Training Exercises

The Tsar's Cossacks Imperial Storm Troops: Los Angeles



They said the HazMat suits were to protect themselves from the OccupyIck.

At 19:50 in the following video, the LA Ick Tanks are shown. They cleanse and decontaminate their tootsies with Palmolive. Whew.

Training Exercises

The Tsar's Cossacks: Philadelphia



Hi-O Silver, Away!

New Speak At Berkeley

The incident depicted in the video above was one of several incidents of police brutality associated with the occupation of Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley in November of 2009. Most of the officers involved in this incident appear to be Alameda County Sheriff's Deputies. There were similar incidents at many campuses of the University of California during the fall and winter of 2009 and 2010. To say they foreshadowed what was to come in 2011 is putting it mildly.

By now news must have spread around the world that the UC Berkeley Police Officers Association, the union representing 60+ UC Berkeley Police Officers, has "officially" responded to the outrage of campus students and (some) administration and faculty at the gross brutality of the UC Police on and after the events in and around Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley on November 9, 2011.

They have come up with an Open Letter, which I feel free to reproduce here:

An Open Letter to UC Berkeley Students, Faculty, Administration & Regents from the UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association

It is our hope that this letter will help open the door to a better understanding between UC Berkeley police and the University community.

The UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association, representing approximately 64 campus police officers, understands your frustration over massive tuition hikes and budget cuts, and we fully support your right to peacefully protest to bring about change.

It was not our decision to engage campus protesters on November 9th. We are now faced with “managing” the results of years of poor budget planning. Please know we are not your enemy.

A video clip gone viral does not depict the full story or the facts leading up to an actual incident. Multiple dispersal requests were given in the days and hours before the tent removal operation. Not caught on most videos were scenes of protesters hitting, pushing, grabbing officers’ batons, fighting back with backpacks and skateboards.

The UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association supports a full investigation of the events that took place on November 9th, as well as a full review of University policing policies. That being said, we do not abrogate responsibility for the events on November 9th.

UC Berkeley police officers want to better serve students and faculty members and we welcome ideas for how we can have a better discourse to avoid future confrontations. We are open to all suggestions on ways we can improve our ability to better protect and serve the UC Berkeley community.

As your campus police, we also have safety concerns that we ask you to consider.

Society has changed significantly since 1964 when peaceful UC Berkeley student protesters organized a 10-hour sit-in in Sproul Hall and 10,000 students held a police car at bay – spawning change and the birth of our nation’s Free Speech Movement.

However proud we can all be of UC Berkeley’s contribution to free speech in America, no one can deny this: Our society in 2011 has become an extremely more violent place to live and to protect. No one understands the effects of this violence more than those of us in law enforcement.

Disgruntled citizens in this day and age express their frustrations in far more violent ways – with knives, with guns and sometimes by killing innocent bystanders. Peaceful protests can, in an instant, turn into violent rioting, ending in destruction of property or worse – the loss of lives. Police officers and innocent citizens everywhere are being injured, and in some instances, killed.

In the back of every police officer’s mind is this: How can I control this incident so it does not escalate into a seriously violent, potentially life-threatening event for all involved?

While students were calling the protest “non-violent,” the events on November 9th were anything but nonviolent. In previous student Occupy protests, protesters hit police officers with chairs, bricks, spitting, and using homemade plywood shields as weapons – with documented injuries to officers.

At a moment’s notice, the November 9th protest at UC Berkeley could have turned even more violent than it did, much like the Occupy protests in neighboring Oakland.

Please understand that by no means are we interested in making excuses. We are only hoping that you will understand and consider the frustrations we experience daily as public safety officers sworn to uphold the law. It is our job to keep protests from escalating into violent events where lives could be endangered.

We sincerely ask for your help in doing this.

Like you, we have been victims to budget cuts that affect our children and our families in real ways. We, too, hold on to the dream of being able to afford to send our children and grandchildren to a four-year university. Like you, we understand and fully support the need for change and a redirection of priorities.

To students and faculty: As 10,000 students surrounded a police car on campus in 1964, protesters passed the hat to help pay for repairs to the police car as a show of respect. Please peacefully respect the rules we are required to enforce – for all our safety and protection. Please respect the requests of our officers as we try to do our jobs.

To the University Administration and Regents: Please don’t ask us to enforce your policies then refuse to stand by us when we do. Your students, your faculty and your police – we need you to provide real leadership.

We openly and honestly ask the UC Berkeley community for the opportunity to move forward together, peacefully and without further incident – in better understanding of one another. Thank you for listening.

What. A. Crock.

But this is exactly the kind of nonsense that gets produced by police departments all over the country and by the military of this great nation. Every. Single. Day.

It's an art form. It's a science. It's... a lie.

And Official Lies like this are part of the reason why there is a revolt-turning-into-revolution going on by necessity.

For years, Americans have been routinely subjected to Official Lies like this. At first they were greeted with a sort of stunned silence. "This can't be happening." Then it was outrage. "This can't STILL be happening!" Then it was indifference. "There they go again." And now I think we're getting back close to outrage.

This open letter is one of the more provocative products of the genre, however, so let's explore its New Speak for a while:



It is our hope that this letter will help open the door to a better understanding between UC Berkeley police and the University community.

We understand, of course, that UC Berkeley police and the University community are separate entities altogether, don't we? After reading that introduction, we should understand it. OK?

The UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association, representing approximately 64 campus police officers, understands your frustration over massive tuition hikes and budget cuts, and we fully support your right to peacefully protest to bring about change.

Actually the argument with the UC Berkeley (and other UC) Police is not over tuition hikes and budget cuts; it is over their consistent employment of gross acts of brutality against students, faculty and staff who dare to use their supposed "right of peaceful protest."

It was not our decision to engage campus protesters on November 9th. We are now faced with “managing” the results of years of poor budget planning. Please know we are not your enemy.

This doesn't even make sense. But let's take it for what it's worth. If the UC Berkeley Police did not decide to "engage" (heh) protesters on November 9, somebody else must have made the decision for them; if they are nothing but mindless robots unable to think for themselves and decide for themselves, then we really should be told who is flipping their switches on and off. Meanwhile, their inability to decide for themselves has nothing to do with poor management of budgets. Sorry. Doesn't wash. As for whether the UC Berkeley police are the "enemy," who said they were?

A video clip gone viral does not depict the full story or the facts leading up to an actual incident. Multiple dispersal requests were given in the days and hours before the tent removal operation. Not caught on most videos were scenes of protesters hitting, pushing, grabbing officers’ batons, fighting back with backpacks and skateboards.

"A" video clip? Oh dear no. There are dozens of them, not just one, and they show what happened -- over time, it wasn't just one incident -- from many different angles and perspectives. Nobody denies that there were "requests" -- read: orders -- to disperse. That's not the issue. "Tent removal operation." Excuse me, operation? As if it were a military campaign? That the police had no decision-making power over? It just... happened? I think not. Further, there are videos which show students, faculty, and staff defending themselves from the baton blows of the police on the Berkeley campus -- in fact, nearly every video of the "operation" shows this. Indeed, in self-defense, students, faculty and staff used whatever was at hand to protect themselves from the unwarranted blows of the officers involved. It's plainly shown in most of the videos. Protecting themselves, however, does not constitute "fighting back," except in the fevered imaginations of the police robots who busy beating the shit out of them. Not to put too fine a point on it.

The UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association supports a full investigation of the events that took place on November 9th, as well as a full review of University policing policies. That being said, we do not abrogate responsibility for the events on November 9th.

