Is a Fight in Democratic Party Worth It?
Jeff Cohen: The progressive movement must try to achieve power and accept, for now, this is a two party system
Under cover of the night around twelve police cars stopped five journalists when they were heading back to where they are staying in Chicago during the NATO summit. All five have been covering protests against the NATO summit for the past few days.
The five journalists included Luke Rudkowksi, who streams as @Lukewearechange, Tim Pool, who streams as @Timcast, Jeoff Shively (@Jiraffa), Dustin & Jess. They are known for their work livestreaming and tweeting out regular coverage of Occupy protests.
Rudkowski of We Are Change managed to record the Chicago police approaching the journalists in the car. The police have their guns drawn. They shout, “Hands! Hands! Get your hands up!” And then, “Fuckin’ hands!” Then Pool’s voice can be heard saying, “We’re being raided. For folks who are watching, we are being raided by the CPD right now as we speak.”
There is some trouble with the door. The door is locked and the police are knocking on the windows of the car. The door is opened. A police officer can be heard telling one of the journalists, “Put your coffee down so you don’t burn your crotch.”
Police officers ask a journalist, who I presume is Rudkowski, if he has anything on him. He then is told to leave the camera on the seat of the car.
The video cuts and then we see Shively and Rudkowski recounting what happened. They say police are following them. They add the police would not explain why they were stopped, they were pulled over by unmarked police cars and Rudkowski and Dustin were cuffed together.
Hi, I’m Obama…Oh! You’re a Voter!? I have something you’ll like…..
Election Years Calls for Election Measures
So, Obama has come out of the closet in support of Gay Marriage!!!! Better late than never, I guess. Although in the popular perspective, this is wonderful!!! “Oh that Obama! He gets it! Soon we will all be equal!” While this is important to the ongoing civil rights struggles for LGBTQ citizens, that the president is finally waiving support for Gay Rights in marriage, what exactly does it entail?
Is he going to sign off and make Gay Marriage legal at the Federal level? I have no idea. Obama is an enigma. Though one thing is fishy about the timing is all. Many of his critics, namely the dastardly Republicans have been calling him out on pandering for the Gay vote since it’s an election year. Although, we don’t hear enough criticism of Obama from the Left. Even though Obama is Democrat, he operates as one in the way that Green Day operates as a punk band. However, Barack Obama captivates us. He’s so slick and mysterious. He’s great with the youth vote. Utilizing the internet and he speaks to us on a level at par with a hip dad that used to skate board and has palled around with MTV stars, he’s very consumer friendly….and he should be. As a president that will go down in history with the most successful and profitable marketing campaign ever! He even got Sarah Silverman to do an advertisement for his 2008 presidential campaign.
Considering it’s an election year, Obama has this one in the bag, at least for the moment. I mean the insanity of the presidential options put forth by the Right are theocratic, plutocratic, wanna be fascist nightmares. No one is going to vote for the remaining two GOP’ers in the race…. an oblivious multi-billionaire yuppie that lacks a personality and the gold prospecting old man that was unmasked at the end of every Scooby Doo episode.
However in reality, there are no oppositional forces pushing for presidential combat from the Left that are willing to call him out on his lack of constructive attention on issues such as crucial civil liberties like freedom of speech, assembly, 4th Amendment issues and commitment to environmental sustainability.
Within the last two years, the constitutional crisis since 9/11 have become a bit more intense. While most of the rampant wiretapping the Bush administration had rolling post 9/11 had ceased, there are still the humiliating pat-downs and dangerous body scanners at TSA checkpoints in airports and bus stations. The Joe Biden approved Patriot Act and it’s “secret law interpretations” are still in effect. Smart phones are more readily tracked, along with an upcoming aerial drone based surveillance program and a massive NSA data mining center being built in Utah. Oh, and the Supreme Court ruled that anyone can be strip searched when detained regardless of offense….Oh and one more thing, there has been a plethora of Internet censorship and surveillance bills floating around in Congress.
