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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
"Anti-Occupy" law ends American's right to protest
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 1, 2012 — I was stunned upon hearing a news report about a protest going on in China. Teachers, parents with their young, school-age children and pro-democracy activitists (one estimate was 90,000 people) marched in Hong Kong to government headquarters last Sunday to publicly protest a new required “Patriotism” class, to be taught in the school system starting in 2015. The protestors think that the effort of the Chinese government here is to brainwash their kids in favor of communism.
What stunned me was that this protest, in China, against the government’s upcoming policy, at the government headquarters, would not now be tolerated here in the United States of America.
Thanks to almost zero media coverage, few of us know about a law passed this past March, severely limiting our right to protest. The silence may have been due to the lack of controversy in bringing the bill to law: Only three of our federal elected officials voted against the bill’s passage. Yes, Republicans and Democrats agreed on something almost 100%.
We have lived through a number of protests, large and small, and if we are like most, we shrug because the protestors or their message is either irrelevant or objectionable to us, and does not affect us. This non-interest is the case even when some of the protestors and some of their messages are highly objectionable.
Recent example Number One are the military funeral protests by the Westboro Baptist Church. This very small, anti-gay group from Topeka, Kansas says that God is punishing the United States for accepting gay rights by killing US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They protested at the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, because she supported gay rights. Our Supreme Court upheld the rights of these bigots to continue their protests. We hated the opinion while we recognized its correctness.
The First Amendment to our Constitution guarantees us the rights of free speech and assembly. A fundamental purpose of our free speech guarantee is to invite dispute. Protests can and have been the catalyst for positive change. Thus while we despise that protestors can burn our flag as protected political speech, and we hate that Neo-Nazis can march down our streets, we recognize the rights of these groups to do what they do and we send our troops across the world to fight for these rights.
Last year’s “occupy movement” scared the government. On March 8, President Obama signed a law that makes protesting more difficult and more criminal. The law is titled the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act, and it passed unanimously in the Senate and with only three “no” votes in the House. It was called the “Trepass Bill” by Congress and the “anti-Occupy law” by everyone else who commented.
The law “improves” public grounds by forcing people - protestors - elsewhere. It amends an older law that made it a federal crime to “willfully and knowingly” enter a restricted space. Now you will be found guilty of this offense if you simply “knowingly” enter a restricted area, even if you did not know it was illegal to do so. The Department of Homeland Security can designate an event as one of “national significance,” making protests or demonstrations near the event illegal.
The law makes it punishable by up to ten years in jail to protest anywhere the Secret Service “is or will be temporarily visiting,” or anywhere they might be guarding someone. Does the name Secrettell you anything about your chances of knowing where they are? The law allows for conviction if you are “disorderly or disruptive,” or if you “impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.” You can no longer heckle or “boo” at a political candidate’s speech, as that would be disruptive.
After you swallow all of this and correctly conclude that it is now very easy to be prosecuted for virtually any public protest, you should brace yourself and appreciate that it is even worse. Today, any event that is officially defined as a National Special Security Event has Secret Service protection. This can include sporting events and concerts.
The timing of the law was not coincidental. The bill was presented to the Senate, after House passage, on November 17, 2011, during an intense nationwide effort to stop the Occupy Wall Street protests. Two days before, hundreds of New York police conducted a raid on the demonstrators’ encampment in Zucotti Park, shutting it down and placing barricades.
This law chips away our First Amendment rights. Its motivation is 100 percent politically based, as it was designed to silence those who would protest around politicians giving speeches. Both Republicans and Democrats agreed they did not want hecklers at their rallies. If you want to protest a politician speaking to a crowd now, you can do so maybe a half mile or so away.
We used to have a right of access to streets, sidewalks, and public parks to engage in political discussion and protest. The government should be able to impose reasonable limits to ensure public order, but that power must have a limit; it must never be used to quell unpopular opinion or to discriminate against disfavored speakers. Protestors must be allowed to be in the same place at the same time as the speaker they oppose. The presence of a Secret Service Agent (remember, how do we know they are there?) should not prevent us from lawfully, non-violently organizing and demonstrating against a cause or a speaker we disfavor.
Write to Congress. Protest this anti-protest law.
(Source: windupbirdchronicle)
Congress Destroyed USPS
The media reports that the United States Postal Service is a dying business. The media propagates that technology has replaced “snail mail” and as a result the United States Postal Service is facing a projected $14B deficit next year. This ladies and gentlemen is what I would refer to as a half truth. While it’s true that the quantity of mail that circulates throughout the United States has declined (see note 1) this is not the sole cause of the $14B deficit United States Postal Service faces today.