What the hell does this even mean? "Abrogate responsibilty?" How do you do that? Do they perhaps mean "deny responsibility?" And got caught up in legalese? When one "abrogrates," one repeals, annuls, or renounces. But that aside (was it a deliberate distraction, a shiny object sure to get the smart alecs at Berkeley into a frenzy?) the support of a "full investigation" is welcome. The only thing is that in a "full investigation" by their lights, only the police version of events is to be allowed.

UC Berkeley police officers want to better serve students and faculty members and we welcome ideas for how we can have a better discourse to avoid future confrontations. We are open to all suggestions on ways we can improve our ability to better protect and serve the UC Berkeley community.

Of course. Ever reasonable, aren't they? I'll just file that in the "Can't we all just get along?" cabinet. Sure. Whatever.

As your campus police, we also have safety concerns that we ask you to consider.

Of course, since we're being reasonable and all.

Society has changed significantly since 1964 when peaceful UC Berkeley student protesters organized a 10-hour sit-in in Sproul Hall and 10,000 students held a police car at bay – spawning change and the birth of our nation’s Free Speech Movement.


Oh God, they dare to bring up THAT? "Our Nation's" Free Speech Movement? Hello? Is anybody home? A ten-hour sit in? Oh dear, this is just stupid. The actions by the FSM went on for MONTHS and they have reverberated for decades. Yes, society has changed. That was the point. But clearly it hasn't changed enough for students, faculty and staff to nonviolently resist police on campus without getting the shit beat out of them or chemical agents being used against them.

However proud we can all be of UC Berkeley’s contribution to free speech in America, no one can deny this: Our society in 2011 has become an extremely more violent place to live and to protect. No one understands the effects of this violence more than those of us in law enforcement.

Actually, I think there are plenty of people who would deny that our society in 2011 is "an extremely more violent place to live." On the other hand, many would assert that violence on campus is almost all the result of a much greater level of police brutality than was the case in 1964. And it is that consistent level of brutality that is being objected to. Though you would never know it from the presentation of the Officers Association. "Batons? What batons? We were just protecting and serving by making sure the protesters were safe. And secure."


Disgruntled citizens in this day and age express their frustrations in far more violent ways – with knives, with guns and sometimes by killing innocent bystanders. Peaceful protests can, in an instant, turn into violent rioting, ending in destruction of property or worse – the loss of lives. Police officers and innocent citizens everywhere are being injured, and in some instances, killed.

This has to do with what, exactly? Particularly what does a statement like this have to do with what was going on on campus -- this campus or any other which has been subjected to the brutal ministrations of the UC police -- on November 9? Describe -- and produce evidence of -- any such knives, guns, killings, riot, or destruction of property on any UC campus during the recent protests that isn't sourced directly to the police themselves. They are the ones who are beating people and using chemical agents against them, they are the ones with weapons -- and who use them -- and they are the ones who destroy property. Again and again. It is not the protesters and demonstrators who do this. It is the police. Over and over and over again.

In the back of every police officer’s mind is this: How can I control this incident so it does not escalate into a seriously violent, potentially life-threatening event for all involved?

It is the police who escalate incidents in to "seriously violent, potentially life-threatening event[s] for all involved" -- and they have done so over and over and over again, not just on UC campuses, but all over the country, causing hundreds of injuries (some of them life-threatening) and thousands of unnecessary arrests. This is being done by the police, not by the protesters. But you would never know it from this statement.

While students were calling the protest “non-violent,” the events on November 9th were anything but nonviolent. In previous student Occupy protests, protesters hit police officers with chairs, bricks, spitting, and using homemade plywood shields as weapons – with documented injuries to officers.

This is a straight out and bald faced LIE. The protest at UC Berkeley on November 9 was a classic example of non-violent resistance. When police spokesmouths and UC Birgeneau said otherwise, and in fact characterized the non-violent resistance of the students, faculty and staff as "not nonviolent" or actually a form of "violence," they were righteously ridiculed all over the world. Not only were they wrong, they were deliberately wrong and attempting to deceive. In other words, lying. They might have got away with it before the days of viral video. Now they can't. But instead of acknowledging that simple truth, the UC Berkeley Police Association chooses (well, since they are only mindless robots, their choice in the matter is debatable...) to lie again by claiming that the protest was "anything but nonviolent," and to assert the lie that other "student Occupy protests" -- where and when unmentioned -- involved various hazards to officers. It is simply a LIE. All of it.

At a moment’s notice, the November 9th protest at UC Berkeley could have turned even more violent than it did, much like the Occupy protests in neighboring Oakland.

The only violence on the UC Berkeley campus on and after November 9, 2011, was initiated by the police. As for Oakland, that's another issue that has no direct bearing on what happened at Berkeley on November 9. The fact that the UC police would still be focused on what happened in Oakland the week before says more about these robots than it does about the students, faculty and staff at UC Berkeley.

Please understand that by no means are we interested in making excuses. We are only hoping that you will understand and consider the frustrations we experience daily as public safety officers sworn to uphold the law. It is our job to keep protests from escalating into violent events where lives could be endangered.

The UC Police -- top to bottom -- has been in the habit of creating its own frustrations and blaming them on others. This habit has become a sick joke.

We sincerely ask for your help in doing this.

Yes, well.

Like you, we have been victims to budget cuts that affect our children and our families in real ways. We, too, hold on to the dream of being able to afford to send our children and grandchildren to a four-year university. Like you, we understand and fully support the need for change and a redirection of priorities.

That's nice. Stop beating students.

To students and faculty: As 10,000 students surrounded a police car on campus in 1964, protesters passed the hat to help pay for repairs to the police car as a show of respect. Please peacefully respect the rules we are required to enforce – for all our safety and protection. Please respect the requests of our officers as we try to do our jobs.

Stop beating students. Your efforts to change the subject and deny your own responsibility for your actions, indeed to assert your inability to make decisions, is the problem you have to deal with. Students, faculty and staff have been more than willing to help you do that. The problem is that you and your deciders have ignored if not denounced every effort to help you get over your penchant for meeting challenges with violence. It's your problem. Fix it or disband.

To the University Administration and Regents: Please don’t ask us to enforce your policies then refuse to stand by us when we do. Your students, your faculty and your police – we need you to provide real leadership.

Since nobody will actually state what the policy is with regard to non-violent student protest, there is no way to know whether you are enforcing administration policies or not. Since you can't decide on anything yourselves but are only the tools of some other, you might want to some day state what you have been told to do.

We openly and honestly ask the UC Berkeley community for the opportunity to move forward together, peacefully and without further incident – in better understanding of one another. Thank you for listening.

"Without further incident" is up to you. Since you say you can't decide anything, but are only the objects, the tools of some other power, it would be to your advantage to state clearly what you have been told to do. Since incidents you so deplore are in your power to cause and to prevent, but you say you cannot decide whether to do so or not, it seems the problems you are having are entirely due to the system within which you are operating. Once you start working with -- instead of beating up -- students, faculty and staff of the University perhaps there will be a resolution.

Until then, you're spinning lies and spinning your wheels, and by doing so, you compound the shame you have already been subjected to from around the world.

Have a nice day.

Oh. And you might want to review, once again, the report issued by the task force that looked into the police brutality surrounding the Wheeler Hall Incident a couple of years ago. Remember?

