Pussy Riot, Teachers, Workers and Repression

Repression in Russia is all over the news after Putin and his goons conspired to sentence the feminist punk band Pussy Riot to two years incarceration over an anti-establishment video that took place in an Orthodox church. There is outrage everywhere, including from Madonna who had supported the band's politics with a washable tattoo, visible on her back when she removed her shirt on stage. Lack of free speech is a travesty but hearing Amy Goodman repeatedly say, "Pussy Riot," with a little Mona Lisa smile, was priceless. 

Perhaps it is time to take the advice of their innovative name and think in terms of a pussy riot here, to defend the incredible, shrinking specter of women's rights. It would be open to pussies of all genders, of course. 

So much depressing and scary news, it's hard to know where to begin. In New York City only 55% of teachers were granted tenure after their probation. The NYTimes is writing about an upcoming movie that targets that newly much-vilified enemy of capitalism...The Teacher's Union. It's called "Won't Back Down," and sounds absolutely appalling.

And the Caterpillar workers in Illinois accepted a contract that was unacceptable even to the Union leadership. It included a six-year wage freeze, increased payments for health care and reduction of pensions. In the new anti-worker environment people are understandably frightened for their jobs. The entire state of Illinois, where the Caterpillar workers are, is talking pension reduction for all civil service employees. 

So, as bad as Obama may be, we can only hope that the R&R ticket of Ayn Rand fanatics doesn't get into office and do away with Medicare and Social Security.

This is What Authoritarianism Looks Like

The repression is coordinated, systematic. The rulers are small and centralized, often comprising an elite body of the privileged. There is massive and widespread corruption and free speech is actively discouraged, often with inappropriate and disproportionate displays of force. Subjection and submission to authority is its key premise designed to silence all vocal opposition to the status quo.  

Whether or not this repression emanates from the Homeland Security Department or more locally at the city, county and state level, this is authoritarianism we are witnessing in both the highly orchestrated destruction of Occupy encampments throughout the country and the brutal force martialed against unarmed, non-violent demonstrators.Oakland mayor, Jean Quan admitted to being part of a conference call with the mayors of 18 cities. This systematic effort to quash a nacent political movement doesn't have to be federally mandated to qualify as the machinery of organized suppression. Authoritarianism isn't quite fullblown facism but it is a major way station along that slippery slope.

Police brutality is steadily increasing in response to the growing Occupy Movement. The pepper spraying of UC Davis students followed closely on the heels of the baton beatings on the UC Berkeley campus. Countrywide the police response is intensifying in its brutality. The viral video of police pepper spraying young students sitting in a peaceful row on the quad at UC Davis is just another appalling example of this trend. Watching the students with linked arms huddled in the onslaught of this totally unprovoked chemical attack is a radicalizing experience in and of itself. Learning later that those who refused to separated their  were sprayed in their faces and down their throats, causing people to cough up blood and be hospitalized, is simply a horrifying scenario in which Guantanamo Bay comes home to roost.

The footage of this travesty is strangely moving as well. It harkens back to sit ins in the American South during the Freedom Rides when simply by sitting at a lunch counter, protesters were subjected to coffee and food being poured over their heads. They sat still. They endured. And ultimately they triumphed.

In the recent uprisings in Cairo, CS gas, a potent form of teargas that induces vomiting and possible coma with prolonged exposure,  and rubber bullets are the main weapons of choice by the police and military. A number of protesters have lost eyes to rubber bullets, including one man who lost an eye in a battle but returned only to lose the other one in a subsequent street incident.

In the USA, we haven't arrived at that level of repression in this round of protests. I was a student at Ohio State University in 1970 the year the National Guard fired live ammunition at anti-Vietnam war demonstrators killing four. That same year two students were murdered by police in a women's dormitory at Jackson State College in Mississippi. So, not only can it happen here. It has.

After the pepper-spray incident when UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi walked out to her car, the path was lined with hundreds of silent onlookers bearing witness to one of the many knowing and naive accomplices who are institutionalizing oppression by claiming ignorance or just following orders. Either way, it is our constitutional right to democratic expression of dissent that gets sprayed, beaten and trampled upon.

