"Power Concedes Nothing... "

BREAKING: Boston Occupation "cleared."

So far, Power has conceded nothing to the Occupy Movement, not even, in many cases, their presence before the Throne. The point being to ignore the rabble, and if that doesn't work, then to punish them. That is the range of accommodation many of our rulers have decided is just and proper in dealing with the Lesser People, while many of those who rule, it would seem, have no idea there are actual "people" beneath their own lofty status. There may be numbers, animals, statistics, but not actual humans for whom one need have any care.

This attitude from Above has been customary for many years, and it is a main driver for the revolt/revolution under way. There is only so much bullshit that any people will accept from their rulers before they take matters into their own hands and politely or impolitely push back. Americans were shockingly disinclined to do that while the National Security State was being developed and implemented, but now that it has been combined with an enduring -- seemingly endless -- economic collapse together with a stolen future for the Young, there's little to be lost by rising up.

So long as one has hope for the future, at least in this country, there is little agitation. When the future is lost -- or stolen as it has been -- all bets are off.

What's going on in the halls of Power in Europe is startling for its gross stupidity and blindness. Britain pulled out of the Eurozone Plan not because of any scruples, no. It was because Britain couldn't wring something worse out of the assembled nobles and nabobs in Brussels. They wanted the unfettered ability to continue to bring economic risk and harm to everyone including the High and the Mighty. The Europeans were content with limiting harm to the Lower Orders.

But... that just makes things worse all around. Do those people get it? No? What is the problem with them?

It's the same problem with the Ruling Class practically everywhere. They have decoupled from their People to the extent that they don't even recognize them as humans. The People are -- at best -- numbers to be managed or resources to be exploited. They have no say in their governments any more. They have no status, legal, moral, or otherwise, that the Rulership believes it need pay attention to.

The Rulers serve their Masters -- and those Masters are not US.

They build Social Unrest into their spreadsheets. It's a given. The masses will be Discontent. It is How They Are. Suppression of Mass Discontent is therefore budgeted, indeed, it is given a prominent place in all government budgets. Tactics for suppression are learned and deployed globally. The People are not to be allowed to Arise, and if they try to, any Movement not sanctioned from Above (as some have been) shall be crushed forthwith.

Oh? Movements and even Revolutions "sanctioned from Above?" Of course. It's happened many times, most prominently during the dissolution of the Soviet Empire and the collapse of the Soviet Union. This was not at all an accident nor was it necessarily spontaneously generated from among the masses. It was clear to some observers at the time that these revolts were being engineered from... well, somewhere and not necessarily on site. Even the recent Arab Spring has been scrutinized for possible revolutionary engineering from elsewhere. Particularly so in the case of Libya, but seemingly so in the case of most of the others. You can almost tell whether a Revolution is "engineered" rather than spontaneous by how the US Government responds. If it is negative toward the Revolution, then it is spontaneous; if it is positive toward the Revolution then it is (or at least a significant part of it is) "engineered" from without.

There has been some chatter suggesting that the Occupy Movement is itself "engineered" by some sort of shadowy Black Op. I don't know that that's the case, but I can see why the notion might arise. For years, there was no populist movement at all in this country, then suddenly there was the Tea Party, which was self-evidently engineered. I traced its origin to the Grassfire Resistance Movement created pretty much the day of Obama's election victory -- but prepared well before it -- by a couple of Hate radio jocks tied in with the right people in the right wing. You will notice if you check the link that "Grassfire" is gone. As if it never was.

In a sense, it wasn't. It was obviously a sham "organization" to begin with. It was superseded by the Tea Party following Rick Santelli's obviously carefully prepared and presented rant against homeowners potentially getting bailed out as part of TARP or other government package. Note: there has been no homeowners' bailout, and in fact, there has never been any mention of it in the halls of Power -- except for Santelli's rant.

The Tea Party emerged fully-formed and obviously heavily funded and promoted by a plethora of Right Wing Interests from the get-go. They were spending big time and using every propaganda outlet they could get their hands on -- which was ultimately practically all of them -- to spread their message. Strangely, that message was heard and acted on with alacrity in the halls of Power. Americans had ne'er seen the like of it.

Not only was there no suppression of this "movement", there was no effort to protect the August Members of Congress who were being... openly threatened by armed TeaBaggers. This contrasted wildly with the intensity of overpolicing of dissent at the political conventions the summer before, where there were mass round ups prior to the Republican Convention, mass arrests during it, and other extraordinary suppression tactics employed.

