"The Crisis Is Upon Us"

We've been hearing this for over a year now, ever since Trump ascended the throne and before.

"Existential Crisis!!!! Run and Hide!!!! Resist!!!!! The Republic is Doomed!!!!! Russia! Russia!!! Russia!!!!" Yadda, yadda.

And  I've been thinking all this time that if the situation really is as described by the Doomsayers then surely there would be an intervention. Surely there would be.

Our government is quite adept at dealing with existential crises by any means necessary. And over the course of the current regime, we've seen plenty of instances in which this or that crisis or looming catastrophe brought on by Himself has been... handled... one way or another to mitigate the damage and effects that following the dictates from On High would have caused.

That's not to say things have been stabilized by any means. This has been a roller-coaster ride of unprecedented whipsawing and violent slides. It's wild, but I get the impression that the Overclass is so far fine with it.

If they felt any of the previous Existential Crises brought on by the regime were significant enough to do something about, they would have done it by now. That they haven't done it by now is the clearest sign I can think of that they're satisfied that Trump has been sufficiently limited in his ability to precipitate real Existential Crisis and that what he and his wrecking crew are allowed to do is essentially just what the Overclass wants done and would have done through any pretender to the throne.

Mrs Clinton would have gone about it somewhat differently, but the outcome would have been essentially the same. Maybe not so much Crisis and Chaos, but following the same path toward the same denouement.

But this time, what I see of the punditry (remember, no cable teevee in the Ché household --ever) seems to be saying "It's different." As if this were the Real Thing, we're reaching the end of the roller coaster ride, and it will be over sooner rather than later.

Skepticism is warranted. Too many people are profiting too much from keeping the ride going to shut it down now. Trump has shown that he can be rather easily hamstrung from doing what would jeopardize class and gang interests while he can be guided toward actions which enhance their interests.

The tax cut for the wealthy* was a step, not the end point, of an overall scheme to recreate "government" as the ham-fisted, jack-booted enforcer of Overclass interest. Of course, it's always had that aspect, but over the last generation or so (since Reagan), the purpose of government has been shifted almost entirely away from "public interest" toward private, pecuniary interest and enforcement of increasingly oppressive rules and laws over the Lesser People.

As has often been pointed out, the so-called tax cut actually increases tax liability for a significant percentage of the middle and lower classes. That's by design -- and it happened under Reagan, too. The Overclass simply doesn't believe it should be paying for government. Like medieval lords, they believe the Rabble should be paying them to lord it over all creation, and that all taxes should be extracted by any means necessary from the Rabble. That's the direction we've been headed for a very long time, and the tax cut is just another step.

When we examine what ICE and other agencies are actually doing we see the outline of what Our Rulers have in mind for all of us: No protection from social/political predators and despoilers at all. Unless you have the power (and money) to hire your own fixers and Guidos, tough luck, suckers.

Gangster rule.

Some people -- and it seems most People Who Matter -- are fine with it. It's what they've wanted all along. So now they're closer than ever to it. Calling it "The Crisis" may be accurate enough, but they're not planning to do anything about it. And even if there is a Dem Wave this fall, so what?

Apart from style, what would really change?

And even style may not be that different.

So despite all, I'm not seeing buy in from the Overclass that Trump has to go. He's proved his worth to them as entertainment for the masses over and over again. He's also a money-maker for them. Pence wouldn't be that. Not on a bet, and likely, if he rose to the presidency, he would have to be removed for cause. Not so much for Trump.

So let's say Trump does something really stupid and it has negative effects on the Overclass. The Crisis manifests in ways they don't like. What then? Remember, "Never let a crisis go to waste. Every crisis is an opportunity." In other words, "So what, let's make money."

And so it is likely to go.

The Crisis has been upon us for a very long time, hasn't it?

No matter what else happens, we'll still be in Crisis. Our Rulers like it like that.

A Spate of Police Killings Hits the News

[Note: as this hiatus continues, I've been going to physical therapy to try to deal with my increasing left-side lameness. Mixed results: able to walk a bit better most of the time, but various hip and back pains following treatments suggest the onset of sciatica -- which the therapist acknowledged might be triggered. What a drag it is getting older...]


There's been a fairly regular spate of police killings in the news lately, reminding me a bit of the coverage uptick after Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, MO, all those years ago. (Can it be almost four years now?) Of course, it was the shooting of James Boyd in Albuquerque in March of 2014 that set off numerous protests, not just of his killing by police, but of dozens of killings over the previous few years. I was involved in some of those protests though not as much as I might have wanted to be -- thanks to my lameness even then.