This is how the Police Review Board characterized it:

http://administration.berkeley.edu/prb/6-14-10_prb-report.pdf

This is how the Administration supposedly responded:

http://administration.berkeley.edu/prb/PRBfinal10-12-11.pdf

And then there's this:

http://archive.dailycal.org/data/files/prbreportjune2010.pdf

The fact is that the UC Berkeley police and their mutual aid police agencies have quite a reputation for egregious brutality, and the administration at UC Berkeley keeps skating around the problem.

As Nathan Brown has said, it's policy.

Discrediting Democracy -- or Russia Redux (aka "Storming the White House")

Yeltsin's troops on the lawn of the Russian White House -- the Congress of People's Deputies building -- in Moscow after successfully bombarding it and the People's Deputies inside. October, 1993

In Russia they still officially refer to the attack on their White House -- the Congress of People's Deputies building in Moscow in 1993 -- as a "defense of democracy." Of course, this is Orwellian double think on many levels.

In fact, it was yet another in a string of coups that had taken place in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In this one, Boris Yeltsin, Inebriate Mayor of Moscow, decreed and crushed defiance. Let Misha's Russia Blog tell the tale:

Keep in mind that the last time Russia embraced "liberal free-market reforms" it was done at the point of a gun, albeit a Russian gun, during Yeltsin's so-called capitalist "shock therapy." Recall that the Russian Federation had a written constitution and an effective and democratically elected parliament after the dissolution of the USSR. Prior to October 1993 that freely elected Russian parliament actually constituted an effective check on the power of the Russian president.

In the summer of 1993 the Russian parliamentary deputies adamantly refused to pass Yeltsin's capitalist "shock therapy" program, then being urged on Yeltsin by the U.S. and other capitalist powers. Instead the parliament even began proceedings to impeach Yeltsin. After several weeks of deadlock between Yeltsin and the parliament, with growing street protests, Yeltsin issued a "decree" dissolving the Russian parliament on September 21, 1993. Yeltsin's decree was in direct contradiction with the articles of the Russian constitution.(1) The mounting crises lead to widespread anti-Yeltsin protests and violence on the streets of Russian cities.

Yeltsin then ordered parliamentarians to vacate the White House (the Russian Parliament building). When they refused Yeltsin promptly ordered the Russian army to besiege and storm the parliament. Hundreds of Russians came to the scene to form a human shield around the parliament building. On October 4, 1993, tank rounds were fired at point blank range into the Parliament building and then it was stormed by armed troops. Hundreds died in the violence that ensued. The government officially declared that 187 people had been killed and 437 wounded. However eye witnesses put the real number much higher.(2) There was not a word of protest over these manifestly undemocratic and violent actions from the U.S. Clinton Administration, because Yeltsin was doing what the U.S. wanted him to do.(3)

Having destroyed the opposition (literally) Yeltsin then proceeded to re-write the Russian constitution more to his liking, giving the president the power to virtually rule Russia by decree, and the power to finally ram his Western-authored "shock therapy" down the throats of an unwilling Russian population.

Yeltsin's shock therapy program subsequently saw Russia's GDP rapidly decline by some 50% from the level that had been achieved during the final years of the Soviet Union(4), as inflation spiraled out of control. Over the next decade Russia suffered a massive decline in living standards as well as the virtual collapse of Russian society and culture. Virtually every statistical indicator of social well being showed the depth of the destruction of Russian society, from the collapse of health care and the rise of long-banished diseases to the collapse of education and spiraling crime, alcoholism and drug abuse. During this period major international criminal gangs became entrenched in Russia including those specializing in the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children.

Now this unprecedented social and humanitarian catastrophe took place even as a handful of corrupt "oligarchs" became fabulously wealthy and powerful by leveraging their newfound control over state assets that only yesterday belonged to the people.(5) Almost all the hundreds of billions pocketed by the oligarchs, especially from the sale of Russia's rich natural resources, was spirited out of Russia and into secret offshore bank accounts, tax free.

Yes. Well.

This "shock therapy" worked so well on the Former Soviet Union, plutocrats and oligarchs everywhere took notice. How could they not?

If they want to have their way, they realized, it was up to them to discredit and demonize democracy in every conceivable way, and if the die-hards wouldn't yield, then use force.

Sure enough. It works. Hahahahahahah!

Tom Ferguson over at Real News Network makes the point that the current paralysis of our own 'representative democracy' is yet another way to discredit democracy here in the United States.



"In American Politics, every day is Turkey Day."

The point being made is that the institution of Congress doesn't "work." Well, we know that. We should have recognized that simple fact a long time ago, but it's only recently that very many Americans have woken up from their Take and Bake dream. We're going to hell in a handbasket, and Congress has been greasing the skid. Happily.

We're seeing the results of discrediting democracy in Europe right now. The alarmists are certainly out in force, but there is a point to their alarm.

Here's a take on the Next Big Thing(?) from a writer at CNN:

Europe's next nightmare: Right-wing extremism

Of course.

And then there is Spain

And Portugal

Greece

Italy

Don't forget Ireland

Britain

Basically, the plutocrats and oligarchs have been going all around the world undermining and extinguishing democracies one by one and in batches whenever they get the chance and the auguries say proceed.

They cut their teeth on the Soviet Union.

Our turn is not far away. Actually, the preliminary festivities have been under way for many years, at least since the Impeachment Circus of 1998.

The plutocrats and oligarchs will not be denied. This is why there is a global revolution; it's a necessity.

Scott Olsen Interview in Oakland Yesterday

This is from Indy Bay media.

"Liberty Walk" --(Rock Mafia Remix) Miley Cyrus

It's kind of amazing to see so many of the actions all over the world edited together like this. There are many others besides this one, of course. But this one isn't bad!



We sometimes lose track of the fact that there are so many pissed off people in the world... ;)

Dr. King Explains It All For You

DIGNITY, JUSTICE, COMMUNITY, PEACE.

The Eradication -- and the Triumph -- of the Tents

The Center of Revolutionary Energy has shifted back to Egypt, with much rumbling in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. The European Explosion will not be far behind the renewed/continued uprisings in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

All these rebellions and revolutions are being driven by similar and mighty forces: an entire generation has seen its future stolen by a handful of supremely greedy and bone stupid Masters of the Universe, abetted by whatever government agents and goons they have been able to purchase.

It is the same everywhere. The Triumph of Globalism.

Countered by...

Tents.

Tents can have a powerful symbolic presence. Compare the rage of the authorities against tents and tarps and all that they symbolize to their languid indifference to the suffering of the People, and their winks and nods toward those who have looted societies, destroyed communities, and failed to answer the simplest
request for basic dignity by their long suffering supplicants.

Where once we may have needed tumbrils and guillotines to put the fear in the Overclass, now all it takes is tents and tarps.

But look at the images:

This is video of a homeless camp in Sacramento in 2009.




This was Haiti five months after the Earthquake of 2010:



This is Al Jazeera's Sebastian Walker's report from Haiti filed in September of this year:



This is a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey this week:



This is a Somali refugee camp in Kenya in August:



Tunisia, April, 2011:



UC Davis, yesterday:



UC Berkeley, November 17:



UCLA, November 17:




New School New York, November 17:




Of course we could post any number of additional images of the pervasiveness of tents and camps and displaced persons and on and on. It is the image of our era.

Why?

Some time back I posited the notion that "we are all Haitians now." And the truth of it is plainer than ever. That's why the decision to use tents as the symbol of the Revolution was brilliant.

Even though the original acampadas in Madrid and Barcelona were vacated by June, the notion of Occupation through tented encampments has spread globally. There is no stopping the idea.

