The Yearning

"Hey hey, ho ho, 

These killer cops have got to go!
Hey hey, ho ho,
These racist cops have got to go!"

That's one of the older chants being used during the current series of anti-police violence actions in Missouri and all over the country. 


People, particularly young people, are fed up with the killer-cop culture that's infected police -- apparently everywhere. By and large they seem impervious to the plaints of the People, and they seem to lack any hint of conscience and compassion as well. Witness Darren Wilson's attitude toward his killing of Mike Brown.

The summary execution of little Tamir Rice in Cleveland is one of the most egregious examples of the police killer culture -- simply drive up and shoot and then leave the victim to bleed out until dead or nearly so. It's incredible. And yet versions of that horrible scenario have been happening for decades, and something like it happens practically every day somewhere in this country.

And of course there are the constant lies out of police forces everywhere about these killings. The lies began immediately when little Tamir Rice was killed, but we've seen the practice of constant lying about these killings for many a long year. The lies are always accompanied by smear campaigns against the victims. In the minds of police, it is always the fault of the victim -- who always needed killing anyway. No matter the facts, it's always the victim's own responsibility that he or she got dead, never that of the police who killed them.

Racism, of course, is part of the pathology that infects police forces. As some historians have pointed out, civil police forces (as opposed to military) began as slave patrols and militias, the purpose being to control the restive Africans forced to work for slave-masters, kidnapped for bounty, used and abused for the profits and convenience of the planter-class.

When civil police were established as a department of city administrations, the racism that was at the basis of slave patrols and militias was transferred to police departments, amplified and extended to encompass anyone or any group designated "The Other" -- if you weren't white, prosperous, and "normal," you would be subject whatever abuse and murder the police cared to commit, and for the most part, there would be no consequences and no justice -- for you.

In some ways, it's gotten better. There are some modest controls these days that didn't exist when I was a boy. On the other hand, because of the original sins and the nature of policing in this country, the racism at its foundation is still apparent in the astonishingly high arrest, killing, and incarceration rates of blacks and other minorities compared to whites.

And young people yearn for it to stop.

That's what the demonstrations breaking out all over the country are all about. The demonstrators demand -- yes, demand -- that this crap stop, that the killing stop, that the war police are conducting on the people stop.

End it. Now.

It's clear the police are stunned. They don't understand why the People would be up in arms about what to the police is their highest duty and accomplishment -- killing the Bad Guys, even if the Bad Guy is little Tamir Rice. He was a Negro With A Gun, and according to all the best practices and protocols, Negroes With Guns are to be shot on sight. That's how the police protect you'n'me you see. We should be grateful, we should honor them with parades and medals.

Of course the young don't see it that way. Not even. The young -- especially -- see the police preying on and villainizing the most vulnerable over and over and over again, brutalizing and killing with impunity. Particularly the mentally ill and minorities. Over and over and over again. Without remorse, without conscience, without any understanding that what they're doing is destroying lives, families and communities -- and it has got to stop.

It's clear that police are by and large confused and offended by the lack faith and understanding the young have for the difficult "split-second" choices police must make and the peril they are always in from the predators they must neutralize every day.

Even if it's little Tamir Rice.

There are demons to slay after all.

Demons.

The young yearn for an end to this madness.

And they won't rest until it ends.

Nuclear Panaceas

This is something of an expansion on yesterday's post, which was itself more of a placeholder than a fully thought out piece. There were literally so many things swirling in my mind yesterday, like the whirlwinds on the Jornada de los Muertos, the Journey of the Dead, the name the Spanish conquistadores gave to the plain on which the Trinity Test took place.

"Other-worldliness" was very much a factor in the adventure. Even getting to the Site -- especially the slower-than-slow progress through the Stallion Range Gate -- was part of the Other World sense of it all. Once inside the gate, we passed by the site where I remember seeing ruins of temporary classroom and other buildings, fabric walled, torn to shreds, with desks and chairs and chalkboards still in them when I was there before, but now they were gone, just the platforms and concrete pads on which they stood still visible.

