Occupy Everywhere - Sept 17th - Day of Rage Against Wall Street and what it stands for!

[Keith Millea]

Published on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 by Common Dreams

"You're Gonna Feel It:" U.S. Military Unveils New Crowd Control "Heat Ray"

Marine Col: "I think our forces will figure out the many different applications that it would have."

- Common Dreams staff

The U.S. military has unveiled its newest approach to crowd control, the Active Denial System, a heat ray that sends out a high-frequency electromagnetic ray. People hit with the ray feel an intense, unbearable heat. The military touts the ray's "far-ranging" capabilities and is looking at "many different applications" for its possible use.

(photo: still from NMANewsDirect video)

Marine Col. Tracy Taffola said at the public unveiling of the system at a U.S. Marines base near Washington, D.C.:

"You're not gonna see it, you're not gonna hear it, you're not gonna smell it: you're gonna feel it."

In a video to demonstrate the new weapon, USFORCESTV explains that the heat ray "boasts a reach far beyond any other non-lethal system" -- a reach of "about 7 footballs fields."



The video shows various volunteers quickly running away from the heat ray, a situation unlikely to be available when the ray is aimed at a large crowd or if protesters are penned in in some way, as was witnessed by the pepper-spraying of Occupy protesters by police officers at very close range.


The Globe and Mail reports:

The Pentagon has been experimenting with killer beams for decades. A laser so powerful that it can destroy nuclear-tipped missiles shortly after launch has been mounted in a much-modified Boeing 747 and is being tested. [...]
Various development versions of the heat ray have been tested for years. One was sent to Afghanistan but never used in 2010. Police departments have shown interest.

David Pugliese adds this comment from Marine Col. Tracy Taffola foreshadowing far-ranging use of the weapon:

"It could be used across the military spectrum of operations, perimeter security, crowd control, entry control points. You name it. I think our forces will figure out the many different applications that it would have," Tafolla said.

[Peter Lemkin]

New T-Shirts: I went to an Occupy Demonstration and all I got was this lousy burned T-Shirt, skin and eyes.

[Peter Lemkin]

Let this serve as a call from COPA to Occupy the Grassy Knoll in 2013 for our Moment of Silence at 12:30 pm on November 22.

The denial of a permit for COPA to hold it's annual Moment of Silence is a free speech issue. Our event has always been "solemn and respectful" save to those who want to forget what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963 and opt for perpetual silence instead.

We will inform the Sixth Floor Museum and the Mayor's office of our planned event, which has been held since it was started by Penn Jones, Jr. in 1964 up on the Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza, next to Abraham Zapruder's perch on the pergola, from which he caught the event on a Super 8 camera, a film that convinced the American public, who finally saw it in the 1970s, that there had to have been a shooter to the front of the limousine who hit President Kennedy in the head.

We cannot remember Kennedy's life by forgetting his death, it's historical significance and the impunity of those who carried out this still unsolved homicide. I hope you will be out there with us this year and next on November 22 to retain what little is left of democracy in America. We will hold our banners and call for a Moment of Silence and then speak truth to power about the assassinations of the 1960s and since. If the crowd is too large to hear me, maybe I will shout "Mike Check!"

The Sixth Floor's Message to History: Just Hush Now
Dallas Observer
Thursday, Mar 15 2012
By Jim Schutze

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2012-03-15...ush-now/2/

Someone with a lot of clout in this town thinks Dallas should clamp down on free speech at Dealey Plaza for the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination coming up next year. There's only one right way for free Americans to deal with that kind of thinking. Clamp down on Dallas.

In talking to assassination experts around the country for the past week or so, the phrase that pops up is "Occupy Dealey Plaza." I not only agree, I'd like to see what can be done to help make that happen.

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So this column, in part, is an invitation. If anybody out there agrees with me, I will tell you how to get in touch. Let's do this thing.

Two weeks ago The Dallas Morning News published a story by Scott Parks quoting Nicola Longford, curator of the "Sixth Floor," the official Dallas assassination museum. She told Parks there should be no discussion of the shooting itself or the controversy, only a "moment of silence," which Longford apparently thinks should endure for an entire week.

That's a lot of silence. But maybe she thinks she can pull it off. The city has violated its own longstanding policies on access to Dealey Plaza by granting Longford a permit for a full week of exclusive control over the site of the assassination. The exclusivity of the permit, barring others from the plaza, is a first, according to people who have been involved in previous observances.

They have been told no one else can be given an equivalent permit that entire week, a fact confirmed for me last week by the city official in charge. Jill Beam of the city's special events office also confirmed she is directing all groups with questions about the 50th to call Longford, effectively making her the de facto commissar of all 50th-anniversary observances, even though she is the employee of a nonprofit that is not supposed to be a part of city government.

Longford does not come across as a commissar, more as a curator who has been put in a tough position, by whom we do not know. I can't help suspecting the same brilliant leadership that wants to build a highway in the flood zone along the Trinity River aging affluent persons who may have tossed back too many toddies over the years.

Longford said: "This is something that Dallas has not embraced ever. We know the whole world is going to be watching in 2013."

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings is supposed to be putting together some sort of JFK 50th "task force." I asked him if he thinks diverse groups should have free access to Dealey Plaza. He said in an email that any events must be "solemn" and "respectful."