The complete and utter lack of any such tactics employed against the 'Baggers, despite their open threats, showed as clearly as you could want that this was an "approved movement" -- even corporate- state sponsored. The scene of instigator report-backs to the Kochs was instructive. Or it should have been, if the obviousness of the Hate Radio and FOX "News" promotions weren't clues.

An irony of this sort of thing is that the nature of the beast, once recognized, has an interesting effect on the way people perceive democracy and representative government. The 'Baggers were able to force what they "wanted" into and onto government, but some of those who initially participated realized they were being used to support corporate interests not their own, that in fact they had no interests that the corporate interests needed to pay attention to. That realization is shocking when it comes -- if it comes. They realized, too, that this wasn't a genuine movement of and by the People at all. It was a corporate-government sponsored and supported "movement" intended as an illusion to mimic a mass movement, in order to ensure that corporate interests would always be... how shall I say this?... first at the table.

And so it is. Still.

Seeing how this works, though, discredits democracy in the eyes of those who witness it, and that seems to be one of the primary principles of these ersatz "revolutions".

They are called "democratic" revolutions or revolutions in support of democracy, but in the end they wind up discrediting democracy (such as has happened in the case of Iraq and elsewhere. Have you heard about Russia lately?)

We see the same sort of thing in our own government in that the Congress and President seem to have no connection with -- or interest in -- the People at all (except to manipulate them), and yet they are unable to function even on behalf of their corporate masters. Stalemate is the name of the game. We've been down this road before, and it led to Civil War -- which is not likely to happen again, but something will. Something's happening here as it is...

So the question arises, is Occupy for real or not? Given the suppression actions of Authority, it seems fairly obvious... but still, there is lingering suspicion. If the 'Baggers were a pretense, couldn't the Occupy be one as well?

Sure, but it doesn't much matter any more, because even if it were started as pretense (which it doesn't seem to have been) but instead seems to have originated as something of a lark, it has become a genuine populist/anarchist/liberationist/communitarian movement the like of which has not been seen in this country since the 1960's. Yet the Occupy Movement is quite different.

It seems completely organic and it cannot be commercialized (come on, the biggest "commercial" enterprise associated with Occupy is making buttons, and the whole thing is built around little pop up tents.) It has spread organically -- not forced at all -- through social media and the popular acceptance of an idea: A Better World Is Possible.

The fear of co-optation once was very strong. Though Dems and their associated political committees and union supporters were thought to be the most likely co-opters, the ones who were actually trying to do it (at least until recently) were the Zeitgeisters and the Ron Paul campaigners. They've largely faded away. There are actual political operatives (some from the Democratic Party) involved in some Occupations, but they do not have a controlling role, and if they ever did have one, the Occupation would rather quickly implode. However, in my view, the Movement is top-heavy with lawyers, and the lawyers have been essentially preventing the individual Occupations and the overall Movement from becoming something that actually threatens Established Power.

Lawyers want to litigate -- and this isn't a litigation Movement. I don't want to use this post to bash lawyers, but I'm not really sure the ones who are involved in the Occupations are serving the Movement more than peripherally, though their role has been central in many cases due to the large number of arrests and injuries and the many brutal and destructive suppressions.

Yet in fact, the problem is the law itself -- or rather the nature of that which gives rise to the law. Focus on law -- rather than on that which gives rise to it, our entire corrupt system -- can be crippling and devitializing. Of course, that's part of the point of litigation!

The chief risk going forward is normalization. Once the Occupy Movement becomes "normalized" it becomes part of the background noise and ultimately it becomes irrelevant. What if they had a Revolution and nobody came?

The failure of Power to concede anything of substance to the Movement, however, all but ensures that it won't be normalized or marginalized any time soon. Continuing and bigger efforts are under way that don't involve tents except as symbols. The General Strikes and the Port shut-downs and the Foreclosure resistance -- among many other actions directed at the "1%" will have a cumulative effect. The fact that so many "ordinary" people have now been directly subjected to the police state tactics used to suppress the movement (tactics that have a long history in some communities) has had the effect of awakening Americans to just what kind of a rigorous authoritarian state they live in.

Fewer and fewer are inclined to tolerate it.

What happens in Europe as Austerity grips the continent and what happens in North Africa as the Revolutions are betrayed will set the tone for the next phase of the Revolution in the US of A.

I'm sure there are think tanks pondering and forces of repression assembling.

But as we all know by now, you can't evict an idea whose time has come.