And the Powers That Be are trembling. The house of fraud and deceit and exploitation they have built is shuddering. It will fall, and I doubt many of us are ready for the collapse to come. Nobody expected the #SpanishRevolution, after all. Acampadas is a phase in the Revolution, not the Revolution itself. Camps are necessary, but camps are not the Revolution.

They are demonstrations.

They demonstrate how the dispossessed and refugee and homeless and poor and near poor and the lost and the seeking and all the rest of us are linked all over the world. They are demonstrations of community. They are demonstrations of what could be if the good will of the People is unleashed. They terrify the Overclass.

Onward!

Helpfully, the BBC's Adam Curtis Explains It All For You (about the Greek Colonels and the 1973 University Uprising That Led To Their Downfall)

"History may not repeat, but often rhymes." Attributed to Mark Twain.

Adam Curtis has been making too much sense of things for a lot of years. I would only mention his "Century of the Self," and "The Power of Nightmares" as two of his remarkable documentaries looking into why things are the way they are.

He's found and posted some excellent background material from the vaults that help to explain why things are the way they are in Greece today. I encourage everyone to read it and watch the videos at the link.

Recently, The Greek Thing has come to the fore for a whole lot of reasons. Why things are the way they are in Greece is a complicated story to be sure, but one of the chief reasons has to do with the fascist military dictatorship ("The Colonels") that overthrew the civilian government in 1967. Georgios Papandreou (grandfather of the recently deposed Greek PM of the same name) was PM of Greece several times, the last time from 1964-65, until he was deposed and replaced by a series of caretakers who never managed to gain a vote of confidence in the parliament and finally the whole apparatus of "democracy" was swept away by the intervention of The Colonels who established a very harsh authoritarian rule from 1967 to 1974.

The Colonels were emplaced as Greek rulers with the complicity -- if not active involvement -- of NATO and the CIA.

Many Greeks suffered under The Colonels -- though some flourished, of course. The experience of that military dictatorship (which many Greeks consider to have been worse than the harsh German occupation during WWII) has stuck with the Greek People. They will never forget. And I doubt they will ever entirely forgive.

During the recent tumult in Greece, including the forced resignation of Georgios Papandreou as PM and his replacement with a "technocrat" (as if the American educated Papandreou isn't a "technocrat"), the issue has been ultimately whether the Greek People will be forced to part with what's left of their patrimony and sovereignty and be forced into poverty and servitude to German and French bankers.

The People are not allowed a say in their government's determination to yield to the demands of the European Central Bank and the further demands of Germany and France (primarily) for ever greater levels of Greek "austerity." Meaning basically that whatever assets remain in Greece are to be stripped in order to service their growing debts, debts that will continue to grow because there aren't enough assets to pay them, and the austerity requirements have fatally crippled the Greek economy.

It's a fine mess. And the Greek People are well aware of its nature.

So there have been constant protests and demonstrations in Athens and many other Greek cities against the Eurozone demands for more than a year.

There have long been protests and demonstrations in Athens and elsewhere for all kinds of reasons. Greece is a volatile political environment.

Part of the reason why is that the Will of the People has often been ignored by the Greek Powers That Be.

Gee. Whodathunkit, eh?

There is some very powerful footage in the second video at the link -- I cannot link it directly here -- of the Greek military seige of the Athens Polytechnic University in November, 1973, and there is testimony from survivors. Dozens of students were killed, many shot summarily. The revolt at the University was crushed, but the events that took place there led to the dissolution of the military dictatorship within six months.

Linda Katehi, current Chancellor of the University of California at Davis, was a student at the Athens Polytechnic University in November of 1973, and she says she remembers very well what went on and why. No one who was there is ever likely to forget it.

Last week, she presided over the failed efforts of the UCD police to crush a student revolt on her own campus. It seems sometimes that everyone on the planet has now seen the shocking videos (many of which I have posted here) of Lt. Pike pepper spraying a non-violent line of sitting students on Friday, November 18, 2011. The outrage has been fierce.

And many times, Linda Katehi has been challenged about what happened and why and calls for her resignation have echoed far and wide.

She has not resigned, but she has apologized -- apparently sincerely -- and the Occupy UCD encampment the removal of which she ordered and which was the proximate cause of the protest which led directly to the Incident at UC Davis, has been re-established with the active assistance of the UC Davis police and administration.

She says she does not want anything like what happened on Friday to happen again.

When she has been reminded of the student uprising in Athens in 1973 -- that she was part of -- and the parallels between her ordering the crushing of rebellion on the UC Davis campus and what happened in Athens back then, she has said that the students in revolt in Athens in 1973 were "mainstream." When she is challenged over her recent consultation with the Greek government over the "University asylum" policy -- which the government canceled -- she denies ever recommending that they do any such thing, and she justifies repression of protests and demonstrations in Greece on the basis that the protestors are "anarchists" and have "burned down" the Universities repeatedly. They are not students, and they have no interest in learning.

Of course she's lying, but the whole point of the police brutality and the lies surrounding it -- which have been going on for years -- is to enforce the neo-liberal privatization of the University for the benefit of the 1%. Nathan Brown explains it very clearly here:

http://distributioninsensible.tumblr.com/post/12867650744/five-theses-on-privatization-and-the-uc-struggle



This is what is going on -- throughout the UC system -- and this is what Katehi is part of, as are all the other University of California Chancellors and administrators.

This is their vision of the future, this is their goal.

Much as, ham-handedly, The Colonels had a vision and goal for Greece when time was.

But when they found out the People would rise up, they backed down.

Something similar is happening in Davis and elsewhere in the UC system, elsewhere in the country, elsewhere in the world, but whether the Powers That Be will continue to retreat remains to be seen. My own sense is no. Not on a bet.

They will without doubt ratchet up the pressure and the violence against the Occupy Movement, and resistance to further rule by the Banksters simply because they have to.

If you haven't seen it, "Debtocracy" is an excellent summary of what has been going on lately...

The Second Stage of the Revolution and the Problem of Scale

I'm watching the Revolution continue in Egypt as the dissatisfaction with the interim military rulership has increased to the boiling point.

That the People of Egypt have arisen yet again -- after their stunning uprising earlier in the year -- is to my eye the signal that the '2nd Stage of the Revolution' is now under way. The Center of Energy has shifted once again. It's no longer in California or New York. It is now back in Egypt, mostly in Cairo at Tahrir Square and in the streets of Alexandria. The scenes are evocative of the uprising in January and February, but the action is clearly not the same.



Nothing that's happened in this country has yet matched the uprising in Egypt and the sacrifices of the Peoples of North Africa and the Middle East in the current cycle of revolt and revolution. Not even close.

I usually doubt that anything like that will ever happen here because we don't live in a totalitarian dictatorship -- not yet anyway -- and there are still some outlets available to the People of the United States of America that are not available in some of the hot-spots overseas.

As much as we may crab about our own condition, and as much as we may engage in struggle with the Powers That Be, our general situation is still much better than that of those abroad who are struggling so bravely against their oppression.

That being said, however, Revolutions do tend to proceed in two -- or more -- stages, the first of which is rather euphoric, the second deadly serious.

The Egyptians are now in the second stage.

I usually think of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolutions as models for how the stages work. The first is relatively bloodless, the second is often the product of civil war or is the precipitating cause of civil war.

Euphoria is replaced with determination, and sometimes with surpassing violence.