"Rest assured," Rawlings said, "that Dealey Plaza, in particular, will be closely monitored to assure that that space will be in keeping with the above tone and message."

I believe I am going to take that, perhaps unfairly, as a no to my question about free public access. Rawlings doesn't come across as a commissar, either, but somewhere in this is some kind of very concerted push. Perhaps it is from the Commissar of Too Many Toddies the one whose face we cannot see.

The words "solemn" and "respectful" do seem to crop up. In the recent Morning News story, Longford was quoted saying any event should be both solemn and respectful and should "put his death into context without reliving the details of what happened."

Yeah, but here's the problem. The context for Kennedy's death in Dallas was a violent public assassination. If he had come to Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, and died of a massive coronary, no one would remember that he died at Dealey Plaza. Or in Dallas.

They blew the top off his head and splattered his wife with brains and blood. That's the context, along with an enduring mystery and a great deal of honest skepticism in many people's minds about who did what and why. Saying that we should just be quiet and have a nice dignified event to make the city look good is not the sort of thing any historian would say, ever.

History simply is debate. No one knows what happened five minutes ago. All we can do is debate what happened. That's what history is for.

When I first wrote about this issue in the spring of 2011, I talked to Conover Hunt, one of the consultants who helped design The Sixth Floor before its opening in 1989. Hunt, who is in Virginia now, is a real historian and authority on historic places. Hunt gets what these places are for.

"Dealey Plaza doesn't really belong to Dallas," she told me. "It belongs to everyone. And not necessarily just the American people.

"There will always be in any of our tragic historic sites where major history was made," she said, "a sense of collective ownership. It's neutral ground.

"People will go there, they'll go to Gettysburg, they'll go to Mount Vernon, to the Washington Monument, to these battlefields, the good history and the bad, and they will ponder the meaning of life, the meaning of government, and they will talk about it.

"These places are like debate parks," she said, "where you can engage in the discussion and feel the power of history under your feet."

Scott Parks' story in the News was especially interesting in the interviews it offered with recognized presidential scholars and historians. They seemed to be of one mind that the anti-Dallas epithets of the day, like "City of Hate" and "City that Killed Kennedy," have largely faded from memory and may even have a sort of funky anachronistic ring today. You know: Who cares about one little old city of hate, when now we have the entire state of South Carolina?

But beyond being stupid, the idea that Dallas has some right or prerogative to control free speech flies straight in the face of an over-arching global reality. Everyone alive on the planet today has grown up in an era of unconscionable official lies.

How can anyone be shocked that many young people think the 9-11 assault on the Twin Towers was an inside job, when everyone knows that Shock and Awe and the decimation of Iraq produced not a single WMD?

Young people would be idiots to believe what government tells them and fools not to question and debate every single thing they see and hear in the monopoly media. We should all be repelled and infuriated by what Dallas City Hall is trying to do, not simply with regard to the Kennedy assassination but for what it means to speech and freedom.

And I'm happy to say, based on the chats I have had so far, that people are already reacting appropriately. John Judge, an assassination historian in Washington, said to me last week: "A moment of silence that denies talking about his death on that day and certainly not talking about the historical truth behind it and the controversy is no longer a moment of silence. It's a perpetuation of silence."

Judge said it doesn't matter that we can't see exactly who is behind this push. We can see exactly what they want.

"We know the underlying theme. There is going to be a humungous crowd, and they want to catch it and capture the message and control it."

Judge was one of a few I spoke to who are already thinking in terms of what to do. "Maybe we have to do 'Occupy the Grassy Knoll 2013,'" he said.

What a terrific idea. In fact it would be the perfect marriage of physical occupation the seizing of a place with concepts of truth and freedom. And what a grand stage it could be, especially with all those cameras hovering.

I spoke to Robert Groden, the assassination author whom the city has arrested and jailed for expressing views and selling books in Dealey Plaza. His take on the assassination conflicts with Sixth Floor official dogma, which is, "We didn't do it; show's over; return to your homes."

Groden promised me he will be out there on November 22, 2013, and if the city wants to clap him in irons again and haul him off to a dungeon in front of Japanese news crews, he says he will be more than happy to play his part.

Judge had what I thought were very creative thoughts. Especially if the city goes really Super-Stalin and rings the place with cops, he thought perhaps it might be fun for counter-protesters to re-enact one of the theories about how the conspirators may have escaped.

"They could reverse the route," he said. "They could go down to the Trinity River bottoms, enter the storm sewer system, crawl uphill to Dealey Plaza and pop up out of the manhole covers."

Oh, wouldn't that be spectacular?

Look, I'm serious about organizing something, but only if anybody else wants to do it. My role would be only to put you together. Some sort of steering committee? Or not. The thing has to grow organically.

Do it without me. Just do it. Meaning them no disrespect, this cause should expand to include more than the community of people interested in JFK. Everybody with a speech issue should be welcome, even though I know that includes the birthers.

Everybody. Come on down. Send me an email at jim.schutze@dallasobserver.com. Don't use that little contact dealie on the web page. That may be a placebo. Send me a real email. If you want to anonymize, do so. We'll get it all figured out.

Dealey Plaza is already Ground Zero for the debate about the JFK assassination. Maybe it can grow to become Ground Zero for free speech in this country. What greater purpose could this homely rag of ground ever serve? Somehow those of us who do remember where we were that day must imagine that JFK looks down and is on our side.

