At the Great Orange Satan:
Occupy Wall Street roundup, Day 59
….Hey, remember back when Republicans started showing up to health care town halls and outside Obama public events armed with rifles and the like, not to intimidate or threaten anyone but as a form of “political speech”? Yeah, camping is much worse. That was free speech with guns; this is free speech with camping. So you can see why they have to crack down. With police in riot gear, no less….
Blatant camping, of course, requires a stern response:
Update: ‘Occupy’ crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials
Rick Ellis, Minneapolis Top News Examiner
November 15, 2011Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict “Occupy” protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night’s move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.
The official, who spoke on background to me late Monday evening, said that while local police agencies had received tactical and planning advice from national agencies, the ultimate decision on how each jurisdiction handles the Occupy protests ultimately rests with local law enforcement.
According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present….
Update: Mayors deny colluding on ‘Occupy’ crackdowns
City leaders say they traded notes on protesters but sweeps were no coordinated scheme
Update: About that ‘DHS Coordinated’ Crackdown on Zuccotti Park…
….Is that true? Maybe. But given that this information came from Examiner.com, the proper response is “citation needed.” Why? Because Examiner.com is Fox News light….
Charles Pierce at Esquire:
A Militarized Force Takes to Zuccotti for the Economic Elite
Your right to peaceably assemble for the redress of grievances, and how you may do it, and what you may say, will be defined by the police power of the state, backed by its political establishment and the business elite. They will define “acceptable” forms of public protest, even (and especially) public protest against them. This is the way it is now. This is the way it has been for some time. It’s just that people didn’t notice. And that was the problem with the Occupy protests. They resisted the marginalization – both literal physical marginalization, and the kind of intellectual marginalization that keeps real solutions to real problems out of our kabuki political debates. They could not be ignored….
….That was the real problem with the Occupy people. They were being heard….
And old media may be waking up:
November 15, 2011, 11:06 am
Reporters Say Police Denied Access to Protest Site
By BRIAN STELTER and AL BAKER….the New York Press Club, said in a statement that “the brash manner in which officers ordered reporters off the streets and then made them back off until the actions of the police were almost invisible is outrageous.”
The group added, “We want the department to investigate the incidents involved this crackdown on Zuccotti Park and we want assurances it won’t happen again.”
We can only hope.
Now that the Occupiers are forbidden to camp at Kiener Plaza in St. Louis, they’ve gone to court to fight for their right to protest. Imagine how their jaws must have dropped when they heard:
Because, of course, sprawling all over the adjacent sidewalks in order to keep the park clean is, as solutions go, nuts.