That reminded me somehow of a place near where I once lived in California. It had been a transit camp for Japanese internees, one that was quite notorious in its day. It once consisted of row on row of drab and dreary barracks into which the Japs (as they were known) were crammed until transport was available to haul them to their final camp at Tule Lake or Manzanar or wherever.

Apparently after the War, there had been a big fire, and all the hutments and barracks and latrines and whatnot had burned to the ground. The site had been abandoned and had pretty much returned to the wild. If the military or anyone else owned it, there was no sign.

However, though the buildings were gone, the concrete pads on which they stood were still there when I was living nearby (I was then about 12 or 13). And the pads were littered with charred wood and broken and fused glass, a lot of which was green. There were no artifacts that I can recall, though there might have been some basins or door knobs or what have you lost in the weeds that surrounded the pads and had grown up through the cracked asphalt that had once been roadways between the buildings.

I didn't know what this place had been for some time after I first explored the ruins. Then my mother told me. She knew. She'd been stationed at the air base not far from this site during the War. She knew what it was and what it was for because it was right there when she was stationed at the base (she'd joined the Women's Army Air Corps) and everyone on base knew why it was there and what it was for. It was the transit camp for the Japs -- both when they were headed out to the distant concentration camps and when they were finally allowed to return to what was left of their homes in 1945. In between times, the military had occupied the buildings as additional base housing.

At that time, I could barely imagine what had happened during the War, though talk about it and movies about it, and reminiscence about World War II were ever-present during my childhood. We often think about the Depression as being the formative social and cultural factor of 20th Century America, but it was actually World War II -- the War which changed everything.

My mother had been friends with a Japanese American farm family before the War, and briefly, once they were rounded up for the concentration camps, she had taken care of their farm, hopeful that they would not be away for very long. But the farm was much more than she could handle, and when she heard that they would be gone "for the duration," she turned its care  over to an Anglo neighbor who was not particularly friendly with the family who was sent to Manzanar or Tule Lake or one of the other internment camps.

Soon thereafter, she joined the Women's Army Air Corps, she found herself stationed near where the Japanese American family had been held before they were taken to wherever it was they were going.

Photo by Dorothea Lange, May, 1942, Japanese American family being escorted to their barracks at a transit camp for internees

These were quite miserable shelters, not even up to standards of chicken coops, which is what my mother had called them. "Not fit for human beings". She said that what had happened to these people was an outrage, completely uncalled for. And she blamed a single individual for it: Earl Warren, in 1942 California Attorney General, who was the force behind the forces that sent the Japs to the concentration camps. He was the one who demanded it incessantly, went to Washington and got the orders from the President that put the whole dreadful business into motion. Earl Warren, who would become governor. He had ambitions, didn't he? It was easy to pander to the prejudices of California's Anglo population. And Warren was no slacker when it came to pandering...

But after he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Eisenhower, he changed. 180°, almost. Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 started a process of anti-Jim Crow and civil rights legislation and court findings that would transform the deep racial animosities and other prejudices held by so many Americans into... something else. They're not gone, not by a long shot, but they no longer hold such sway over American society and sense of justice.

Well, not like they once did at any rate.

After we passed by the pads and platforms of the no longer present temporary buildings inside the Stallion Gate on the way to Trinity Site, I spotted something reddish-brown by the side of the road. I couldn't make out what it was until we were passing right beside it and I saw the ribs sticking up: OMG, it was a cow, the carcass of a cow which had apparently perished right beside the base road and whose innards had been consumed by ravens and buzzards and coyotes and whatnot, leaving only hide and bone...

A cow? How did a cow get there? This was on base, and so far as I know, they don't run herds there. There are wild animals and hunting is permitted from time to time, but there are no cattle... are there? Maybe it got through the fence somehow and found itself unable to return to its own herd outside the boundary and perished from... lack of water? The sparseness of the forage? Loneliness? What had happened? I couldn't imagine, but I could easily imagine the presence of the cow was never even noticed by base personnel until it was too late, and then, with no orders to move it from beside the road, it was simply left to the coyotes and ravens and buzzards to deal with...