If this actually does come off, then from the bottom of my heart I must also thank you, the Too Many Toddies of Dallas. You may have been of greater service to your country than you ever dreamed.

-- John JudgeCoalition on Political Assassinations (COPA)PO Box 772Washington, DC 20044copa@starpower.netCheck out our new website:www.politicalassassinations.com

[Peter Lemkin]

What Has Occupy Been Up To? 6 Great Actions You Can't Miss This Spring

Occupy changed over the winter from outdoor camps to internal work and debates. But that laid the groundwork for a very big spring. Here's what to expect.
March 13, 2012 |

Photo Credit: Sarah Jaffe




This past weekend the air in New York started feeling warm again; that first hint of spring in the way the air smells and feels. While it has been one of the warmest winters on record in New York City it was still winter. It was still bitterly cold often, it was still gray often and if you were used to spending time outside as part of Occupy, it became hard to have meetings and protests and marches outside. This has made it seem as if Occupy has gone away; in fact, for the past few months I have often been asked questions such as: "Are you still involved with Occupy?"
I answer these questions with a long list of actions and meetings and protests and ways we are planning for the spring. But I also answer it by saying simply: "Occupy, of course, has not gone away because the issues and problems it brought up and the questions it has asked of society have also not gone away."
While most of the occupations around the country, and around the world, have been dismantled (most recently Occupy London last week) and Occupy has less of a physical presence in that there are not as many occupied public spaces, this does not mean that Occupy, as a movement, is any less real.
But during the winter Occupy did have to change. The intensity of our early days is over, the days, weeks and months when we proved that this is a real movement, that we aren't going away because the questions we are asking and the problems we are highlighting are too important. The early days were beautiful, they were inspiring, but it is now that we are being deliberate, that we are building relationships with each other and with our communities, it is now that we are building our infrastructure, it is now that we are doing the internal work that we need to do in order to be smarter, faster, better at bringing people together, better at sustaining ourselves as a movement, it is now that we are more committed then ever. And we have been planning for the spring. So below I present you with a list of things to look out for from Occupy in the coming weeks and months and as it goes from winter, finally, to spring:
1. Fight BAC! Occupy Takes on Bank of America
One of the big new projects to come out of the winter is the Fight BAC (Bank of America) campaign. The message of this campaign is beautifully simple: Bank of America's financial problems have led it to being propped up by the government and in the coming year it might need a bailout. Instead of being bailed out it should be broken up into smaller banks that have more community control. The reason it is failing is because of its fraudulent mortgage practices that have led to the foreclosure and housing crisis and it does not deserve more taxpayer money to foreclose on people's homes. This is a chance for the country to have a real discussion about the financial industry, and alternatives to it, as well as what collective wealth means and can do.
This is a campaign with a broad-based and nationwide coalition. The best way to get involved? Participate in one of the March 15 actions being planned (see this Web site) and move your money out of Bank of America (use this simple tool here).
2. May Day General Strike: A Day Without the 99 Percent
Occupy Wall Street has called for a general strike in New York City on May 1 and for it to be thought of as a "day without the 99 percent." Traditionally a tool of labor unions, a general strike allows workers of every kind to join together and withdraw their labor from the economy, therefore showing their collective power. Occupy is working with unions to plan marches and protests. By calling for a general strike to be thought of as a "day without the 99 percent" (like the 2006 Day Without Immigrants) there is the chance to reframe a general strike as a day in which everyone who feels disenfranchised from our current political and economic system must take action. Therefore on May 1 Occupy is also calling for a Student Debt Strike, a Student Strike, an Art Strike, a Women's Strike, a Housing Strike. Here the idea of a strike can be rethought so people can take to the streets to demand the changes they want to see in all of these areas of their lives.
What to do? Get involved with planning May 1 here. To learn more about the history of May Day, attend one of these events. Also prepare to join everyone in the streets on May 1 in what will be a day of joyfully coming together.
3. The Student Movement
Inspired by Occupy, but distinct from it, the Occupy education movement has taken off. Most recently there was the March 1 nationwide day of Student Action which saw protests around the country from California to Chicago to New York. This day of action focused on the issues of student debt, school closings and the increasing privatization of education.
In New York City, the fight over education is not just at the level of higher education, where students want to graduate with less debt and where students in the CUNY system are still fighting over budget cuts that raise tuition while increasing class sizes, but also at the middle school and high school level. The Department of Education is closing schools it claims are "failing," leaving parents and students, mostly from districts that are primarily low-income people of color, increasingly disenfranchised from having power over their children's education and scrambling to find places to send their children to school.
From the elementary all the way to the higher education level this struggle is one over the right to education, who has control over our educational systems and the issue of student debt. What to do? Sign the student debt refusal pledge here and pledge, when they have a million signees, to stop paying. And look out for actions on April 25, the day that student debt is going to surpass $1 trillion.
4. Occupy Our Homes
Occupy Our Homes brings attention to the disconnect between the fact that there are thousands of homeless people and thousands of empty homes. The movement demands that the banks negotiate with people instead of just foreclosing on their homes. In doing so Occupy Our Homes articulates our dissatisfaction with banks and the financial industry but it also works to connect these issues to the ways these industries affect people's lives. Along with eviction defenses and occupying foreclosed homes, more recently Occupy Our Homes has been shutting down foreclosure auctions by singing; a beautiful way to participate in some important civil disobedience. Watch a video here.
Find out more about what Occupy Our Homes has planned here and look out for the upcoming nationwide week of action against the banks March 12-16.
5. Re-Occupations: Citywide Assembly and Pop-Up Occupations
Since Occupy Wall Street lost Zuccotti Park, the question of reoccupation has been on everyone's minds, and on December 17 a failed attempt was made to take Duarte Square. Since then, people have occasionally tried to sleep in Zuccotti Park (most recently last week) and the idea of reoccupation has been thrown around. Whether Occupy Wall Street does reoccupy a space or a park in the spring remains to be seen but what is for sure is that there are plans for, and have already been, lots of pop-up occupations around New York City. These pop-up occupations are a chance for people to come out and gather in a park (last time Tompkins Square park in the East Village) and for different working groups to talk to people about what to do. These events are fun and give Occupy a chance to do outreach as well as meet together in a park for an afternoon -- look out for lots more of these in the spring.
The other type of non-traditional reoccupation to look out for is the Citywide Assembly that is being planned for April 14. This will take place somewhere big, fun and public in New York City. The idea behind the Citywide Assembly is simple: to have a positive and festive day to re-open the spring. Here there will be organizations from inside and outside the movement represented, tabling and connecting with people but there will also be music, teach-ins, dancing, games played as well as meetings and collective time for people to reconnect, be drawn into the movement and to be excited about it. Watch out for more information on all these exciting versions of occupation.
5. Representing Ourselves, Organizing Ourselves: New Publications, Nationwide Coordination and Better Structures
While the movement has been planning actions and projects and protests for the spring, it has also spent the winter having deep internal conversations and taking on some of the structural issues that arose in the fall. This has been done in a wide range of ways: from the People of Color Caucus being engaged in conversations about what its purpose and goal should be to the Safer Spaces working group writing and then fine-tuning a Community Agreement that can serve as a template for the rest of the movement about how we treat each other and act as part of the movement, to people questioning our structures and if they are still the best way for the movement to organize itself.
The movement has also started to coordinate nationwide through the creation of an inter-occupy network in which people from occupations around the country have channels to connect with each other, share experiences and resources and plan together. You can find out more about them here. Lastly there are new publications for the spring, with another issue of the Occupied Wall Street Journal and the second issue of the Occupy Theory journal Tidal just out (you can see Tidal here.) One of the strengths of Occupy has been its ability to self-represent and theorize itself and to produce materials in which to do so. With new issues of both of these publications, Occupy is ready to take on the task of producing its own media in the spring.
Some call it wintering; the resting and planning and preparing that happens during the winter in preparation for the spring. Occupy might have been quieter in the past few months but that does not mean it was over. In fact the reality is far from it. The plotting and planning and resting that Occupy has done through the winter means that we are all the more ready for the spring and all the more ready for everyone to join us now and then.