The question has been raised over whether the Occupy Movement is a Revolution or not; I've answered in the affirmative in a certain sense, but my developing view is that the Occupy Movement itself is not The Revolution in the sense that it does not -- and in a way it cannot -- actually "change" things. That phase is yet to come, and what it will look like, I can't say. All I can say is "look to Europe" (and North Africa -- the uprisings in Europe and North Africa are symbiotic).

Europe at the moment is surprisingly quiet, but I doubt it will be that way for much longer. Egyptians are going through the most difficult part of their Revolution. I heard a commentator on Al Jazeera say the other day that Egypt has only had a little over 60 years of domestic rule in the last 3,000 years, and for all 7,000 years of its history, Egypt has been ruled by the military. Now, for the first time in their 7,000 year history, Egyptians are demanding an end to military rule once and for all. If they can win...

In Europe, the United States, North Africa and elsewhere, much of the initial Revolutionary fervor and activism has been carried by anarchists. I've defended anarchists for giving Americans the intellectual space for there to BE an Occupy Movement at all. It would not have happened had it been left to the "left." No way. No how.

And while the anarchist image of an ideal society has a strong appeal, it is impossible for it to be "scaled" beyond a very small community of like minded people who are often ethnically homogenous and sometimes even related. You can't have nation-states on an anarchic model, for example.

The Egyptians are demanding an end to military rule and the establishment of a democracy. The model of democracy they seem to want is the anarchic model of the General Assembly. A nation-state like Egypt cannot operate on a General Assembly model; in fact, no nation-state can operate on that model, and even many Occupations are massaging it to look and feel more like the representative model that was pioneered by... the United States. A model that is itself crumbling from decadence and corruption.

This is the dilemma of the Revolution, and I have no idea right now how it can be resolved. The desire for small-scale and comprehensible community -- which the General Assembly democratic model encapsulates -- is human nature, I think. But the comforts and conveniences of a vigorous nation-state (or dast I say it, empire) are antithetical to that low key, small scale model.

One can't live the way most Americans (still) live through an anarchic system.

The way I was thinking about these things in the summertime with "A People's Constitution" project was to use something like the Swiss model -- which is still too big -- to form a more perfect union, yadda yadda. But what if the Union itself -- which is in effect a Domestic Empire like India, China, Russia, or even Egypt -- isn't desirable?

No matter how it is reconceived, maybe the conception itself is not appropriate, and some other way of organizing community and society is better.

Anarchy can work -- it doesn't necessarily -- on the relatively small scale of a few hundred to a few thousand community members.

But a nation-state of 300,000,000? No.

What are the alternatives? I think we'll be searching for some time to come.

Howard Zinn on Revolution:

"These People Don't Know How Power Works!!"

The title of this post is based on a quote said to me during the disastrous visitation of Occupy Sacramento by the city's mayor a number of weeks ago.




I had to be away from the computer during the opening of the festivities of the Town Hall at UC Davis last night, so I was only treated to the question and answer session with the students. I'm not even sure who exactly was on the stage apart from Katehi. I will have to watch the recording when I get a chance and see if I can winkle out names and titles. I will say, however, that the Vice Chancellor sitting next to Katehi [The Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor of UC Davis Ralph J. Hexter] was one of the well-dressed people I was walking among on my way to the campus rally. I distinctly recall him speaking to his colleagues in defense of Katehi and the police and denouncing one of the unions on campus -- and being remonstrated with by someone defending the union. Hm. Interesting. (Of course, there is a caveat. I do not know these people personally. I recognized the Vice Chancellor as the man I heard while walking to the rally, but the mind and memory do curious things with external stimuli. I realize it may not have been him, but instead was someone of similar appearance and demeanor, and my "recognition" of him may be the recognition of similarity rather than the recognition of actuality.)

[Others on stage included: Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Fred Wood at the far left; Lt. Matt Carmichael, Interim Police Chief; Ralph J. Hexter; Linda Katehi; and eventually Vice Chancellor for Administrative and Resource Management John Meyer, who has actual authority over the UCD Police Department.]

It was clear from the get-go that most of these students "don't know how power works" either.

Not. A. Clue.

Some do, it's true. But under these circumstances, they had little opportunity to make a case. The game was rigged from the outset.

The situation was somewhat analogous to the Town Hall Seattle panel discussion of "Occupy Seattle" referenced in an earlier post. But no one Mic Checked the Davis Town Hall the way some folks did in Seattle, so the actuality of what was going on may not have been recognized by the participants.

By assembling administrators on a higher level, giving them microphones all the time, having them make unchallenged statements (that part is left out of the video above, I am scouting for more), and allowing ASUCD proctors to "moderate" challenges as strictly as they do (I assume they are ASUCD, but again, I'm scouting for more info), the power dynamic is this: "We are in charge here. You may or may not be recognized for a moment or two, but we will always be recognized because the Power is Ours, not yours. Got that? Good."

The other side, the students, quite simply have no power in this dynamic -- unless they seize it -- at all. That's the point of the lesson here. "We control you and everything here. You control nothing."

This is the problem with the power dynamics in the whole country, the whole wide world in fact, and this is why there is -- by necessity -- a global revolution under way.

There is no other way for the People to be heard at all; on the other hand, exposing the actual power dynamic in play -- such as the one at UC Davis last night or in the disruption of it in Seattle a few days ago -- doesn't necessarily register on the first go-round.

People are conditioned to accept this power dynamic as "natural." Challenges to it are deeply discomforting. Most of the time, most people will abide by the rules and the structure of the power dynamic on display last night at Davis and will not challenge it. To do so is not just threatening to Power, it is a threat to ones own comfort and safety. Challenges to this power dynamic will be met with brutality and worse.

Never mind that that was the topic of discussion last night.

Discussing it in the way it was discussed last night does nothing about it. Promises were made by the panel nonetheless on behalf of "changing policies." Yes, well. That's nice and all, but it is also deliberately meaningless. The students couldn't even get the panelists to describe what the current policy is.

Indeed, they were shocked to learn that no one on the stage was responsible for the actions of the UC Police in last Friday's Incident, and that the police do not report to the Chancellor, and that she has no direct control over them at all. "Then who does?" the multitude demanded to know. She couldn't quite say, she didn't really know the title of the person who did have responsibility, some Vice Chancellor of Something Or Other, he was in the room, over there somewhere....

It was a remarkable moment. But typical. Typical. Typical.

"Never reveal your actual lines of Authority, or if you must reveal them, do so in a manner that confuses the masses; be prepared to change those lines of Authority suddenly."

So the Vice Chancellor of Something or Other was found and brought to the stage and spoke briefly from the podium, complaining that his "portfolio" had been expanded a couple of years ago when the number of Vice Chancellors was reduced, and supervision of the UC Police on campus was dropped in his lap, oh poor pitiful me.

Oh, and he'd come to the University from the Bay Area, where he had served as Assistant City Manager (OMG!) somewhere (it's in the video, I'll try to review it later today and clarify) Yes, better to clarify. Having reviewed the video, I'm kind of gobsmacked. This man was City Manager of Davis before taking up his role at UC, and I think there may be an unpleasant connection between him and a relative. I'm not sure, however, so I will say no more about it. His thinking was... or "the University's thinking" was... that they were looking at Oakland, and what happened there, and to a lesser extent at UC Berkeley, and they didn't want that to happen at UC Davis, so some of the decisions that were made about policing the Occupy demonstrations at Davis were based on what had happened in Oakland -- he said "Oakland!" many times. "Maybe it wasn't the right decision."

Ya think?

And?

"Well, it didn't go the way we'd hoped last Friday."

