We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The arms firm behind the suppression of #OccupyOakland and Palestine’s popular struggle

Click here to access article by Max Blumenthal from New Significance. 
With the rise of the Occupy Wall Street, a new generation of mostly middle class Americans is learning for the first time about the militarization of their local police forces. And they are learning the hard way, through confrontations with phalanxes of riot cops armed with the latest in “non-lethal” crowd control weaponry. Yesterday’s protests in Oakland, California were the site of perhaps the harshest police violence leveled against the Occupy movement so far.
As the global ruling class attempts to deal with the OWS protesters, they are clearly experimenting with the methods of inflecting as much harm on protesters as possible stopping just short lethal weapons. The intent, of course, is to terrorize participants in these occupations and others who might be thinking about joining them. You can be sure that they are carefully studying these terrorist methods to measure their effectiveness in places such as Oakland, California, Athens, Greece and Melbourne, Australia in order to improve their chances of winning the class war that is being waged throughout much of the world. 

Hence, I would agree with our oppressors: there is indeed forces of terrorism at work in the world today. But, who are the terrorists? With whom should we be at war?

It very much appears to me that we are entering a pivotal stage in this war, and the outcome may be decisive as to whether we the 99% will live as free human beings or debt slaves. We must also keep in mind that the same system which attacks us also attacks the planet which supports all human life. Thus, so much is at stake, and we simply must win.