In 2006 under a Republican Congress and George W. Bush as POTUS, a bill was passed that would inevitably destroy the financial security of the United States Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 required the USPS to prepay pensions for all employees for 75 years in advance within 10 years. How’s that for your daily dose of fucking ridiculous with a side of absolutely absurd? This is something that no other government agency or corporation has to do or has ever had to do. Furthermore it is estimated that if this bill were never passed United States Postal Service would have a $1.5 B surplus today. (See Note 2)
Let’s get back to the truth. A hell of a lot of people still use and need “snail mail”. An estimated 563 million pieces of mail are sent each day. Yet this summer, to deal with the growing deficit and avoid bankruptcy the United States Postal Service will close and consolidate 50% of their processing centers nationwide and cut 35,000 jobs by March 2012. Additional changes they have proposed to cut the deficit and avoid bankruptcy include —cutting delivery from 6 days to 5 days, cutting pensions, and closing another 3,700 post offices nationwide. I cannot emphasize this next statement enough: THIS IS A HUGE MOTHERFUCKING PROBLEM. These changes will impact all of us, individuals and small businesses alike.
Congress needs to step in right now and undo the damage they have done. I must commend Bernie Sanders of Vermont who introduced a bill to Congress, The Postal Service Protection Act that would rectify some of the financial ailments USPS is currently facing:
Some highlights of this bill:
1. The bill would eliminate the unique requirement that the USPS pre-fund 75 years worth of future retiree health benefits in just 10 years.
2. Allow USPS to recover the overpayments it made to its retiree pension funds — both the $7 billion overpayment to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) and the $50 billion to $75 billion overpayment to the Civil Service Retirement System.
See full details of the bill here: http://postalemployeenetwork.com/news/2011/11/sen-sanders-bill-addresses-usps-crisis/
Yet Congress, half of whom are millionaires, do not know the definition of a hard day’s work, cannot relate to the pitiful woes of the average worker and has done NOTHING. Congress who sits on their piles of money will only pass legislation to the highest bidder.
Congress, you disgust me.
——————-
Note 1: For USPS, the decline in mail in circulation from 2006-2009 was about 12 billion pieces a year, 213 billion pieces down to 177 billion. It is projected by analysts (we know how accurate they are) to drop down to 150 billion pieces by 2020. http://www.businessinsider.com/post-office-bailout-2011-5
Note2: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/28/330524/postal-non-crisis-post-office-save-itself/
I think that the material conditions to fully eradicate sexism and racism will only exist after we start to dismantle capitalism, but we cannot reach a point where that dismantling is even possible without acknowledging that sexism and racism divide the working class against itself SO WE GOTTA TAKE OUT THE DIVIDERS!
That is, attack ruling class institutions that propagandize such shit, AND AND confront backward members of our own class, like the person on the left in this comic.
The relationship between oppression and class struggle is deeply dialectical - success in either is built on co-prioritizing each. You can’t try to have one without the other without tipping over the whole works.
Z, I love you so much. The following comes out of a place of love. haha
When I read “We have to take out the dividers”, my brain also reads “We shouldn’t talk about race and gender so much” or “We have to remove your identities to make ‘our’ issue more whole” and “Our issue is more important than yours”.
I almost think it’s an issue of ownership. The Occupy Movement is, without a doubt, white-male-centered. The issues that are being addressed are considered universal (not just because they are) but because they affect white men. Whereas, police brutality and poverty were previously billed by the media as problems suffered by POC and poor, single, mothers - and there was no uprising that drew months of media attention and a brand-name radical movement. Why? Because white guys weren’t affected. Now that they are on a very material level, it is all of a sudden EVERYONE ELSES job to put their silly identities away and make way for the real, true, revolution, right? WRONG. All of my problems, are your problems and all of yours are mine. Regardless if I’ve actually experienced them or not. Why don’t these activists fight racism/sexism with the passion that they do capitalism?
The material conditions that are needed to begin eradicating racism and sexism exist on an individual level, within activist communities. Those material conditions aren’t as complicated and sticky to address as the structural material conditions needed to fully eradicate sexism and racism. Those material conditions are white men who monopolize activist spaces sitting down for a second and hearing out POC and women and then proceeding to centralize discussions of race/gender (and sexuality) ALONG SIDE of critiques of corporate power and capitalism.
That is how we start. I’m not interested in simply waiting for capitalism to fall and THEN we can talk about race and gender.
It needs to happen now.
It needs to stop being denied.
It needs to stop taking a backseat.I’m not denying that the relationship between race, gender and capitalism is complex, but I feel like a different complexity is being created by white activists who simply don’t want to address these issues. Talking about race and gender is only divisive because white activists make it that way. When I say something regarding race, I’m not putting all the white folks in the corner to wear dunce caps, I’m talking about real shit.
This is just another way that white male activists get to dictate the way that race is discussed. Instead of being a NECESSARY building block to a fully inclusive movement, race and gender billed as divisive because it hurts all the white folks’ feelings.
^What provocatoria said, except I’m not honestly sure about dismantling capitalism. I think it needs to be drastically reformed, but… yeah, I’m leaving the realm of Things I Know Enough About to Maintain a Discussion Over, so I’m going to shut up now.
(Source: bibliofemme)
*blinks*
Okay, I’m trying to take a really deep breath here, but …
Are you telling me that some motherfucking white dudebro actually got out a motherfucking pen and a big old sheet of poster board and seriously sat his ass down and wrote out “Why are you harassing us white kids when you could be arresting BLACK PEOPLE??? Who have serious medical conditions (i.e. addiction) but no access to treatment? ISN’T SOCIETY CONCERNED ABOUT HOW THE POLICE ARE CURRENTLY FAILING THE RACIST PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX BY PICKING ON WHITE FOLKS???”