Much further on down the road, where turned off the main road to get to Trinity Site itself, there were a couple of camouflage tent-like structures near the intersection, somewhat resembling duck blinds, full of electronic equipment and a solitary soldier sitting forlorn inside them. Hum. What could they be? Beside these little tents there were bristling antennae and other sorts of gimcracks of no identifiable purpose, and I wondered, "Are they monitoring wildlife or our own selves as we head ever further into the base?" Were they monitoring our cell phones (which didn't work, by the way -- there wasn't even car radio reception on most of this journey of the dead... ) or our movements? We were ordered not to deviate off the road during our trip to Trinity Site and not to take pictures anywhere on base but at Trinity Site itself. But we saw some vehicles pull off the road here and there and saw people taking pictures where they were ordered not to. There are, after all, bunkers and other artifacts of the Trinity Test along the way to the Site, but I noticed the signs and placards that once identified them weren't maintained and no longer had legible contents.

Unlike formerly, too, at the Site itself, there were no longer any buses out to the restored McDonald Ranch where the Gadget had been assembled (though the nuclear core was inserted right under the tower where it would be hoisted up and detonated on July 16, 1945.) I had missed going to the McDonald Ranch due to time constraints when I visited the Site in 2010 and I had hoped to go this time, but a sign at the Gate said that the McDonald Ranch house was "temporarily closed" for reasons unstated.

Where the Gadget was assembled 

I wanted to go out there (it's about 2 miles from the test site) partly because one of the pioneer houses nearby our own is practically identical. It's a typical style of New Mexico homesteaders and pioneers near the turn of the 20th Century but you'd never know it existed because it doesn't fit the architectural "Style" imposed in Santa Fe and common elsewhere in New Mexico, thanks to Carlos Vierra and his friend John Gaw Meem.

Ah, but no. Not this time. Maybe next time, maybe not. There are houses like this and ruins of houses like this all over New Mexico, pioneer houses that were built of adobe and roofed with corrugated iron (called "tin") with tall, narrow windows and rough stone walls around them, built when the area was opened for homesteading around the turn of the 20th Century. Many are abandoned, as the pioneer ranch house we live in had been abandoned, because it is just too difficult to make a living out on the llano in New Mexico. The weather is too wild and unpredictable, the water is too scarce, the struggle for living too intense. It's hard to settle down and remain. The Native peoples long ago knew this, and they thought perhaps the Spanish and later the Anglos who went out in the desert and high plains to raise their livestock and to grow their crops and to build their towns were a bit mad. Or maybe they were a lot crazy. They may have had a few good years and then the droughts and the winds and the harshness of the land and the tiring work of bare survival drove them out.

Their ruins are everywhere.

The 'Gadget' on the tower before the Trinity Test, 1945 (Los Alamos National Laboratory picture)

One of the tower's stanchions after the test

And that's part of what Trinity Site represents in a less personal way. The McDonalds, at whose ranch house the Gadget was assembled, left -- they say "evacuated under protest" -- when the military took over the site for the Alamagordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in 1942, less than thirty years after the ranch was built. The house sat abandoned until the Trinity test was decided on in 1945.

Afterwards, the place was abandoned again and left to ruin until its restoration in 1984.

Typical.

McDonald Ranch House, 1974

It is said that the reason for the Trinity Test was to see whether a plutonium implosion bomb would work or not. The Little Boy uranium bomb along with several mockups had been shipped to Tinian Island in the Pacific before the test of the Gadget, and shortly after the Trinity Test, the components for the Fat Man bomb (of which the Gadget was an example of its interior) were flown to Tinian from Kirtland Field, and were assembled on Tinian for use on Nagasaki.

The stated reason for the Trinity Test was scientific, but the actual use of the bombs on Japan was political, both to accelerate the surrender of Japan, and to demonstrate to the Soviets that the United States was prepared to... what, exactly? Do anything?