[Keith Millea]

Weekend Edition March 16-18, 2012

The Guns That Smoked

99 Percent Spring: the Latest MoveOn Front for the Democratic Party

by THE INSIDER

A new social movement has arrived on the scene and it even has a sexy brand: "The 99% Spring."

Combining the "99 percent" meme, made famous by the Occupy Wall Street movement, with the "Arab Spring" meme, made famous through the ongoing struggle for democratic rights in the Arab world, the organizers of the movement say they will attempt to carry the momentum created in these social movements forward in the coming weeks and months ahead.
This is exciting stuff, to say the very least.

The 99% Spring movement states its goal with stark clarity:

"In the tradition of our forefathers and foremothers and inspired by today's brave heroes in Occupy Wall Street and Madison, Wisconsin, we will prepare ourselves for sustained non-violent direct action.
From April 9-15 we will gather across America, 100,000 strong, in homes, places of worship, campuses and the streets to join together in the work of reclaiming our country.
(Snip)
This spring we rise! We will reshape our country with our own hands and feet, bodies and hearts. We will take non-violent action in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi to forge a new destiny one block, one neighborhood, one city, one state at a time."

Dozens of organizations have already signed onto the call for what looks to be a looming massive uprising.
On March 24-25 grassroots activist leaders, it appears, will be put through a training to lead the 100,000 rallying of the troops.
The revolution, it could be said, has begun!
Or has it?

Yet Another MoveOn.org Front Group?

Beyond the triumphant rhetoric lies a sober truth: "The 99 Spring" is yet another calculated and carefully planned MoveOn.org front group.

Smoking gun one: A WhoIs domain name search yields that The99Spring.com was created on February 9 and the Administrative Contact is none other than MoveOn.org Co-Founder, Wes Boyd.

Smoking gun two: The homepage of The99Spring.com includes a hot link that reads"Get Involved in the 99% Spring." A click on the link takes you directly to a MoveOn.org "99% Spring Action Training" webpage, where you can either sign up for a listed 99% Spring Training in one's respective locality, or create your own training.

Smoking gun three: A look at the bottom of the webpage shows the website was designed by Agit-Pop.com. Agit-Pop.com is the website for Agit-Pop Communications, a public relations firm which describes itself as "an award-winning one-stop creative studio delivering strategic messaging, cutting edge New Media and boots-on-the-ground campaigning to the progressive netroots."
At the very top of its list of clients? MoveOn.org, but of course.

