. We have a military budget of more than 700 billion dollars per year. This is more than the combined spending of all industrialized nations throughout the world.

“I hate war” said Dwight D. Eisenhower, “as only a soldier who has lived it can, as only one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity”

If ever the citizens of the United States should be vigilant and question their government now is the time.  Seeking the truth and speaking out when you believe your country is not taking the moral high ground is not an option it is a responsibility. Dissent, rather than being unpatriotic, is the highest form of patriotism.”

At this very moment the entire world is embarking on a period of major transition. The recent earthquake in Japan and the ensuing Tsunami should jolt us into the reality that all people and all nations exist, at best, on a very fragile planet and that we need to view all people and all nations as family and work together rather than against each other. Let the United States take the recent events as a wake up call and as a nation, abolish war as an instrument of national policy.

Let us, as a nation, take the moral high ground.  Let us turn to hope and not despair. Let us transition from war into peace.

Let us, as a nation, rediscover our moral compass and once again let the rest of the world view our nation not as a problem but as a solution. Let us win the admiration from the world not because of our firepower but rather our “spiritual power.”

The good news is that New York City is turning its attention from a non-violent group of activists and is focusing on, the bad news, a possible terrorist threat.

Mayor Bloomberg needs a few kudos for realizing that threats to the city are not coming from OWS but from people that would truly like to see our country fall apart.

If ever there was a need for solidarity it is now. Let’s quit waging verbal and media attacks against OWS and begin coming together as a nation. There are very real and serious threats against the country. Some of which OWS are in protest against and some of which come from outside our borders.

I don’t like the idea of New York City coming under attack from terrorists but we have to realize that other countries are seeing signs of weakness in our country and are no doubt going on the offensive while we are in turmoil.

And don’t begin to think it is OWS causing the weakness. OWS is fighting for our constitutional rights just by peacefully assembling. But what about the mega-corporations, do you see them coming to the defense of America? I doubt it, but I bet they’ll try to find a way to profit from the fear that’s brewing around the country.

The Associated Press reports that OWS activists are urging consumers to use their hard earned dollars to support local merchants.

What a radical idea… not really, most of us can remember a time when main streets were crammed full of mom-and-pop shops where you could buy almost anything you needed. Then the Big Box stores moved in and instead of walking down the street to get what we need we’re driving around town.

You might argue it’s cheaper to go to the Big Box stores, but is it really, when you have to pay $4+ a gallon of gas to drive to a bigger city or to drive to the outskirts of your town?

This urging by OWS is at the heart of their movement. Quit supporting a corporation and vote against them by supporting your neighbor with your money.

Not only will you be supporting your neighbor, you will be supporting yourself, because that money stays in your town and isn’t shipped overseas or to another state. Imagine, feeding and watering your community instead of increasing the stranglehold corporations have on our small towns and cities.. What a radical idea.

The predominant alleged conspiracy (that has never been proven) is the theory of multiple gunmen. There were also strong suspicions of a government cover-up, especially, since there are still documents yet to be released by the government containing information which would be crucial to ending the debate.

JFK was not very liked in certain parts of the country because of his declared status as a Catholic. Some even celebrated the assassination.
I am not a fan of the man’s politics because I would liken him to other moderates that wore liberals clothing. His death was a tragedy to the public mind. People lost hope in American politics.

Arlen Specter, the now senator from Pennsylvania, was a US District Attorney that argued against the conspiratorial view of the assassination in the Warren Commission. The idea of the magic bullet came from Specter and his skilled apologist rhetoric during the Warren Commission inquiry.

Kennedy also clashed with the Military Industrial Complex. The Admirals and Generals under JFK disobeyed him on many occasions. The Bay of Pigs incident, the standoff with Cuba, is a prime example.
There are 16 different conspiracy theories that try to explain the death of Kennedy.

One of the conspiracy theories mentioned in Jim Marrs’ book, Cross Fire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy, mentions a conglomerate of international bankers might have ordered the killing of Kennedy because JFK had plans to dismantle The Federal Reserve and give their power back to U.S. Treasury Department. The basis for the proposed the motive was Executive Order 11110 which was enacted by Kennedy and threatened the silver standard. It was not partially repealed until the Reagan administration.

I cannot concern myself about conspiracy theories until I understand the psychological, and maybe groupthink, need for these kinds of narrative analyses. Karl Jung believed that UFOs were the product of a mass hallucination due to post war sociological trauma. For those that reject Jung because of his seemingly crazy theories about collective consciousnesses, then I offer that the media industrial complex acts as this net of the collective mind. Conspiracy theories also seem to fill the void of things the human heart cannot understand.

I do not make any judgments about any so-called conspiracy theorists’ narrative inductions but I cannot ignore the human psyche. That being said, Kennedy made a lot of enemies. That is why there are so many possible motives. And one is a lone gunman just plain got lucky. The conspiracy theories of the day give insight into the worries of a people that felt they could no longer trust their government. The created narratives are arbitrary beside the fact the world is structured in a way where the truth always alludes us by governmental interference of a patriarchal mindset that believes they know what is best for us.

The people of Kennedy’s era were told that they needed to heal. Much like the people of the era where Al Gore lost his bid for a recount by the Supreme Court were told to heal.

If conspiracy theories emerges from a group’s psychological trauma, then perhaps forgetting is not the solution to that problem. Conspiracy theories act as mythology to the events that need them.

Perhaps, some wounds need to stay open. Have salt poured into them. Without a stitch. Without a bandage. Brandished like a tattoo. So we can know from our group pain and maybe learn.