Increased Repression Just Means We're Winning

Meditating in Oakland

The Occupy Oakland camp in Oscar Grant Plaza camp was dismantled by police at 1am Monday morning prompting the immediate resignation of two Jean Quan staffers who disagreed with the decision to dismantle and destroy. They are Dan Seigel, legal adviser and Deputy Mayor Sharon Cornu. Occupiers have fled to Snow Park and re-established a camp there.

Zuccotti Park, also known as Liberty Park, the Wall Street encampment, where the Occupy Movement was born, was attacked Tuesday morning, November15th in much the same way. Today, in the Bay Area Occupy focus is on a strike and teach-in at UC Berkeley. This evening a speech by Robert Reich, professor and people's economist extraordinaire, has been relocated from Wheeler Hall to Sproul Plaza. The topic is class warfare and it is part of the Mario Savio Memorial Lecture series of talks. Supposedly, the Occupy Cal camp will try to reinstate itself there.

The fact that repressive tactics are increasing nationwide signals that we are gaining ground. With or without tarps and tents, this movement has reached a point of no return.Chris Hedges' article, "This is What Revolution Looks Like," is a must read for everyone in this struggle.

One truly amazing part of this heavy-handed approach is not the fact that police defend the interests of the rich and powerful, it is the equanimity of protestors who are being treated to this violence. Bricks, bottles are not being thrown. I haven't even seen a lot of insults hurled. Many people are dragged off to arrest from yoga postures. I have seen people meditating on concrete in the midst of teargas and flashbang grenades. The non-violence is a stirring spectacle for those of us raised on street war.

When I heard Graham Nash and David Crosby singing in Zucotti Park (on video) singing"Teach Your Parents Well," I was genuinely moved. This is the beginning of a protracted struggle. We all are bracing for a sustained fight that must be run like a marathon, not a 50 yard dash. When Che Guevara said, "A true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love," he had it right. Some lessons are never too late for learning.

Police are "Cleaning Up" at the Occupiers Expense

Police at Occupy San Francisco

Police departments throughout the US are getting a workout, enlarging their paychecks by putting in overtime and making their presence as the strong arm of the establishment felt. And this development is not due to a renewed war on crime, which has mysteriously fallen a bit in the ravages of this depression. No, the boys in blue are out in force, trying out new toys like pepper spray, zip-tie handcuffs and orange "kettling" nets as well as relying on reliable old traditions like beating and unwarranted mass arrests. All because the Occupy Together, Occupy Wall Street, movement that has taken a foothold in thousands of cities across the world.

After Wisconsin, I had hoped the blue meanies had changed their ways and would fight with other workers for their own interests like health benefits and pensions. But I was naive. The police are paid to defend the interests of the 1%, not the 99%. That is part of what keeps the engine of capitalism oiled and running. The Occupy Together crowd are now coming to this realization as well.

Occupy San Francisco's tents, food and supplies were taken by the SFPD last Sunday after "curfew." This confiscation was the second one since the encampment began. The rationale for this dismantling and expropriating equipment is that the "parks must remain safe for everyone." Except, of course, the people exercising their freedom of speech by camping there.

In Oakland, mayor Jean Quan is taking a more tolerant approach for the time being. She, and the government forces behind her, are allowing Occupy Oakland to remain. It's numbers are growing however, and when the occupiers tried to expand onto the adjoining concrete plaza, they were rebuffed by police. It was more of the same story when they tried to take over Snow Park as a second site due to overcrowding.

Some journalists are already setting the stage for a showdown between cops and city government officials and the occupiers by circulating stories about the protest bringing rats and dirt to downtown Oakland. Rats have always resided in Oakland and, yes, they do come out at night to scavenge the debris left by humans. Like all wildlife, they share our space. No-one was worried about rats when homeless people slept among them quietly.

The important thing to remember is that it is only a matter of time until the powers that be will try to sweep our public spaces clean of occupiers. That is when we must all converge to defend the right to speak out against economic injustice in the name of the 99 percent.