Smoking gun four: A conference call to prepare leaders for trainings will be lead by a MoveOn.org Field Organizer, David Greenson on March 14, according to a 99 Spring email blast.

Smoking gun five: The 99 Spring sent out an email with a subject line that read, "Become a 99% Spring Trainer" from Liz Butler and Joy Cushman. The question then is who are these two?
Butler, her LinkedIn page shows, is the Campaign Director for 1Sky, which in April 2011 merged with 350.org to become known simply as 350.org, the organization chaired by journalist and climate activist Bill McKibben.
Cushman, on the other hand, is the Organizing Director of the New Organizing Institute (NOI), a Democratic Party-aligned, MoveOn.org-aligned front group. NOI hit the ground running in 2004, according to the NOI website, explaining,

"Like the Leadership Institute on the right, the NOI would become the go to' place for technical and strategic training. We'd begin by training and placing newly trained Internet campaign professionals (online organizers, Internet directors) on dozens of 2006 campaigns. Candidates and organizations, frustrated by their own inability to generate [Howard] Dean or MoveOn[.org]-like results online, would be eager to accept these students, taught by the best in the biz.'"

This portion of the website has since been scrubbed, but can be found via the WayBack Machine.
Eli Pariser, Board President of MoveOn.org, served on the original Advisory Board of NOI, as did MoveOn.org Co-Founder, Joan Blades.

James Ruckers was also included on the initial NOI Board of Directors, who now serves as Executive Director of MoveOn.org's solidarity with people of color front group, Color of Change, which he co-founded with Van Jones in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Ruckers formerly served on MoveOn.org's staff as Director of Grassroots Mobilization from the fall 2003 to summer 2005, according to NOI's website.

A key original NOI staff member included Co-Founder Zach Exley, who now serves as Chief Community Officer at Wikimedia Foundation. Exley worked atMoveOn.org from January 2003March 2004 and served as NOI's President from January 2006-April 2010. He also served as Director of Online Organizing and Communications for the John Kerry for President campaign in 2004, all of this according to his LinkedIn account.
NOI's Inaugural Training took place in late-February 2006 and was described as

"including individuals from Moveon.org, the Kerry and Dean campaigns, the Democratic National Committee, and leading internet consulting firms. NOI trainees did not simply learn the best practices of new organizing they learned those practices from the best in the field."

Trainers in the house that cold late-February included two MoveOn.org staffers: Tom Mattzie and Rosalyn Lemieux, who have since moved on (excuse the pun) to stints as a consultant and as a Partner at Fission Strategy, respectively. Exemplifying the revolving door of the Democratic Party non-profit foundation-funded front groups, Lemieux formerly served as Executive Director of NOI from August 2006-2007 before eventually moving onto her current stint at Fission.

Smoking gun six: Recent emails I obtained from the New Organizing Instituteshow that MoveOn.org and NOI are by-and-large, interchangeable, revolving door type entities that share lists, staff time, and common goals: electing Democrats, cloaked as supporting grassroots, democratic (with a lower "d") political action.
These emails came from the NOI's Cristina Sinclaire from the email address 99spring@neworganizing.com. According to her LinkedIn profile page, Sinclaire formerly served as Field Coordinator for the Maryland Democratic Party and as a Field Organizer for Obama for America in 2008 in Ohio, demonstrating her loyalty to the Democratic Party cause. Her Twitter page's background picture is of a young Barack Obama.

Smoking gun seven: 350.org, it appears, is also "in on this game," so to speak, as Bill McKibben has signed onto The 99 Spring's "call to action."

Furthermore, 350.org organizer Joshua Kahn Russell, formerly of the Ruckus Society and Rainforest Action Network, also sent out an email blast on the 350.org list promoting The 99 Spring's "week of action." In that email, Russell writes,

"I met about half of you folks who were arrested at the Tar Sands Action last summer when I helped lead our nightly civil disobedience trainings to prepare for the action at the White House.
I'm writing you now, 6 months later, about an opportunity we have to expand and deepen the movement we helped build last summer, in coordination with a whole bunch of other organizations who are beginning to embrace the tools and strategy we put to work in Washington DC.
The opportunity is The 99% Spring, an initiative to train 100,000 people in peaceful direct action this April, empowering people all over the country with the skills and inspiration we need to transform the country. It's wildly ambitious, and we'll need to come together in a big way to pull it off."

Russell proceeds to ask those on the list serve either to sign up to host a training, or volunteer as a trainer, the former request taking those on the list to MoveOn.org's sign-up page.

Smoking Gun Eight: The Nation magazine self describes itself this way: "The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred."

In reality, the Nation is heavily hyping MoveOn's 99 Spring, made clear by the cover of its April 2, 2012 edition, which is a special issue dedicated to the cause.
As grassroots organizer Kevin Zeese points out, there is a genuine (as opposed to manufactured and illusory astroturf) Occupy Spring forthcoming, called for by the true grassroots. The Nation conveniently leaves that one out of its issue, of course.

"What makes The Nation Occupy Spring' issue giving Occupy to the MoveOn types is that there is actually is an American Spring going on," said Zeese. "All over the country Occupy remains active and we have an upcoming event called National Occupation of Washington, DC, to begin the weekend of March 31 and April 1 that 25 Occupies have endorsed, which The Nation did not even mention."