The idea, obviously, was to instill fear in any potential enemy such as the Soviet Union -- already designated the Enemy of the Moment after the capitulation of Nazi Germany -- of what the United States was capable of and willing to do in pursuit of its national/international interests. While many of the nuclear scientists involved in the creation of these weapons advised against their use on human populations preferring that demonstration detonations be utilized instead, the politics of war then -- and perhaps now -- insisted that only the actual use of these weapons against the Enemy himself would be effective. It's the principle of the only thing these people understand... that we heard all the time during the Afghanistan and Iraq misadventures, and which was a typical perspective regarding "The Enemy" through all the Cold War "police actions."

Burning them alive was considered to be a highly appropriate way of Enemy extermination and disposal, especially in the Pacific and Japan during the later stages of World War II. Firebombing was used in Europe as well, but the results -- in Hamburg and Dresden especially -- seemed far too much like the results of the Nazi concentration camps' efforts to dispose of the super abundance of dead bodies that accumulated toward the end of the war.

On the other hand using flamethrowers against Japanese soldiers was considered a kind of sport, and the firebombings of Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama were celebrated as particularly appropriate punishment for the Japs. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in these pre-nuclear bombings, whereas the total number of casualties from the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is thought to be just over 120,000. The point was that these incinerations took only one bomb each, whereas hundreds of bombs were necessary to obliterate other Japanese cities. Efficiency! American know how!

During the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait in 1991, American forces unleashed a grotesque bombing raid on what is known as the Highway of Death. Thousands of retreating Iraqis were incinerated in that episode, but there were many other incidents in which the US blasted civilian targets as well, most notably on a bomb shelter in Baghdad, in which several hundred civilians were slaughtered.

All this, of course, was long ago. Nuclear weapons and nuclear energy were once seen -- or at least promoted -- as panaceas for a troubled world and suffering mankind, the bombs to "keep us safe," and the nuclear plants to provide us with "unlimited energy." Neither has quite worked out as promised. The bombs don't keep us safe, and nuclear energy is a chimera at best. There is no known way to maintain the radioactive waste products produced, and there is no way to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants in any event.

The nuclear demons unleashed at Trinity Site almost 70 years ago still haunt us and the world in general. Some still believe that enough people could survive a nuclear holocaust to make it worthwhile to consider -- or at least an interesting experiment.

J. Robert Oppenheimer Manhattan Project lead scientist saw it differently:




I'm with Oppie on this.

We'll meet again, I'm sure... in spirit if not in the flesh...

Anarchists! Wobblies! Commie-Pinkos!

Kevin Gosztola over at FDL has been following this matter of "anarchist extremists" for a good long time now, and he is on top of the story with regard to the RNC Convention in Tampa.

I want Chris Hedges to know that this is what he has done. I hope he's proud of himself.

What was likely to happen as a consequence of Hedges' polemic regarding the "cancer" in Occupy was recognized immediately upon its publication, and many observers were horrified at the prospects. Partially as a result of Hedges' over the top excoriation of what he called "Black Bloc anarchists" -- not knowing anything about them -- the FBI and other parts of the National Security State have targeted self-proclaimed anarchists for surveillance, investigation, infiltration and -- from the scant evidence available -- framing and arrest for various nefarious plots against the Establishment, including (now) something to do with "acid filled eggs." This, I guess, has taken the place of "baggies filled with urine and feces" that were once commonly alleged to be stockpiled for use against The Man.

This is probably only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to official actions against "anarchist extremists," and most of it is traceable right back to Hedges' demonization and scapegoating of "Black Bloc anarchists" last February.

The whole point of which is to chill activist dissent, to control and make acceptable those who engage in authorized dissent (as Hedges and many others do) , and to ensure that no effective opposition to the current status quo arises from the left, or more specifically from the People. In other words to stop Teh Revolution in its tracks.

