Senators Demand the Military Lock Up American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window UPDATE III: The Senate rejected the Udall amendment 38-60. While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself. Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and if any president can send the military anywhere in the world to imprison civilians without charge or trial. The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. I know it sounds incredible. In support of this harmful bill, Sen.
Occupy Oklahoma City Now Facing Eviction Posted 2 years ago on Nov. 28, 2011, 11:17 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt Call Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett (405-297-2424 - email mayor@okc.gov) and voice your opposition to the eviction of this peaceful expression of free speech! The coordinated crackdown on free speech continues. While Occupations in Los Angeles and Philadelphia are still holding strong (as of 11pm EST) and Washingtonians are occupying their State Capitol, the encampment at Occupy Oklahoma City is now under threat of eviction. City officials declined to renew a permit application and announced that overnight encampment will no longer be "tolerated" at Kerr Park, where the Occupation is currently centered. During the Black Friday national day of action against consumerism, several Occupy OKC members were arrested inside a Walmart. 12:32am EST: Police are beginning to surround the park.12:20am EST: Twenty minutes past the 11pm CST eviction deadline, at least fifty people reported in the park.
CUNY Protests Happening Now Inside of a barricaded meeting at Baruch College (24th and Lexington Ave), the City University of New York Board of Trustees is voting to raise tuition at the school. Outside, hundreds of Occupy CUNY students and their supporters are chanting, "Education is a right, Fight! Fight! Students are asking all supporters to join them at Baruch College until 8PM this evening. Following the lead of student protesters opposing tuition hikes and austerity measures, today has been called as a student strike and day of action in solidarity with the protesters at the University of California-Davis who faced severe police repression while expressing their right to free speech. The proposal to call for a strike was passed by a massive general assembly at UC-Davis in an effort to shut down campuses where the UC Regents' were scheduled to vote today on austerity measures there:
Around the World, Medical Workers Join Protests on the Side of the 99% | Occupy Wall Street November 28, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. The following article first appeared at Working In These Times, the labor blog of In These Times magazine. Warning: Defending your rights may be hazardous to your health. The recent uprisings around the world illustrate the physical risks involved in intense street protests. Amid the brutal clashes with security forces at Tahrir Square, barebones field hospitals have held the line, thanks to a grassroots network of Tahrir doctors. But hospitals are by no means safe havens. The Jerusalem Post reported on a brutal assault on a field hospital: A force of military police swept in like a fury, striking and beating doctors and patients alike. Physicians for Human Rights reports that in Bahrain, Syria and other countries swept up in mass uprisings, authoritarian rulers have directly targeted doctors for doing their jobs.
Violent Police Crack-Downs on the Occupy Movement Represent a Real Threat | Occupy Wall Street November 28, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Around California and all over the country, we have been told that Occupy encampments must come down because of "health and safety concerns." But all around the country, we have seen the police take down these encampments with an overzealous use of pepper spray, tear gas and flash-bang grenades. UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi cited "health and safety concerns" on Friday when she called for tents at the fledging Occupy UC Davis encampment to "be peacefully removed" by 3 p.m. Unfortunately, the UC Davis Police Department is not the only law enforcement agency that fails to appreciate those two self-evident principles. UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau initially claimed that the Occupy Cal protesters - by merely linking arms - were "not nonviolent," apparently ignoring the venerable history of what has now become an iconic gesture of the civil rights movement.
How Zuccotti Park Became Zuccotti Prison: Creeping American Police State | Occupy Wall Street November 28, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here. When I arrived at Zuccotti Prison one afternoon last week, the “park” was in its now-usual lockdown mode. The park itself was bare of anything whatsoever and, that day, parts of it had been cordoned off, theoretically for yet more cleaning, with the kind of yellow police tape that would normally surround a crime scene, which was exactly how it seemed. Thanks to Mayor Bloomberg’s police assault on the park, OWS has largely decamped for spaces unknown and for the future. And keep in mind, when it comes to that pepper-spraying incident, we’re talking about sleepy Davis, California, and a campus once renowned for its agronomy school. Still, terror is what now makes our American world work, the trains run more or less on time, and the money flow in.
Breaking Through When New York City’s mayor ordered an assault this week on Liberty Square, the story played like a script only the 1% could write: Michael Bloomberg, a Wall Street media baron worth $18 billion, who spent $50 million of his own money and rewrote the law to win a third term in office, sent in a thousand cops to trash a library, close a kitchen, shut down an occupation and arrest hundreds in the name of “unsanitary” conditions in the park. But the tactics behind the scenes are more complicated. Preceding the NYPD’s raid on Occupy Wall Street, 18 mayors held a conference call to “discuss” the national movement. Nine weeks into the occupation, we know this: every time the forces of order have confused themselves with the rule of law, the movement has expanded. At first the march looked like many of those that came before; surrounded by flashing lights, with police escorts violently pushing people from the streets back up on the sidewalks, the crowd circled City Hall Park. it.’”
All Day, All Week, All Century A 1967 occupation of Wall Street. Photo: Larry Fink For as long as Wall Street has stood for greed and unearned profits there have been those who have stood against it. In 1890, the leader of the Knights of Labor railed at “the control of our financial affairs by the bulls and bears of Wall Street.” But the first occupation of Wall Street proper occurred during the early months of 1914, when Emma Goldman and Upton Sinclair, as well as hundreds of their socialist and anarchist comrades, descended on lower Manhattan to protest the callousness and cruelty of the plutocratic elite. Conditions in 1914 were as bad as they have ever been. Demonstrators flood Union Square, 1914 On Saturday afternoons throughout the spring, thousands of angry demonstrators gathered in Union Square to speak out against social iniquities. When hundreds of anarchists followed her lead, terrorizing the city’s most affluent neighborhood, alarmed city fathers determined to suppress this sudden militancy.
Occupy LA protesters defy midnight deadline to clear camp | World news Police withdrew from the Occupy camp early on Monday morning. Photograph: David Mcnew/Reuters Occupy LA protesters have defied a midnight deadline set by the city's mayor for them to clear their encampment around City Hall. After surrounding the camp for six hours, police withdrew early on Monday morning, prompting celebrations from the protesters, who chanted: "We won, we won." The stand-off remained relatively peaceful through the night, with only four arrests, as police cleared surrounding streets for morning rush-hour traffic. A small scuffle between protesters and police prompted officers to take action and led three young men out of the crowd and into custody. Hundreds of protesters at the Occupy site remained defiant yet relatively peaceful, with police officials calling off plans to clear the park at the scheduled 12.01am time. "People from California are supporting the last long-standing encampment in this country," said Mary Walker, 22, who was lying down on 1st Street in protest.