This skunk gets even more stinky. One of the featured contributors of this issue, penning an article titled, "Occupy is Dead! Long Live Occupy!" for this issue, was Ilyse Hogue. She is now a full-time writer at The Nation.

"With a spirit of inclusiveness that mimics the slogan, established institutions from MoveOn to National People's Action to the United Auto Workers are investing collective resources into The 99% Spring, a massive training project that aims to train 100,000 people in nonviolent civil disobedience and economic literacy," wrote Hogue in her article, a shameless plug for The 99 Spring.

According to her biography on the website, she "…is a social change practitioner, media consumer and analyst, and on-line engagement expert." Hogue worked at a Democratic Party front group Media Matters for America in 2011 as a Senior Adviser before coming to The Nation in 2012. The smelliest tie of them all: from 2006- 2011, Hogue served as Director of Political Advocacy and Communications for none other than MoveOn.org.

Coming full circle, Hogue also serves on the Board of Directors of Rebuild the Dream, a Van Jones lead Democratic Party front group co-created in June 2011 with MoveOn.org, according to an article by The Nation's Ari Berman. Rebuild the Dream, many will recall, was one of the key front groups attempting to co-opt Occupy Wall Street last fall, as uncovered by Kevin Zeese.
This skunk stinks!

Yeah, a Front Group, So What?

The eight smoking guns show quite clearly that The 99 Spring is a front group for MoveOn.org, and therefore, as investigative journalist John Stauber have shown in articles past, yet another case study of an attempt at co-option of multiple movements of radical protestation by MoveOn.

This time around, it's both the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. In times past, it has been the racial justice movement as seen through the lens of the group Color Lines, the Iraq War, and Occupy Wall Street.

In MoveOn.org's short history, the front group has proven that co-option works, but co-opting Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring has been no easy task for it this time around.
It has been a particularly tough task because the Democratic Party, which it fronts for, is beholden to Wall Street and the Obama Administration whichMoveOn.org dutifully supports, plans on raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the 1-percent during his 2012 election campaign.

Furthermore, the Obama Administration has been largely responsible for supplying weaponry to suppress the Arab Spring, including in places such asEgypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, to name a few.
[URL="http://moveon.org/"]
MoveOn.org[/URL] has to tell overt lies in order to paint the Democratic Party and its President, Barack Obama, as a friend of democracy and working class. TheBig Lie, it can be said, is only believable for so long.

But ultimately, "So what?" says the cynic. "More of the same shit, just a different day."
Not so fast, says activist and author John Stauber, an expert in exposing corporate and political front groups.

"What's going on is very simple. Massive amounts of soft money from unions, wealthy donors and foundations such as the Tides Foundation are flowing into NGOs willing to help support the re-election of Barack Obama, and this MoveOn front group is key to whipping liberals and progressive activists into line to attack Republicans for the cause. The brand and energy of Occupy Wall Street are being coopted by MoveOn's 99 Spring for this purpose," he said in an interview.

"This reminds me of the AAEI coalition, another MoveOn front that worked with Nancy Pelosi in 2007 to see to it that the Iraq war was funded and used as a political stick to beat Republicans in 2008. Or the massively funded Health Care for America Now coalition backed by MoveOn in 2009 which made sure that single payer health care was ignored while the White House pushed its pro-insurance industry legislation derided as Obamacare'. In this latest case, the so-called 99 Spring, MoveOn is enlisting other NGOs to create the appearance of a populist uprising from the Left, when it's all about keeping the rabble in line and aimed at the Republicans to re-elect Obama," he continued.

As will be seen throughout this series on foundation-funded Democratic Party aligned non-profit groups poisoning the genuine grassroots, MoveOn.org is far from the only culprit playing this rotten and cynical game.
Stay tuned.

The Insider is the pseudonym of an activist who works inside the Liberal Foundation-Funded Democratic Party-Allied Belly of the Beast.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/16/9...tic-party/

[Magda Hassan]

Occupy Wall St.

Zuccotti is Re-occupied. Spring has begun.

[Peter Lemkin]

Occupy Wall St.

Zuccotti is Re-occupied. Spring has begun.

TPTB just don't get it. This time this Movement doesn't end until the whole foul system does! The utterly bankrupt [morally, ethically, politically, economically] system is long overdue for complete removal to the trashcan of history. Viva la Revolution! Yes, Spring is here and the American and several W. European 'Springs' are about to commence in ways that will make TPTB head's spin! No 'colors' this time - just complete and utter change!!! :pinkelephant:[ATTACH=CONFIG]3748[/ATTACH]

[Peter Lemkin]

The American Spring: A Time for Occupy To Blossom
By Kevin Zeese

Friday, March 16, 2012

Many in the corporate media like to think the Occupy is over, but those of us involved know better. We do not rely on the corporate media to validate the work of Occupy, we see it in our communities. And, we know to look to our own media for accurate information.

The Occupied Wall Street Journal reports on the actions of the Occupy, it's weekly "Reports from the Front Lines" is something many of us look forward to so we can see the movement taking action across the country.

Another visible presence of Occupy will be evident this spring in Washington, DC when the National Occupation of Washington, DC begins on March 30th. The event, which will continue through the month of April, is being organized by members of dozens of occupies from around the country. Twenty-five General Assemblies have passed statements of solidarity for this national occupy event.

