To serve and protect who?

It wasn't surprising to me when the various levels of government in the US and other countries moved in to forcibly remove OWS protesters from the camps that they had established in many major cities. The individual's right to assemble and to speak was little more than a puff of air in the face of armed and armored riot police wielding truncheons and pepper spray.

Government oppression, massive bank fraud - 5
People - 0

After the various bailouts that the people opposed but were forced to pay for, the government's lack of willingness to protect homeowners from illegal foreclosure, the government's complicity in the mass fraud perpetrated by the various TBTF banks by not enforcing regulations or punishing those guilty of crimes and the recent repression of the people, it is nice to see that the people haven't given up. Of course I don't expect a different result.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are moving on to a new target. 

Protesters across the United States are reclaiming foreclosed homes and boarded-up properties, signalling a tactical shift for the movement against wealth inequality. Groups in more than 25 cities held protests Tuesday on behalf of homeowners facing evictions.

It is in no way surprising to see the following response from those on the front lines of the police state:

In Portland, Ore., police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said he's aware the movement called for people to make a political statement by occupying foreclosed homes, but said police will "treat them all as trespassers." 

In Seattle, police spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said his department sees squatting in private properties as the same violation of trespassing Occupy Seattle made when it camped in a downtown park. 

"It's no different than when people were trespassing [in the park]," Whitcomb said. "We went nights and days, letting people camp in the park. We relied on education and outreach, rather than enforcing the law to the letter."

So when the banks were illegally forcing people from their homes through faulty foreclosures, the police were there to force people from their homes on behalf of the banks. Now that the people want to reclaim what is theirs, the police will be there to arrest them in order to protect the sanctity of the bank's property.

Its unfortunate that this is what things have come to, but it has been long said that people get the government that they deserve and when people continue to empower a increasingly centralized government, one shouldn't be surprised when it begins to flex its muscle for its own purposes rather than those of the people they are supposed to serve. 

Bankster Obama

President Obama ran on program of change underscored by the slogan, YES WE CAN.

In retrospect it seems foolish that ordinary people believed that he was speaking to them.

In order to get elected Obama raised $750 million and spent approximately $735 million of it during the campaign. Given the astronomically high amount of money it took to achieve victory and his subsequent actions in protecting Wall Street from rightful prosecution it should come as no surprise that three of the top ten single contributors to the Obama campaign were Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.

And so we see this:

A protester handed President Barack Obama a note while shaking hands along a rope line in New Hampshire today. AP photographer Charlie Dharapak smartly zoomed in so you can read the note for yourself.

People aren't stupid. They can understand what is happening. They see a real unemployment rate of nearly 25%, a further economic contraction on the horizon, banks being protected by the government, investment firms stealing from their investors and being protected. They watch as people protesting these things are beaten and arrested while the people that imploded the economy are given bonuses and protection. They watch as the Obama administration tries to pressure state Attorney Generals to keep from prosecuting those responsible. 

When Obama was saying YES WE CAN, people thought he was talking to them. He wasn't, he was talking to the banks and corporations that funded his presidency. YES WE CAN steal from the people. YES WE CAN get away with it. YES WE CAN oppress the masses. YES WE CAN!

Adding my voice: Occupy Wall Street

I'm not the first nor, I hope, am I the last to add their voice in protest against the shameless and criminal actions of the police state currently occurring taking place against those who would peacefully seek a way to have their voice heard by a rapidly unlistening governmental system.

The actions of UC Davis Campus Police Lieutenant John Pike and his ilk are deplorable and criminal. While this incident may have occurred at UC Davis, it is not an isolated incident nor is it solely an American issue. Crimes like this are being committed by governments against their people in the US, Canada, Europe and elsewhere.

The people have gone along with the notion of our democracies actually being democratic long enough. They are tired of the lies, the deception, the corruption, the theft and the abuses of power that have come with increasing regularity by those who are meant to serve the people, not rape and pillage them.

Their criminal actions have not stopped at assault with pepper spray, but have escalated and now include murder.

“I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,” she says. “I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.’” At that point, Fox continues, a Seattle police officer lifted his foot and it hit her in the stomach, and another officer pushed his bicycle into the crowd, again hitting Fox in the stomach. “Right before I turned, both cops lifted their pepper spray and sprayed me. My eyes puffed up and my eyes swelled shut,” she says.

From Forbes Magazine:

The point is, I think, that the police have been operating pretty indiscriminately in their response to these protests. It doesn’t matter if you’re pregnant,elderly, or just sitting there, the cops have been responding to protests with overwhelming and entirely unnecessary force.

The powers that be don't want to listen to the people and this can be clearly demonstrated by the actions of those in power to the simple actions of those protesting here in this video and elsewhere. The right to assembly, the right to free speech, the right to speak truth to power are all being trampled under the boot of power, greed, and arrogance.

We are increasingly living in a police state, where there is 24 hour video surveillance on every street corner in major cities, where your internet activity is monitored, where your emails and phone calls can be recorded and traced, where censorship is on the rise and where peaceful protest is met with violence.

I think Orwell was prescient when he gave O'Brien these words, "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."

Whether you agree with Occupy Wall Street or not you should not be able to sit back and calmly see the actions that democratic governments are taking and be okay with it.

These actions are wrong and people of conviction need to make their voice heard that such actions will not be tolerated.

I'll leave you with two quotes. You might be tempted to simply brush them off but don't. Think about them and then think about what is happening. In a world where Muslims in Cairo, Egypt can be protected by Christians while they pray, shouldn't the people of America have their constitutional rights respected by the very powers who are sworn to protect and uphold that very same constitution? Shouldn't the people of any democracy be safe from the oppressive powers of their governments?

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." Desmond Tutu

"In order for evil to flourish, all that is required is for good men to do nothing." Edward Burke

A quagmire

An amusing look at the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Having the Tea Party blaming only the government on one side and the OWS protesters only blaming corporations on the other side is futile. Both are the problem because they both work together. The corporations finance the politicians that subsequently use the government to finance the corporations. Blaming one member of the team while ignoring the other is not going to solve anything.