It's not so much about the anarchists extremist or not, Black Bloc or not. My impression is that they can take care of themselves, and for the most part they will take care of one another when need be. The issue is more about what the state is prepared to do to preserve itself against opposition, what it will do to prevent the masses from engaging in widespread and effective opposition, and how it regards the existence of potential opponents.

More importantly, it's how the state sees the unarmed "anarchist" threat as an existential one, whereas the armed militias (as well as the innumerable Lone Gunmen) are not seen as such a threat at all. They are little more than nuisances, indeed they seem to be regarded as useful idiots.

Not the "anarchists" though.

Of course, there is a long history behind the suppression of anarchists in this country, one that long predates the infamous acts of so-called "anarchists" -- such as the assassination of William McKinley in 1898 as well as the dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times building in 1910. Anarchists became the political demons du jour -- which meant rather extensive and heavy-handed persecution.

So here we are again, with the supposed threat from anarchists now outweighing the "threat" from terrorists, indeed the one being conflated with the other.

The link at the top of the post details what's going on now, and it's appalling. This is your police state in action.

A Wells Fargo Horror Story -- and an Update On The Van

Rousseau House in California, plundered by a series of banksters

I came across this story over at Naked Capitalism the other day, then I read that the homeowner had killed himself just days before the scheduled eviction in May. And I read the linked amended complaint.

And I thought "JFC on a merry go round, this is the most outrageous WF horror story yet." Almost beyond belief, and yet given all the other horror stories I've read, it's only unusual in that the homeowners had/have decent legal advice, and that the poor guy was driven to suicide.

Notice that the house above is quite a modest little house, similar to many I've been inside during parts of my working career. That the final refinance in 2007 was for over $350,000 is somewhat shocking, but that's what was still happening to real estate values in California at the time. In fact, I was dealing with a lot of builders, brokers and construction contractors during the boom before the crash, and by 2007, the warning signs were very clear that the crash was about to come, indeed had already come, in some cases that I can't detail here, but people were still refinancing and some were able to take cash out of their homes until well into 2008.

I say $350,000 is somewhat shocking for this house because in a realistic market it wouldn't be worth much over $200,000 if that. It's probably appraised for under that now, though WF ultimately acquired the house for a trustees sale bid of over $400,000.

So the homeowner was being screwed, whether or not there was fraud in the final refinance.

Nevertheless, according to the story, the homeowners were diligent in making mortgage payments. The problem came because they made those payments in person with cashier's checks at a Wachovia branch.

That and grossly false, misleading and predatory lending practices by World/Wachovia.

From the narrative in the amended complaint, the homeowners presented a cashiers check at the bank in April, 2009, in the amount of $1615, the stated mortgage payment amount. The check was handled by an employee who -- apparently -- entered a keystroke wrong during the transaction so that the check was not properly credited to the correct account. The homeowners received a receipt for the check and went on their way.

The next day, the check cleared, but what happened to the money is a mystery. There is also the mysterious claim of a stop payment being ordered on the check, which is simply not something that can happen on a cashiers check.

According to the complaint:

On or about May 5, 2009, while making the monthly payment at the WACHOVIA branch, Plaintiff O. ROUSSEAU the teller confirmed that their account still showed a missing payment for April. At Plaintiff’s request, Branch Manager PERI KERMANI called the corporate office to inquire about the disputed payment. Plaintiff was given a facsimile number to send a written dispute and proof of payment.

Which Plaintiffs (the homeowners) did.

From then on, the situation deteriorated alarmingly. While the homeowners continued to be diligent about making payments until the bank refused to accept them, they were dicked around and lied to by bank personnel constantly throughout a torturous process of trying to rectify the erroneous April "delinquency." They submitted all the documentation necessary to clear the supposed "delinquency" and never once did the bank actually clear it, though they were told it had been taken care of. They were assessed more and more collection fees, NSF fees, a constant tidal wave of fees while they not only tried to straighten out the mess the bank had caused, they were attempting to get their loan modified because of loss of income due to unemployment.