NOW DC begins with a lot of activity. On the first day, Occupy the EPA, will bring people together to protect the planet for a sustainable future. It will feature Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, known for her anti-nuclear activism, Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo an EPA whistleblower and Margaret Flowers, also a pediatrician, noted for her advocacy for single payer health care among others. The march will include a pack of alpaca's, a giant Earth and a giant polar bear puppet.

The weekend of March 31st and April 1st includes a two day "Bail Out America" direct action training organized by the Backbone Campaign which will provide information on strategies and tactics and developing creative actions that advance the causes of Occupy. Also that weekend will be the Occupation of the Department of Education, which will include teach-ins about how to end high stakes testing which is destroying schools and being used as a tool to privatize education. Finally, that weekend will include trainings for peace keepers who will help to ensure NOW DC remains non-violent in its challenges to the Washington, DC power structure.

While the first two weeks will primarily focus on the NOW DC Social Forum, there will be a housing protest on Monday, April 2nd seeking to reduce mortgages so they reflect the real value of housing, not housing bubble mortgages and a protest focused on student debt on April 3rd.

The first education event will be an all-day strategy conference "Control the Corporation" organized by the Center for the Study of Responsive Law which will feature experienced anti-corporate power crusaders speaking on countering the impact of corporations in elections, holding corporations accountable for their crimes, creating alternative economic models that provide jobs and increase wages, protecting the "commons" from the insatiable advocates of privatization, occupying the future and mobilizing for action.

The reminder of the week from April 3 to 5 and continuing on April 10 to 14 will be the NOW DC Social Forum. In-between those dates, there will be activities focused on spirituality, religion and activism to recognize the Passover, Ramadan and Easter holidays. The Social Forum will bring occupiers together to learn from each other and will be held at the historic Friends Meeting House on Florida Avenue near Dupont Circle. Occupiers from across the country have developed workshops on policies and strategies to shift power from the 1% to 99%, lessons and the way forward for Occupy, direct action tactics and strategies, models for building alternative systems, occupy and labor and occupy faith.

On April 14th and 15th Occupy will celebrate at the OccuFest a music, arts and political free speech event that will be held at Meridian Hill Park, also known as Malcolm X Park, on 16th Street, NW in DC's Columbia Heights. Musicians are being brought together by occupiers from across the country as well as by Occupy for Music. There will be an occupy speak-out, spoken word, comedy, arts and politics also at the event.

The second half of the month will be primarily focused on protests, marches and civil resistance against the power structure in Washington, DC. This will not be limited to Congress but will include the corporate powers and lobbyists who dominate the government. On April 17th Occupy Congress is organizing "A17," to protest Congress for consistently putting the interests of the 1% ahead of the people. Also planned is Occupy the Department of Justice on April 24th, which will protest mass incarceration, political prisoners, privatization of prisons and highlight the case of Mumia Al Jamal whose 57th birthday is the day of the protest.

Education will continue throughout the month with regular movie showings and educational events on or near Franklin Square Park, the center of NOW DC. In addition, on April 28th, occupiers are encouraged to participate in the Drone Summit: Killing and Spying by Remove Control sponsored by CODE PINK, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Reprieve being held at the Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church. This will be followed by a strategy session on April 29th on how to deal with this new form of warfare.

The goals of NOW DC are to elevate the skills, cohesion and vision of occupiers. People will be able to bring back new ideas, skills, strategies and tactics to their local Occupy. During the month of NOW DC conversations will be held to discuss next steps for the Occupy where do we go from here?

The reality is, not only is the Occupy ongoing but it is just getting started. It is escalating its activities, building its skills and the best days of the movement to end the rule of the 1% are ahead of us.

Kevin Zeese was one of the original organizers of the Occupation of Washington, DC/October2011 and is an organizer with the National Occupation of Washington, DC.

[Peter Lemkin]

Updated Midnight:

No sooner had I published this article rejoicing in the joyous energy at Zuccotti Park than the police moved in en masse. Ironically the livestream was down for those few moments - a coincidence? I think perhaps not! Within minutes, the scene as described below dramatically changed to one of mayem, as riot police physically evicted the happy people.

Reports of beatings and arrests are being discussed on the livestream. Despite the fact that the park is supposed to be open for twenty four hours, officers put up barricades. A girl having a seizure or vomiting on the ground is ignored by police, despite pleas from the crowd. Her hands were tied behind her back as she lay on the ground, in distress, heaving and writhing and for several minutes a group of police stood over her looking down at her lying on the ground without helping her in any way. She was bound. Not one of them helped her.

Livestream commentator states her ribs were cracked and she was hyperventilating.

Someone comes forward with video footage of the woman being beaten. The watchers say they can see the officers giving her kicks and kneeing her as she lies on the ground.

Police are widening the barriers and pushing people back further off the square.

More to follow:

No medics nor an ambulance appear to be anywhere near. Police load protesters into metro buses they commanderer for such a purpose. Minutes pass without any ambulance attending, and people become increasingly angry. The livestream operator Tim is livid, and apologizes for swearing. He is outraged that this many police would swarm in and forcibly arrest so many people without medics or ambulances present.

Earlier in the evening....In what seems to be a fitting night for acts of irreverence and defiance, on this evening, March 17th, Saint Patrick's Day, Zuccotti Park has been re-taken by Occupiers. Six months to the day since the birth of the Occupy Movement, on a spectacularly balmy March night, hundreds of youth have arrived for the re-occupation of New York City's now-infamous Zuccotti Park.