YA THINK??!

It was a revelatory moment but not particularly instructive. Well, it was instructive if you knew how to process it. The UC Police, effectively, are run out of an obscure office, by someone no one knows, on behalf of relatively shadowy interests, essentially independently of the rest of the University's operations, and their actions are based on "fears" of what might-could happen, because something happened somewhere else that they didn't want to repeat.

In other words, it's a DHS-type operation.

If you parse his commentary sufficiently, you see that the police were sent in as a riot squad because that's how the police are "supposed to" address this kind of encampment defiance by students. Policy, in other words. But what happened at Berkeley when the UC Police went berserk backfired, and they didn't want a repeat of that. It looked bad for one thing. Brought discredit to the University. Yadda yadda. So. The decision of how to break up the demonstration was left to the field commander of the operation -- Lt. Pike -- with the understanding that batons were not to be used except defensively, and only if absolutely necessary if the officers were attacked by the demonstrators.

If the demonstration had to be broken up, some other tactic had to be used. Pepper spray? Well, that's always good! Yes! Let's do pepper spray! Yay!

(It has been pointed out that the spray that was actually used was most likely bear repellant -- though some have denied it -- but that in any case it may have been far stronger than "normal" pepper spray.)

Of course the operational details would be left to the field commanders.

The fact that this Vice Chancellor came to the University from the city manager realm rather than the academic realm is vitally important. In California, police forces are mostly under the authority of the appointed City Managers, not the mayors or elected city councils.

This was something Occupy Sacramento learned very late in the game it seemed to me; though I and others had pointed it out numerous times, the notion did not actually click until the Mayor Himself said so at the disastrous GA he attended.

What this Vice Chancellor was afraid of what that the Occupy demonstration would "get out of hand" -- the same fear at UC Berkeley, BTW -- and "become like Oakland."

There's a whole world view involved in the idea of "becoming like Oakland." Ultimately, a statement like that has nothing to do with the Occupy Movement; it has to do with deep and abiding prejudice against the People of Oakland, many of whom aren't exactly white.

Many of those who are white in Oakland are social/political radicals.

Visit almost any UC campus today and you perhaps will notice that a large proportion of the student body... isn't... white.

You will note, too, that most of the administrators... are.

In other words, many UC campuses may look more "like Oakland" than many of the administrators are comfortable with.

And that discomfort with the People is a consistent issue within the City Manager realm. By and large they are not at all comfortable with the demographic changes going on in California.

Enough said about that.

Katehi was challenged on her experience as a student in Athens when the University she was attending was attacked by the fascist military junta -- and on her recent advisory role on behalf of the Greek government's revision of the University's asylum policy. She got very heated. This was one of the only times she became animated. Most of the time, she was just "tired."

She said that the students who rebelled in 1973 were "mainstream" not radicals at all. On the other hand, the University has been burnt to the ground "twice" she said, by "anarchists" since then. All the Universities in Greece have been "taken over" by "anarchists," she said, and the policies she advised the Greek government on recently had to do with restoring control of the Universities to the People and restoring a "safe" academic environment for the students. She did not advise the (Socialist! she pointed out) Greek government to put police forces back on the campuses the way they had been during the dictatorship.

[Note: from what I have been able to find out, her story is... not entirely true. This is a story of what happened in 1973. I won't get into the details here, but you can read some of eyewitness accounts of what was happening in Athens in December, 2008 -- which is when the anarchists took over the Polytechnic briefly -- here, here, here, here, and here.]

Yes. Well.

A whole other realm of interests and ideas opened up with this sequence.

This fear of "anarchists taking over" is perhaps the key to understanding why so much brutality has been unleashed on Occupy demonstrations so consistently in so many places all over the country and all over the world, and why it was so casually unleashed at UC Berkeley and then at UC Davis. (Not to mention all the other campuses that have experienced police assaults lately -- and there have been many.)

"Anarchists" are the New Terrorists.

Make no mistake.

That's the God-forsaken Truth.

We are all so far over the cliff and down the rabbit hole now that it sometimes seems there is no way back to sanity.

Yet the Revolution abides.

It's going to take me much longer than I have this morning to process all of this into any sort of coherent form. But the Bigger Picture of what is going on is becoming clearer.

I'd love to hear how others see the dynamics in the video above.

Obama Mic Checked

It was bound to happen.

The Mic Check was about the more than 4,000 peaceful protestors who have been arrested so far in the struggle to be heard above the din of the grinding gears of the broken political/media confluence, but despite the President's expressions of concern and solidarity with Frustrated Americans -- "You are why I ran for office in the first place!" -- he failed to address the issue of the thousands upon thousands of arrests, the hundreds upon hundreds of injuries nor even the fact that the voices of large segments of the population continue to be drowned out, as they were at his own little get-together, by the mindless noise of a system in crisis.

The fact that the President has now been Mic Checked, and he addressed nothing of the substance of the People's Petition presented to him in the Mic Check is emblematic of why there must be a Movement, a Revolt, and a Revolution.

They that rule do not hear, do not know, and do not wish to be bothered.

The "Town Hall" with Linda Katehi and the UC Davis community will be partially video streamed here from 5:00p to 6:00p (PST) though the meeting is slated to last till 7:00p:



Link

The University administration has asked that the final hour of the "Town Hall" not be streamed or recorded in any fashion so that those in attendance may speak... in private.

We'll see how THAT goes... heh.

"Which Side Are You On, Boys. Which Side Are You On?"

Athens, November 17, 1973:



Herself, la Katehi, was a student at the Athens Polytechnic University when these events happened.

And now comes news that she helped write the following a few months ago:

University campuses are unsafe. While the [Greek] Constitution permits the university leadership to protect campuses from elements inciting political instability, Rectors have shown themselves unwilling to exercise these rights and fulfill their responsibilities, and to take the decisions needed in order to guarantee the safety of the faculty, staff, and students. As a result, the university administration and teaching staff have not proven themselves good stewards of the facilities with which society has entrusted them.

The politicizing of universities – and in particular, of students – represents participation in the political process that exceeds the bounds of logic. This contributes to the rapid deterioration of tertiary education.

Which had the effect of abolishing University asylum, and from what I can tell, actually reverts Greek universities to the status of "politics free zones" much as California and other state universities were prior to the Free Speech Movement.

Yes, of course Katehi wants to "work with" everyone to make things better.

She remembers 17 November 1973?

In what way I wonder?

"Which side are you on boys, which side are you on?"

------------------------------

This is an even more remarkable story about what happened in Athens at the Polytechnic University in November of 1973, and what 17 Nov means to the Greek People.

ATHENS–November 17: a date that haunts Greece. It’s the date when the uprising of several hundred of students, who stood up against the military dictatorship by occupying the Athens Polytechnic, was brutally crushed. The iconic photo of a tank driving through the Polytechnic’s gate is a symbol of freedom for (probably) all Greeks.

It was back in 1973. The student uprising was crushed but the beggining of the end for the military junta begun that day. The colonels fell from power a year later, in the summer of 1974.

To describe how central this day is for modern Greeks one needs to mention a few simple facts.