The erosion of the 4th and 1st Amendments became more noticeable during the Fall of 2011, when America’s own home grown, grass roots, pro-democracy movement Occupy Wallstreet sprang off the tips of the tongues of the disenfranchised middle class and in-debt college youth. As many should already know, back in September of 2011 an amalgamation of politically activated hipsters, labor and civil rights organizations and other numerously mixed politically idealized community activists organized massive sit-ins and demonstrations at a former publicly owned park in New York. As months passed, the Occupy movements’ ideas about directly led, democratic, sometimes peaceful responses to government corruption, income disparity, environmental destruction, racism, homophobia, internet censorship, unfair working conditions, ending foreign and domestic wars, as well as the police violence brought upon peaceful protestors, spread around the world. During the span of the numerous Occupy demonstrations and camps, many law enforcement agencies including the FBI and NSA conducted round the clock surveillance of Occupiers and their activities. In many cases infiltrating general assemblies disguised as concerned citizens and disseminating the movement’s goals and protest strategies back to law enforcement. When the Occupiers set out to march or conduct demonstrations, the police would set up barriers and claim arbitrary laws like “free speech zones” to thwart the protestors’ plans to peaceably assemble. In incidents where protestors started to out number cops in a march, “agent provocateurs” or undercover cops dressed in all black, covering their faces, start to cause trouble by smashing windows or otherwise vandalize property and harass on-duty police officers. As “agents” stir trouble, it gives law enforcement reason to use heavy handed crowd control tactics. Now, objectively, there have been instances, such as in Oakland California and elsewhere that militant protestors used a “diversity of tactics” in which “Black Block” would smash corporate property or set fires to trashcans and throw them at riot cops and the like. However, it would behoove those who wish to be on the right side of history to examine the incidents of unprovoked police brutality having to do with pepper spray, the use of chemical agents and the reality of citizens mortally injured as a result of “non-lethal” crowd control weapons. These are regular middle class people, as well as college students, who have to risk their lives and reputations to express a right that was fought for by our ancestors…..and Obama has not condemned the police brutality brought upon the Occupy protestors, nor the police violence and intimidation of citizen journalists, or the arrests, harassment, and surveillance of Occupy organizers. The president has at least responded to the protests by non saliently saying how he gets that it’s hard out there and he knows what it’s like. He only half heartedly, sort of in the way of a father figure, reasserts your feelings of grievance, if only for the sake that you try harder. The numbers on income inequality, rising cost of living, and a minimum wage that must be bumped up to an adequate living wage, belie the president’s nO drama-Bama attitude.
Now, aside from Obama’s inability to ameliorate the Class War, his willingness to let the social safety nets be subject to the will of the wealthy is only parallel to his willingness to go back on his word about sticking to clean energy and high environmental standards. Earlier this month Obama surprised environmentalists by approving the construction of a massive oil pipeline that will extend from Canada through Nebraska and ends in the Gulf of Mexico. This other election ploy is a pander to big energy, big dirty energy that is. This BP oil spill part dux to-be is the Keystone XL pipeline, which will be transporting the dirtiest of fossil fuels, known as tar sands, from Alberta. Which will be transported overseas to sell to whatever country or corporation’s highest bid. While we in the U.S. will only use some of the energy that comes through….not lessening our dependence on foreign energy and perpetuating the ecocide of our planet.
This is certainly shaping up to be a mad retarded election year. Just look at all the votes Obama is trying capitalize on. Boom! Took out Osama!(supposedly, pics or it didn’t happen). Now we’re supposedly bringing troops home from Afghanistan, though the military will be maintaining the occupation with military advisers to security forces there on into the 2020’s. So he’s got the military vote. Obama’s been cracking down on Medical Marijuana facilities in states where it was voted legal. He’s been going back and forth on drug policy since he got into office. One big vote that got him into the Whitehouse was the young stoner and Medical Marijuana patient vote because of his rhetoric on acknowledging state’s rights in terms of allowing the legal market to flourish….However, there is money to be made in law enforcement and the private prison industry (FYI: There are more African Americans in prison today than there were enslaved in the 1800’s). So he’s got the Drug Warrior vote in and now he’s got the Gay vote. Obama has also seemingly come out against the latest internet censorship/surveillance bill but for only some wishy-washy reasons. So his veto threat to CISPA may still win him the tech vote. Only now he needs Wallstreet’s vote. Shouldn’t be too hard, though.
But can you blame him? He’s such a dapper, clever black man. A lot like the “milk chocolate” guy from the Boondocks cartoon. While I’ll give him credit for the health care law, which I still don’t really understand the controversy or the details of the bill. I do understand the need for a better healthcare system, possibly some kind of sensible, fair, universal, single payer kind of scenario. Cuz, Lord knows the Canadians, Europeans, and Scandinavians do far better in those areas.
However I’m not certain I can cast a vote for Obama again. I feel like he ran off with my first vote virginity and I didn’t get any commitment in return. Although, I’m certainly not going to vote for anyone on the Right, nor some obscure Third Party, I don’t think we need a new president as much as I think we need a new social contract. Honestly, I think we should skip the election and have a Constitutional Convention. Get the states and the little people, the natives, the hippies, the poor, the workers, the soldiers. Everyone should just come together and assert our issues and grievances openly and honestly. Get money out of politics, repair the planet, bring back fairness. We don’t need no fancy leader to tell us we can have things when we have the ability to operate our world and society without insincere “representatives”.
Impose Magazine’s Gretchen Robinette has a very thorough photo treatment of yesterday’s May Day activities in lower and mid-Manhattan. Parks and major thoroughfares such as Broadway north of Union Square were filled with protesters and celebrators who were busy marching and listening to lectures, teach-ins, and musical performances, culminating in a 5:30pm march to Wall Street. In the process, familiar spaces around the city were completely transformed, at least for a little while.