 As has so often been the case, while they were attempting to get the loan modification, the bank was proceeding with foreclosure, which the homeowners tried to get them to stop but were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, even as the bank was refusing to accept offered mortgage payments, they were constantly calling and dunning the homeowners for payment.

As has so often been the case, while attempting to secure a loan modification, the homeowners were repeatedly told that required documents had not been received -- though they had been sent over and over again -- and thus they could not get the modification, and then, apparently, the missing documents would somehow be found and the modification process would supposedly continue only to stop again.

Meanwhile, the foreclosure process churned along, oblivious.

Finally, from what I gather, the homeowners were denied a modification and told to pay up the arrears or get out. By the time they found out how much they had to pay to satisfy the largely bogus debt that was caused by a bank error in the first place, they had one hour to meet a deadline to deliver more than $26,000 demanded to the bank's collection agency in Texas. They had the money, but they couldn't meet the deadline because they couldn't access that much at one time given cash withdrawal restrictions on the account in question.

Wells Fargo acquired the property at a trustees sale purportedly held November 22, 2010, five days after the homeowners were told how much to pay and given a deadline they couldn't meet to satisfy the alleged default. At the time of the court filing, dated January 11, 2011, WF was under temporary injunction from enforcing an unlawful detainer against the Rousseaus. Apparently the injunction was lifted in May of 2012, and the Rousseaus were informed that they would be evicted on May 15, 2012; two days beforehand, when Norman Rousseau was unable to complete repairs on the engine of a motorhome that the couple intended to move into once they were evicted, Mr. Rousseau fatally shot himself.

All because a teller at Wachovia failed to credit the correct account for a payment made in April of 2009 and no one at any of the participating financial institutions and collection agencies between then and the date of Norman Rousseau's suicide had the courage or the brains to recognize that the bank had made a simple -- and not uncommon -- mistake that could have been and should have been easily corrected years before Norman Rousseau took his own life.

That and all the appalling fraud and deceit that went into the Rousseau's final refinance.

And all the lies they were told and the promises that were broken.

And the many tens of thousands of dollars that were being pillaged and looted all along the way.

This is a snapshot of a completely brainless and totally out of control modern banking practice. I'm sure that none of the institutions or people involved on the banking end believe they actually did anything wrong or that they are in any way responsible for the Rousseau's agony and eventually for Norman Rousseau's suicide. They never think that way. They can't. There are no personal relationships at all in these situations. Everything is objectified and scripts and flowcharts rule. "If this, then that." There is no provision for acknowledging or correcting errors, even simple ones such as mis-keying a payment.

As has long been obvious, all of the incentives for banks and mortgage servicers are aligned toward pushing homeowners into foreclosure. Despite ostensible programs to prevent foreclosure, the financial and corporate-bureaucratic incentives are still toward foreclosure. Consequently, millions of people are still losing their homes every year when it is highly likely that foreclosure is actually the least desirable outcome not just for the homeowner but for everyone involved including the banks and servicers who are incentivised to foreclose.

How many of these cases are due to fraud at the outset, errors along the way, and corporate-bureaucratic blindness is anybody's guess, but I am sure the Rousseau's situation is not unique. I've read too many similar stories.

It's one reason I was an advocate long ago for the nationalization of the banks; they are simply too hidebound, blind and dumb to function on behalf of even themselves let alone on behalf of the People in the current financial climate.

They should be run strictly in the public interest for the duration.  But until somebody with clout picks up that cudgel, we'll continue to encounter tragic stories like that of the Rousseaus.

None of this has to happen.

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As for the van, I spent part of the morning in Atwater discussing options with repair folks face to face instead of on the phone. I also drove the van for a short distance, and it was obvious that it wasn't going to make it much farther at all. I got it to the repair shop across the street from where I had left it last Saturday, and when the proprietor saw me drive up and said: "You've got a transmission problem." He explained how he had come to that conclusion when Omar at the first shop had brought the van over for a diagnosis on Monday. I asked about the differential. He said he didn't drive the van, but all the sound he heard when the van was on the lift was coming from the transmission and he thought there was metal on metal (oh yes) requiring a rebuild. I asked him whether he could do it, how soon he could have it ready, and how much he'd charge. He said he most certainly could do it; probably take until until Wednesday of next week, and it would cost X number of dollars (a good deal less than I was anticipating.)  I said, "Let's do it."