• One of the characteristics that the new Greek state has (or had until recently) was the so called “university asylum”. It was an emotionally heavy (due to the Polytechnic uprising) law that officialy prohibited the police from entering any university building. From then onwards, the university compounds would be an area of free expression. In the decades that followed that law meant a lot of freedoms indeed, but few abuses as well. Police only stepped inside university areas after the local dean would ask the prosecutor for their presence. The freedom of speech boomed but Greek universities became at times a haven for different sorts of criminal activity (from rioters who caused mayhem and then hid in university buildings, playing hitch and hike with riot police, to people selling copied DVDs). In any case that law was so emotional for Greeks that, despite its occasional abuses, people were more or less supporting or tolerating it.
• Another illustrative fact is that the biggest terrorist organization in Greece was named after that date. November 17 aka 17N. It was the Greek version of Red Army Faction or the Red Brigades, a pure urban guerilla movement targeting individuals who were connected with the dictatorship or the establishment and was relatively popular, especially up until the end of the 1980s.
• The 1967-1974 dictatorship was one of those CIA sponsored coup d’ etats that were so popular back then. The American role behind the scenes would never wash away from our collective memory. Even today, people in the streets would tell you things like ‘The Americans are behind everything”. The first victim of 17N was Richard Welch, CIA’s station chief in Athens back in 1975. The last one was Stephen Saunders in 2000, he was the military attaché of the British Embassy in Athens. So you get the picture and now you know all about the infamous Greek anti-americanism. This is why the 17 November demonstration always begin from the Polytechnic and ends at the American Embassy.

The graffiti on the Polytechnic’s gate reads “Kick the USA Out” and “Kick NATO Out”

There is much more at the link. It is becoming clearer and clearer to me that a Pandora's Box has been opened (again), and how or when or where we will see a resolution, or even if there will be one, is not for us to know.

Just A Reminder: The Fascists Won

[Students and a sign at the Occupy Rally at UC Davis, 11.21.11. The sign says: "You can blind our eyes but you can never blind our minds."]

Over at dKos, Meteor Blades has been assembling Occupy Poster Art -- along with other art from various revolutions and rebellions of the past (not, interestingly, including much from his own/my own era of rebellion) -- and finding it good.

It is; it's wonderful. I've been really impressed with many of the graphic images associated with the Occupy Movement. When I was at Davis yesterday, there were any number of large scale, freshly silk screened, and very dramatic posters being passed out by various groups to their members. They mostly dealt with Katehi's blunders, the police overreaction, and the increases in tuition and fees. But what struck me was their graphic power -- a few simple words, in stark black and red or black and yellow, on large sheets, some of them still wet. They show up in some of the pictures I took yesterday, but I wasn't really concentrating my camera on them. Maybe I should have!

The video below (that I scarfed from the comments on the second of MB's poster threads) shows some of the startling graphics of the Spanish Civil War.



I would remind the gentle reader that the Fascist/Falangists won that little contretemps, and it would be decades before the Spanish People were able to liberate themselves.

And now it looks like the Fascists have made stunning a comeback thanks to the inability of the Socialists who have been in power to address, let alone meet, the needs of the Spanish People -- rather than endlessly service the demands of their banker-owners.

Oh, of course, the "center right" PPP, "People's Party," isn't exactly Fascist, but it's close enough for modern day conditions. And this is the problem throughout Europe. The Socialist and Social Democratic parties have failed the People just as surely as the Democrats have in this country. They have no credibility with the People any more, so they are falling in election after election, generally to whatever the Rightist opposition is. It's not because the People have any greater faith in the Rightists. Not by a long shot. It is because the Left in Europe, such as it is, has sold the People out to the Banksters, everywhere.

The horrible irony electorates face is that the rightist parties -- while apparently as beholden to the Banksters as the Socialists are -- seem to have a little more flexibility in dealing with the increasingly strident demands of the People. Strangely -- and not yet compellingly -- they may be able to address them more appropriately than the Socialists could.

On the other hand, the Indignado Movement throughout Spain is reinvigorated. The tension between the Government and the People will only increase.

Meanwhile, the graphic and literary images coming out of the Occupy Movement both here and abroad continue to raise consciousness, the brutality of suppression continues to prick the conscience, and the Revolution continues its evolution.

It's not the same now as it was yesterday, and it won't be the same tomorrow as it is today.

More than one person has pointed out to me that the way the Center of (Revolutionary) Energy keeps shifting is remarkable -- and appropriate. "You can't keep it in one place," someone said to me. "It will get stale and old and the authorities and the people will become accustomed to it. For a Revolution to succeed, the Center must keep moving."

And so it is. Yesterday, the Center was Davis, a little University town in California's Central Valley. Where it will be today, I don't yet know. Where it will be tomorrow, no one knows.

The Incident at UC Davis has had a profound effect on the course of events; perhaps it represents a turning point. But so many events have represented turning points in the organic development of this Movement. Just the week before, it was the Incident at UC Berkeley. And before that it was the Incident in Oakland. Before that, it was Denver, and before that, it was Chicago. Remember Boston? And of course, there will always be New York.

But then, New York came from somewhere, didn't it? It wasn't directly from Spain, it was from Canada, specifically Vancouver.

Round and round and in and out, weaving a Global Revolution that can't be stopped. At least no one who has an interest in doing so has figured out how to do it yet.

More and more people don't want it stopped.

Don't let the Fascists win this time.

Creativity and movement are the keys. I saw an image yesterday when I was watching Tim Pool's wrap up of the events in New York; he was outside the occupied New School building, on Fifth Avenue near Union Square. The building was "liberated" last Thursday and has been held without much official interference ever since. (They say it is because the New School's board is in favor of Occupy Wall Street, but who knows?) Tim was walking around the building describing the banners and posters hung in the windows and on the walls, and then he came to something that was such a startling vision: there high up on one of the pilasters of the building was a bright yellow tent.

The image below is far from perfect -- it's a still from the video stream -- but the message on the tent says:

"You cannot evict an idea whose time has come."

There you have it. The most dangerous object in the world (a tent) carrying the most dangerous message.

Back From UC Davis

[The rally is still going on, so if you want to watch, go to one of the livestreams.]

This was Katehi's appearance:



I didn't take the video; it was posted over at dKos. The video is from Lee Fang, who has been doing excellent work on the Incident at UC Davis. All props.

I did get a video of Nathan Brown's challenge to Katehi, though, and I'll post it as soon as I can upload it. Warning: I was standing at the side of the stage, and a speaker cabinet and hand held signs blocked my view most of the time. That's OK by me. What he had to say is what mattered.



I'm still stunned by what I witnessed.

When I was (much) younger, I spent quite a lot of time on the Davis campus though I was never a student there. This was during my early theater career, and I was mostly involved with the staff of the Theater Arts Department who were generally very cooperative in helping to ensure projects I was involved with were completed as well as possible. Thinking back, I only have the fondest memories of my experiences at Davis and with the professors and staff there. These are still, to my mind, good people. UC Davis was also a primary venue for many musical artists that played the area. I became pretty familiar with the campus and the personnel.

But that was a long time ago. The campus has changed since then. Well, parts of it have. There is now a massive new performing arts center, and lots and lots of new buildings scattered around. But the core of the campus, the Quad, is pretty much the way it was many years ago.

I walked quite a distance through the campus to get to the Quad where the rally was to be held, and I was frequently among students, staff and faculty who were on their way to the rally as well. Many of them were talking about "what happened," and it seemed that most had a low opinion of Katehi, although a few -- who I noticed were dressed very well -- defended her and her actions, as well as those of the police. Oh my.

As I got closer to the Quad, the number of people headed toward it grew and grew, and finally, when I was on the edge of the Quad, just across from the Library, I could hear chanting: "Whose University? OUR University!" very loud and boistrous. There were thousands of people assembled on the Quad when I got there, and many more kept streaming in.

