Occupy Wall Street Protesters Arrested

Posted by Jason Douglas on 10.06.2011

Fight the power...

As you are hopefully aware, for weeks there have been small but growing groups of protesters gathering in New York and now other cities for demonstrations against Wall Street's domination of our government. There has been no single message or demand. It pretty much amounts to "we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!". There are college students worried about their future, middle aged unemployed, etc. all gathered together to get their government's attention. They feel marginalized and ignored, and are ready to take up arms and charge on... oh wait, they're actually just carrying signs, chanting and marching peaceably in places where they can legally do so. It must be terribly frustrating for the police to watch this and have no recourse. I mean, people are exercising their first amendment rights in unison without any sort of state permission or private sponsorship.

Silly me, they can always make an excuse. First there was a group of women who were penned in like stray animals, then maced for absolutely no reason by one Anthony Bologna, a high ranking officer who wanted to set an example. No, not an example for protesters, an example for proper police response to peaceful demonstrations. Can't have the masses start acting without Big Brother's prompting, after all. Later came the "trap and detain" tactic at the Brooklyn Bridge, in which police wait for a protest march to reach an area with little room to disperse, then block everyone in from both ends and arrest the entire group, charges being trumped up later. This tactic typically results in a multi-million dollar lawsuit which the offending city loses, which means taxpayers lose. More importantly, free speech loses.

In my time writing at 411, we've discussed issues from social programs to war to tax policy, and there is always lively debate. The one area where I have seen almost complete agreement is that special interests dominate the agenda in Washington, and we have largely lost control of our own government. When the masses agree that one specific aspect of government is corrupt and in desperate need of fundamental change, that should result in a timely response from legislators. Instead, some of them admit to being influenced by lobbyists, but make the excuse that if they turn down corporate money, their opponent will not and they'd lose their seat. We need everyone to financially "disarm" at the same time, which is why campaign finance reform is a prerequisite to solving any other problem in our government. If these protests swelled to millions strong with a unified message to end our wars, for example, they might be granted that single request, and then the billions spent there would go to special interests elsewhere.

The issue sending our nation toward implosion is not where our tax dollars and new debt are spent, but how those decisions are being made. We used to have a nation where the people divided over whether a certain cause merited government action, and would elect politicians to represent their stance on the issues they care most about. What we have today is a rigged system in which the decisions are made before public debate begins, with special interests testing to see how far they can defy public will without causing a revolt. That's what these false arrests are really about. They are a test of our collective will. The revolution is coming, of that I have no doubt. The question the powers that be are trying to answer is how they will stop it. Can they flex a little police muscle and send us scurrying away, or are they looking at something like Libya? They want to find that sweet spot where people won't bother to act because they feel like they can always do so later. The thing about going to war is you risk losing everything. It's much better to gain an advantage, then slowly bleed the other side in a way that leaves them losing something, but not quite enough to fight over. Some wrongful oil subsidies here, a tax cut for the rich there, good jobs exported with lousy ones replacing them. You don't take a person's whole meal away, you just give them a little less each day for the same price and convince them they should be grateful they're eating at all. That's how you convert the most prosperous nation in human history into a third world country without a single bullet being fired.

The top 1% in this country now take in over 20% of the wealth and climbing, and we have a government we all agree answers only to big money. Put two and two together and it becomes obvious that as the disparity worsens, our collective voice in government gets snuffed out. We already have a government in which the question is not whether to rob the other 99% of us, but how blatantly it can be done without triggering a peasant revolt. With each passing year, more Americans join the ranks of the poor and desperate, too busy trying to hang on to get involved in reforming the system. Ideally, they will bring us all to our knees willing to obediently do whatever it takes not to starve, convinced beyond all reason that this is how it should be. Those who called the early casualties "lazy" will find out otherwise when it happens to them. Those who scoffed at educated people refusing to take that job at Wal-Mart will suddenly realize it's impossible to make ends meet on that income. Those who ran small businesses supported by the disposable income of the middle class will cry at their life's work going down the drain, while corporate titans toss out empty phrases like "too much regulation" to explain it away. The titans will then use that excuse to end the minimum wage, OSHA, the eight hour work day, the ability to sue for a hostile work environment, and anything else with a tinge of human rights. You see, they have to do those things so we can compete in the global market with the countries that hold the good jobs we once did.

I told you Obama would extend the Bush tax cuts half a year before he did it, and I told you the debt ceiling crisis was completely bogus and no default would happen. Now I'm telling you what our future is if we decline to act. So do we write off the wrongly arrested protesters as hippies and lazy young people, or do we recognize that they are us and join the fight before we're next? We need a constitutional amendment requiring political campaigns to be publicly financed and banning all private money from elections. If people want to speak with their own voice, or by carrying a sign, passing out fliers, organizing protests, etc., they are free to do so; they just can't pay others such as lobbyists, voice actors and media outlets to speak for them. One man, one voice, not he who spends the most speaks the loudest.

The powers that be will never make such a concession unless we're willing to tear the whole system down to force the issue. No more faith in false prophets like Obama or vague insistence that your party of choice isn't just as complicit as the other side. We are governed by an unelected ruling class pulling the strings in Washington on a daily basis. We can't vote them out, so we must ban their influence and start putting the bastards in federal prison if they insist on corrupting our government. The "socialists" and "tea party" aren't the danger, as they have no real power. It's the handful of suits running our lives under the illusion that we have a choice that must be stopped.