The vans that I had been considering as replacements were either sold before I could get to them or they were inappropriate for my needs; as I've said, this red Astro van has been a very good friend on the road for a number of years now. I bought it specifically for the trips back and forth between New Mexico and California, and despite the occasional mechanical problem and infrequent breakdown, it has been a godsend and a jewel. And then I think how lucky I am to be able to write that last sentence at all.

So many Americans don't have the option to just go out and "buy a van" or have it repaired as needed let alone to have a second home in New Mexico to go back and forth to. Those are just a few of the examples of the privileges we have. And when I think about the real struggles so many Americans are facing, struggles that are so far beyond my minor inconveniences (in perspective a broken down van or stalled refinancing are minor inconveniences, yes) I'm humbled.

The Rousseau's story is devastating. That sort of thing is happening to way too many Americans, and there seems to be nothing to thwart the demons of destruction abroad in the land.

Rise up, resist, refuse. It's a start!

Wrestling With Demons

While watching OWSHDTV Livestream from Union Square last night, I came face to face with some of my own demons of the movement, and I thought I'd spend a little time today discussing it.

After all, I've had no problem discussing some of the demons other people have been confronting in their interactions with the Occupy Movement. It can be tough to wrestle with and deal with what we really don't want to see or hear or have to face. We're used to objectifying and abstracting so much of our outer experience, it is easier than it should be to demonize that which we don't like or don't understand in others. I do it, though I try not to, or rather, I think I'm trying not to. But I know I fail.

So what I saw last night brought me up short. I began watching the livestream shortly after 9:00pm Pacific Time, midnight in New York, when "the park is closed" and the barricades go up around Union Square. (How quickly we become used to new procedures!) Apparently the livestreamer had recently been in an altercation of some kind with a police officer; from what I understood from the exchange going on between them, the officer had pushed the livestreamer out of the way in order to emplace the all-important barricades at the bottom of the first set of steps; the officer was apparently kicking items left by people on the steps down to the lower pavement.

The livestreamer was taunting and insulting the police officer, and he was challenging him to justify his behavior. Ordinarily, this type of citizen behavior toward Authority wouldn't bother me, but it did last night, because the livestreamer went from taunts and insults to threats against the officer and his family. The officer didn't become violent or abusive toward the livestreamer, but he did respond verbally. I couldn't catch much of what he said, but I did hear him say "my family" and "my house." It seemed at one point that he issued a challenge to the livestreamer, but I couldn't hear the exchange well enough to be sure. After some back and forth, a supervising White Shirt came over and whispered to the officer; shortly thereafter, the officer refused to engage the livestreamer and ostentatiously pretended not to hear his additional taunts, insults, and challenges.

What bothered me about this episode were the implicit or explicit threats against the officer and his safety by a livestreamer. There have been instances of people getting in officers' faces and physically struggling with them when they are abusive (which in New York seems to be a daily occurrence now that Occupy has re-emerged.) But this was different. From what I heard, at any rate, apparently the officer had simply disrespected the livestreamer by pushing him out of the way as he went about his task of setting barricades. The task itself is idiotic as far as I'm concerned, and the very idiocy of "protecting" a public park from access by the public night after night with hundreds of police officers in attendance ought to be embarrassing enough to the NYPD officers who participate in it. As it seems more and more to be.

But this time, a livestreamer took it on himself to challenge this particular officer to justify his behavior (which I have no problem with), and appeared to threaten him (which I do have a problem with.)

The officer, for his part, stayed cool but he appeared to be rattled, and if the White Shirt hadn't intervened, it might have turned ugly in ways I don't think we want to see, at least not under these circumstances. Either the officer might have physically attacked the livestreamer. Or it might have gone a different way had the livestreamer kept bullying him. That's what he was doing. He was bullying. The officer might have had a breakdown -- which can be very dangerous. The man is armed, after all, and if he is goaded and bullied enough, there's no telling what he would do. At any rate, he was clearly upset enough to be thinking...