And then
And THEN
A whole bunch of OTHER motherfuckers got on tumblr and reblogged his goddamn picture without a single fucking critical word?
Because apparently they see this sign and think “YEAH. He’s right! WE SHOULD BE ARRESTING BLACK PEOPLE INSTEAD.”
Yeah, okay, if you did not see an immediate problem with this sign the minute you saw it, I am totally fucking DONE with YOU.
I could think of about ten other things this guy could have wrote on a sign to make it more effective and less awful.
thecurvature: You’re implying crack can only be sold by black people.
Uh… probably because the vast majority of people arrested on drug charges, especially crack, are Black. Pay attention.
losing so much faith in the occupy movement every day
A friend of mine in Seattle sent me a picture of a different sign that said this exact phrase taped to some trashcans at OccupySeattle.
It is not just this one white guy who feels this way, there are plenty of racist white folks in the Occupy movement
….but will you see people who are putting OWS on a pedestal talking about race? no. If they do, they’re trying to get you to shut up about race by appeasing you, there is no discussion or consideration of race within the Occupy Movement at large. When I say that, they’ll think “Well why don’t you get more involved and bring it up”….my response is fuck you, if you’re so fucking radical that classwarfare is coming out of your asshole….why don’t YOU bring it up? yeah, that’s what I fucking thought.
Um… I’m actually among those white people who reblogged this picture a while back, but I wasn’t aware of the racist implications when I did. I apologize, and I’ll pay closer attention in the future.
(Source: hasslechassels)
URGENT FROM TAHRIR
“We are in the midst of a decisive battle in the face of a potentially terminal crackdown. Over the past 72 hours the army has launched a ceaseless assault on revolutionaries in Tahrir Square and squares across Egypt. Over 2000 of us have been injured. More than 30 of us have been murdered. Just in Cairo alone. In the last 48 hours.”
But the revolutionaries keep coming. Hundreds of thousands are in Tahrir and in other squares across the country. We are facing down their gas, cudgels, shotguns and machine-gun fire. The army and police attack again and again, but we are holding the lines, holding them back. The dead and wounded are carried away on foot or motorbikes and others take their place.
The violence will escalate – for WE WILL NOT MOVE. The junta does not want to give up its power. We want the junta gone.
The future of the revolution hangs in the balance; those of us in the square are ready to die for freedom and social justice. The butchers attacking us are willing to kill us to stay in control.
I am crying my eyes out because the people of Egypt are pleading for help. They are DYING. Right this second, and this second and this second. And nobody is helping. Why? Why?
People are dying for their rights, for their freedom, and they are getting no help. It’s not right. My God, what has the world come to? Why is there so much hate?
(Source)
Signal boost. This is terrifying.
The silence needs to be broken.
Several cops with assault rifles are currently at City Hall Park.
…
The livestream’s been down, so I have no idea what’s going on. Also… I really don’t want to believe this. I’m sorry, but… source?
(Source: anarcho-queer)
I lost a child to the Occupy movement.
Just thirteen days ago I was eight months pregnant.
Everyone loved rubbing my belly.
I even wore my “Baby On Board” shirt over my gigantic stomach.
Going to say MASSIVE trigger warnings for police brutality and institutionalized victim-blaming on the part of the ex here.
This is the most heart-wrenchingly awful thing I’ve read connected to this movement. I don’t know what sickens me more—the way the cops brutalized her or her ex’s and others’ assumptions about her suffering.
Ma’am, if you’re reading this, my heart goes out to you. I can’t imagine what you must be suffering right now, and I will keep you in my thoughts or prayers—whichever you’d prefer. Please know that we are here for you, no matter what.
- # FML
- # I honestly can't think of any more potential tags. I just want my story to be known. My family wouldn't believe me if I tried. Everyone i...
- # OWS
- # Occupy
- # Occupy Wall Street
- # pregnancy
- # I've been drinking myself into oblivion since Saturday. I surprised myself by staying sober since midnight.
- # police brutality
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MUST SEE VIDEO: I am reposting this short (8 min) for the third time because it beautifully contrasts the formal U.S. response to protecting freedom of speech and right to assembly abroad, while remaining silent on the police brutality against students here in the United States.
It is noteworthy that the violence shown in this video - images that were shocking when they first came out 6 weeks ago - have since been eclipsed by the images of escalating violence by U.S. police against the protesters in the past few weeks: the fractured skull of Iraq War vet Scott Olsen, the pepper-spraying of 84 year old Dorli Rainey and the UC Davis students, and the NYPD’s running over protesters with motorcycles and beating them with batons.
This is what a police state looks like.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, where are you?
Reblogging for awareness.
(Source: karinasgotcakes)
Teddy Roosevelt on Corporate Financed Politics
Recall and Occupy http://politicaldirtylaundry.tumblr.com
