[P2P-F] Article : "Why on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents? "

[Dante-Gabryell Monson]

The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has
touched the third rail of our political class's venality


   - Naomi Wolf <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/naomiwolf>
   - guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Friday 25 November 2011
   17.25 GMT
   -
   -
   http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy?newsfeed=true
   -
   - large excerpts :
   -
   - "US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from
   images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown
   against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this
past week<http://www.alternet.org/story/153134/caught_on_camera:_10_shockingly_violent_police_assaults_on_occupy_protesters/>."

   -
   - "The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect
   Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate
   possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared
   to target journalists. The New York Times
reported<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/nyregion/nypd-stops-reporters-with-badges-and-fists.html>
that
   "New York <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/new-york> cops have arrested,
   punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters
   and photographers" covering protests. "

"Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked
memo<http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/19/8896362-exclusive-lobbying-firms-memo-spells-out-plan-to-undermine-occupy-wall-street-video>
that
revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message
coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the
top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors',
city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky
campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination
against OWS at the highest national levels."

"The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these
scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command"

"for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command
and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing
of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police
forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from
the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens."

"The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message".
Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you
want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100
answers. These were truly eye-opening.

The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was
legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets
boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system
to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to
restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by
President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks.
This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment
banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of
thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole
that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting
Delaware-based corporations in which *they themselves are investors*."

"why on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against
its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent
years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of
the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to
vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential
contender Newt Gingrich's having been paid $1.8m for a few hours'
"consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn
lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that *congressmen and women
are legislating their own companies' profits*is less widely known – and if
the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall
Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are
massively profiting from trading on non-public
information<http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323221/congress-insiders-above-the-law/>
they
have on companies about which they are legislating "

"Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the
DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its
emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists'
privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative
process, reforming the banks so they can't suck money out of fake
derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system
that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely –
from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an
electorally organised Occupy
movement<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/occupy-movement> …
well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.

So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week
is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one
side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress,
with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised
suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has
touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though
they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are,
those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not."
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