An argument can be made that the officer was only getting some of his own medicine, but in this case, I think it went well beyond that. The livestreamer did not try to do anything to the officer physically; he was using psych tactics to goad him and get his goat by threatening him and his family with "internet exposure" and "anonymous attacks." I'm sure NYPD discusses what can happen to officers who are targeted by Anonymous (Officer Bologna anyone? Sounds like Officer Lombardo is in the cross-hairs as well) or by other groups -- CopWatch was mentioned during the exchange described here -- who make it a point to expose and publicize wrong-doing by Authority. And the implication was that physical consequences were possible.

I don't see any strategic value in that sort of implied or actual threat against police officers or any other authority figure. I admit, however, that this is my personal belief; others may see it differently, and in the case I was witnessing, it's more than likely that the livestreamer was running his mouth rather than making any kind of conscious threat at all. It did not appear as if he understood how his words might be taken.

At any rate, the livestreamer moved on and for a time he joined a mic check soapbox group who were speaking out against the police and offering their testimony about police brutality and other issues. There was one apparently drunk young man who returned over and over to say that he had been "beat down" by the police, he was fed up, and all he had to say to the police was "suck my dick!" And anybody else could suck his dick if they didn't like it.

Over and over and over again. Other people were also speaking out against the violence and thuggery of the police, but most were trying to find alternatives to the way things were and had been, and some spoke of how indirect confrontation could work better than direct confrontation in dealing with police violence. One said, "The thing they hate most is for you to smile at them (paraphrase)." Every time somebody made a positive suggestion, the apparently drunk young man got up on the soapbox (a plastic milk crate) and went into his "suck my dick" routine.

I found it offensive and disturbing. The police don't care, not in any fundamental way, if someone mouths off like that. The people who might care were those around him who were hearing this over and over. One said, "I like dick sucking." Others said, "Sucking dick is a good thing" as a way to deflect his rage, while one suggested playing games with the police as a way to undermine their authority.

The drunk fellow was having none of it. I think everyone could understand his anger and frustration with the police; but even the livestreamer was offended by his approach, as was I. Eventually, the livestreamer moved on saying there were many other people in the park and he didn't have to listen to this guy going on and on about his favorite obsession.

I got to thinking about these incidents in the context of the offense many expressed against Occupy for the kinds of actions some people engaged in (the "Black Bloc anarchists" as Chris Hedges put it) that they found inappropriate or over the line. I got to thinking how absurdist some of that argument became ("wearing bandanas is 'violence' if people think it is or could be a symbol of violent behavior") . I got to wondering where to draw the line, or if there really is a "line" between what is and is not acceptable behavior in this nonviolent resistance campaign.

I was personally offended when I saw these two incidents last night; that does not in any way absolve the police or Authority in the abstract for their many acts of suppression and violence against Occupy demonstrators nor does it absolve them from their gross indifference and negligence toward people's suffering. They are responsible for that -- as a group, not simply as individuals. But when I see offensive actions by my comrades in this struggle, it can be bewildering and disorienting. Having witnessed this last night (albeit vicariously through a computer connection and a camera lens) I think I gained a little more sympathy toward those who are so wrapped up in their own sense of being offended because somebody broke a window or threw a bottle when time was.

Of course my recommendation is always to "let it go." There's nothing we can do about something that has already happened, nor is there anything we can do about virtual actions we witness on the livestream.

We can affect our own behavior -- and to some extent our own reactions -- going forward, that's all. If we can be aware of how we are reacting -- rather than focus so much on how other people are acting -- we might gain insight into how to find that "space between" that I mentioned in an earlier post. That almost unexplored territory that lies between polarities of beliefs and actions.

How can we wrestle with demons without becoming demons ourselves? How can we foster our better angels?