The atmosphere is festive, almost carnival-like. On the internet, social media sites are exploding as Occupy movements around the world are sharing the word, announcing the delightful news that Spring has arrived!

Watch the action live here:

http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

"All the usual suspects are here." says an Occupier.

"Yes all the usual police." replies the livestream operator Tim before he moves on to the next group, who are passionately discussing the global war cartel and the industrial war complex. The energy is palpable even through the screen as the excited hum of voices all around fill the air.

A tent is brought in and people move aside. The erection of a structure is strictly forbidden now, and as such is a direct action of civil disobedience. People mill around and the livecaster walks through the park as debates go on around him.

The action began at noon with a 'Chalkupy', when chalk artwork was drawn all over the pavements at Zuccotti Park. 'Timcast' speaks to the audience about how plans to teach livestreaming are coming up as well as lessons on social media and blogging.

Stay tuned - the night is young!

...Though the luck o' the Irish appears to be with the Occupiers tonight - let us hope it sticks to them and the NYPD find leprechauns to chase instead to lead them on a wild goose chase through the streets of New York City....

"May the coppers leave us all alone and go kiss the blarney stone!"

(Old Irish Occupier prayer)

Unbelievable: young woman at #OWS having a seizure, #NYPD refuse to remove handcuffs: http://t.co/FDGYy4jU
2 minutes ago

bjork55: @AzulayRomond Yes, just watched the video of female getting beat up by cops: http://t.co/mqzSrNjx

bjork55: @AzulayRomond Yes, just watched the video of female getting beat up by cops: http://t.co/mqzSrNjx
5 minutes ago

cullenstalin: RT @LiborVonSchonau: "We need weekly nonviolent assaults on #WallStreet!" @mmflint #OWS #M17 #GlobalrEvolution #NYSE DirectAction✗court»nomortgage»noeviction☇

cullenstalin: RT @LiborVonSchonau: "We need weekly nonviolent assaults on #WallStreet!" @mmflint #OWS #M17 #GlobalrEvolution #NYSE DirectAction✗court»nomortgage»noeviction☇
5 minutes ago

truckerwillow: RT @occupySYDNEY: RT @NewsVortex: "Girl's having a f****ing seizure, cops handcuffed her." http://t.co/itvMUvJA LIVE - 'She's not moving.'

truckerwillow: RT @occupySYDNEY: RT @NewsVortex: "Girl's having a f****ing seizure, cops handcuffed her." http://t.co/itvMUvJA LIVE - 'She's not moving.'
5 minutes ago

Sholman68: RT @OccupyPhilly: OWS at Zuccotti is being raided. http://t.co/B1Cdj3Cd

Sholman68: RT @OccupyPhilly: OWS at Zuccotti is being raided. http://t.co/B1Cdj3Cd
6 minutes ago

GOPonziconz: @BarackObama YOUNG WOMAN IN HANDCUFFS HAVING SEISURE, POLICE REFUSE MEDICAL ASSISTANCE, WON'T REMOVE CUFFS! http://t.co/Po1ODG5A

GOPonziconz: @BarackObama YOUNG WOMAN IN HANDCUFFS HAVING SEISURE, POLICE REFUSE MEDICAL ASSISTANCE, WON'T REMOVE CUFFS! http://t.co/Po1ODG5A
6 minutes ago

RoadieShow: RT @OccupyPhilly: #ows is being raided. Several hundred NYPD swept the park and have made mass arrests. http://t.co/NurAAyoP

RoadieShow: RT @OccupyPhilly: #ows is being raided. Several hundred NYPD swept the park and have made mass arrests. http://t.co/NurAAyoP
7 minutes ago

atharcist: RT @JasminMuj: Unbelievable: young woman at #OWS having a seizure, #NYPD refuse to remove handcuffs: http://t.co/FDGYy4jU

atharcist: RT @JasminMuj: Unbelievable: young woman at #OWS having a seizure, #NYPD refuse to remove handcuffs: http://t.co/FDGYy4jU
8 minutes ago

nuckles13: RT @OccupyPhilly: #ows is being raided. Several hundred NYPD swept the park and have made mass arrests. http://t.co/NurAAyoP

nuckles13: RT @OccupyPhilly: #ows is being raided. Several hundred NYPD swept the park and have made mass arrests. http://t.co/NurAAyoP
9 minutes ago

soundmigration: Young woman at #OWS suffer broken ribs and cant breathe. #NYPD beat her up. They refused to remove handcuffs - http://t.co/yAHfVPf0 #occupy

soundmigration: Young woman at #OWS suffer broken ribs and cant breathe. #NYPD beat her up. They refused to remove handcuffs - http://t.co/yAHfVPf0 #occupy
10 minutes ago

occupyindianapo: RT @JasminMuj: Unbelievable: young woman at #OWS having a seizure, #NYPD refuse to remove handcuffs: http://t.co/FDGYy4jU

occupyindianapo: RT @JasminMuj: Unbelievable: young woman at #OWS having a seizure, #NYPD refuse to remove handcuffs: http://t.co/FDGYy4jU
10 minutes ago

[Keith Millea]

Yes, Spring is here

Looking out my window...It's Snowing...