I would say, from my vantage point -- which was mostly on the left side of the stage -- there were at least 5,000 people there, and there could well have been many more as there were many people behind me and I didn't get very many pictures.

There were a number of people who testified about their experience being pepper sprayed, and I would say that David Buscho was the most effective in presenting both a first person statement and his case for the end of this regime of terror against students, faculty and staff. He was very emotional about it, and his emotion was just right. He's also the UCD student who put up the petition citing Nathan Brown's open letter calling for Chancellor Linda Katehi's immediate resignation. That petition has now been signed by almost 68,000 individuals.

The Regime of Terror was a common theme among the speakers. What happened the other day with the pepper spray was just a relatively mild sign of just how they are being forced -- to pay more in tuition and fees, to buckle under to more and more arbitrary impositions of authority, to submit.

My heart went out to them. I "knew" the situation at the Universities and other in public higher education institutions in the state had been on a downward spiral for years. And brutality toward those who got out of line was part of the process of the downward slide. Speakers mentioned that their experiences the other day were awful, but they weren't new. Campus after campus has been subjected to this sort of police state behavior at least since 2009, and in some cases since well before that.

Nathan Brown spoke eloquently about just how awful it is. He challenged Katehi directly -- she was standing by the side of the stage surrounded by media, her own functionaries, and others (I was surprised at who some of them were!) He faced her and spoke directly to her, demanding not just her resignation but the removal of all police from UC campuses. And justice. He was a powerful speaker, and I was reminded, just a little bit, of Mario Savio. Savio was a graduate student, however, not yet a professor!

He was followed by members of the English faculty who vigorously supported his call. Other speakers also called for strict controls on the UC Police Department, or in some cases, its complete disbanding. This is similar to the calls this summer to disband the BART transit police.

The problem, of course, is straightforward enough. Militarized police forces, whether in Oakland or on campuses or anywhere else are a danger to the rights, health and happiness of the American People, and that is what people are reacting so strongly to.

The efforts to but a shiny gloss on this turd of police brutality are failing.

People of Color spoke eloquently if bluntly about how this sort of brutal police behavior that the general public is just beginning to recognize (again) has been going on in poor and minority communities since forever. And police repression can be and often is -- see Egypt -- much worse abroad.

I think the assembled multitudes were clear about that. One thing to keep in mind is that the student body is pretty diverse ethnically (which it really wasn't in my day), and many of the students today have experienced or know those who have experienced the kind of police brutality that has long been routine in minority communities.

There were calls for Katehi to speak shortly after Nathan Brown had concluded his fiery oration, but the crowd was reminded that the Chancellor was "on stack" and she would have to wait just like anyone else. "She's not anyone special." So she waited.

Finally -- but not last to speak by any means -- she appeared. Downcast. Withdrawn. She had given an interview to Michael Krasny of KQED radio earlier today in which she repeated most of what she had to say in her Aggie TV interview from yesterday. Nathan Brown and some of those who were pepper sprayed also appeared on the program, separately as did a couple of police "experts."

At the rally, Katehi had little to say, but she did apologize for what happened to the students -- and many seem to think she was sincere about that. She seemed to choke up and even burst into tears when she saw signs held up by students that read, "17 November 1973. Athens. Do you remember?" She mentions a "plaque" with that date on it and says she remembers it. She was there.

This is what poster Panglozz has to say about Katehi and the events of November 13-17, 1973, in Athens:

Athens NTUA (aka Polytechnic) was the site of a ground-breaking student strike from November 13-17, 1973. To this day, Nov. 17 is a national student holiday in Greece.

The Greek Junta rammed the gates of the University with a tank, killing students, and sealing the end of the dictatorship scarcely 6 months later.

Katehi graduated from NTUA in 1977, and was present at the time of the student strike.

Katehi knows visceraly that a student rising, and political suppression can spell the end of the regime. She appears to be of "mainstream" political views, not overtly reactionary, but dislikes the trajectory of modern Greek politics in favor of a more technocratic or corporatist guidance.

Her current position is that of the Greek Junta in November 1973. That knowledge must be deeply painful to her, since the facsist Junta is universally discredited.

She also knows that a single campus revolt can light the spark that burns a corrupt system to the ground.

In an interview, she explains some of her political philosophy vis-a-vis

http://usa.greekreporter.com/...

Despite the rhetoric though, the political system is not addressing these issues. Why is that in your opinion and what is the solution to actually re-launching the next Apollo Program? Are President Obama’s goals realistic without a willingness on behalf of the broader political system and the American people?

The answer to this is very complex. For starters, our current political system is weak and true leadership is badly needed but lacking. We have a society that has created needs that are expensive. We are experiencing demographic changes such as the aging of the baby boom generation, advances in medicine that prolong the average lifespan, an expectation for better health care and a higher quality of life. At the same time, we have a societal crisis of values and an unwillingness to see that this course is unsustainable in the long-run. The result is the creation of serious political gaps, polarization along party lines and our leadership and voters losing the sense of what our country’s strategic goals should be.

What about Greece? What are your thoughts on the sovereign debt crisis there? What caused it, who was responsible and do you see the country emerging from the doldrums? What policies do you think need to be implemented to successfully improve the situation?

Let me start by saying that I cannot speak with much certainty about Greece. I haven’t lived there for a long time, so my information and empirical experience is limited on that subject. What my belief is that the political leadership in Greece made grave directional mistakes during the late 70s and the 80s. It had an opportunity to develop a functioning democracy and bring its economy closer to European standards but it failed. There were decisions made that compromised education and light manufacturing and drove away whatever productive capacity existed. The policies implemented lead to what we see today: heavy indebtedness, outdated infrastructure, a counter-productive culture and eroded educational institutions.

What do you make of the leadership of George Papandreou?

I am hopeful with the direction of the new government. Hard choices need to be made and the new leadership seems like is making a good effort at addressing them. In Greece you have a good talent pool but also an anachronistic bureaucratic system that needs to be fundamentally changed. Only time will show which one will prevail.

by Panglozz on Sun Nov 20, 2011 at 12:46:56 PM PST

The point is that she has seen how a student movement and an attempted -- over the top -- crack down can lead to the toppling of fascist dictatorships. She knows. She's been there. She's seen it for herself.

And somehow, I suspect that somewhere deep inside she recognizes that what is going on throughout the UC system is way too close to what was going on in Greek universities back in the day. She knows exactly where it can lead.

I saw her leave the stage, apparently in tears, and I followed the scrum of news media as she was walked across the campus, apparently headed back to the administration building. I saw her face a few times, and she was clearly devastated and abject. Defeat? I couldn't tell. But emotional devastation, absolutely. She was walked (there were two fellows from Occupy Sacramento on either side of her) back toward the administration building, but at an intersection in the road the scrum stopped. A car that I'd just passed in front of crossing the street pulled to a stop. After a moment or two hesitation, she was escorted to the car and she got in the back seat. The car drove away to shouts of "Don't come back!"

People around me asked what just happened. I said she'd gotten in a car and was driven away. One said to me, "That's too bad. I wanted to shake her hand."

No matter what happens, views differ, eh?

I decided to come back and post what I could about it. I understand there is a call for a general strike on November 28 -- system wide. This is the day the University Regents have cowardly set for a video conference meeting. Should be interesting.

And what to do about the militarized UC Police force and how to restore the system to the People is still a quandry.

I've been to many demonstrations over the years, but this was really something else again. It wasn't just young people speaking their minds, it was them taking charge of their fate.

Nothing is going to be the same again.