The killing of Stephon Clark in his grandmother's Sacramento backyard was very disturbing. I didn't know him, but I know the Meadowview neighborhood where it happened, and it's easy to imagine how terrifying the whole thing has been. Meadowview is not an easy place to live, but many people who live there have no choice. They have been pushed out of other neighborhoods, either through gentrification or because of some stain on their records.

I understand Stephon's grandmother had lived in the neighborhood for decades, and for all the trouble with the law Stephon had been in, he was a potential community leader with a magnetic personality and a vibrant presence who was "turning his life around."

This is a common enough story in many communities of color throughout the nation. What's also common is that up and coming black male community leaders are intentionally or accidentally targeted for elimination.

This seems to be an "accidental" elimination perpetrated by a couple of panicked cops on the hunt for someone who was reported to be breaking car, truck and house windows. They found a Negro who they thought had a gun and blasted away at him until he was a riddled mess of bullet holes and then let him bleed out until he was dead, dead, dead.

In New York, Saheed Vassell, well-know to be a harmless kook in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, was shot down pretty much on sight by specialist crew of killer cops deployed because of reports of a Negro with a gun threatening people on the streets.

In American society, cops consider an armed Negro or the report of an armed Negro -- doesn't have to be with a gun -- to be an existential threat to be neutralized promptly. Saheed was reported to have a gun. He didn't, but it didn't matter. The reports were sufficient, and apparently cops are not trained or required to ascertain the truth of the matter; in the case of Saheed, they were deployed to kill, which is what they did, BAM, BAM, BAM. Dead.

There was a recent incident in Portland, OR, in which a deranged white man, said to be armed with a knife, was being hunted by police based on accusations of a carjacking earlier in the day and a wreck of said car on the poor side of town. Man enters homeless shelter, shirtless and acting bizarre. He has a knife and (apparently) is threatening to kill himself with said knife. Police converge, man is cornered and (according to reports) man starts stabbing himself in the neck. Police "deploy lethal force." Man is "deceased."

And so it goes. It should be stated this goes on all the time. More than a thousand times a year, every year (looks to be even more this year) are killed by police, and some of these killings become news items that garner a lot of attention nationally and internationally. The US has a widely recognized problem with gun violence, police killings and mass shootings, a problem that seems completely intractable on some levels, is rather easily dealt with on others.

Police killings are an issue because the officers involved are almost never held to criminal account, are rarely even reprimanded by their departments. Many times, officers who kill -- regardless of circumstances -- are rewarded and hailed as heroes, in part because police consultants like David Grossman and William Lewinsky have been going around the country for decades telling police that killing the Bad Guy is their highest accomplishment, and they'll have the "best sex of their lives" afterwards. No lie.

Many of these killings are nothing but summary executions disproportionately afflicting black,  brown, and poor white subjects, many suffering mental health crises for which no treatment or services are available. Obviously something is wrong but supposedly nothing can be done about it.

Much like periodic episodes of mass shooting, it's just something Americans have to live with as "the price of freedom." Or something.

It's happened so much for so long, I believe we're dealing with deliberate, cynical and cruel policies of murder/mayhem that are intended to keep the Rabble in fear and helplessness... Over and over again, the Rabble are shown that they cannot rely on police or officials to protect them; over and over again, they are shown that they are helpless in the face of American Gunners. Over and over again, they are shown that they are targets of whoever wants to target them, and there is nothing they can do about it.

So here we are, again.

And what do we do about it? Ideally we change it, but our policy makers don't seem to be interested. They're satisfied with things as they are (except for the movements and demonstrations that arise). A relatively steady number of police killings, infrequent but increasingly deadly mass murders, constant low-level gang and other murders, constant suicide by gun, all of it just fine with our Overclass -- because it never (or very rarely) affects them. It is always something for the Lower Orders to deal with. Too bad if they can't.

I'm too old and infirm to have much of an effect on these things anymore, but I hope and pray the young folks will make the changes necessary. As many people have testified in the recent cases, "We know what's wrong and we know what to do about it."

Yep.

The Class That Stands Together

There may be a glimmering among the Rabble that not only is Trump no populist, he's a fairly accurate representation of his class. The class of billionaire oligarch/gangsters who set out to rule the world some decades ago and have nearly achieved ultimate victory.

It isn't talked about in class terms, not in the US at any rate, and that's too bad. These people rule us, they own the government, and they are bad news. They seek to steal everything they can from the masses, and provide just enough in return to keep the Rabble fighting over the scraps. Dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, yadda yadda.

You may note that for the most part the Overclass is silent about Trump -- or enthusiastically and actively supporting him. Almost none actively -- and openly -- oppose him and his rule. Instead, it's left to a shadowy "deep state" to hamstring and undermine him, neutering his worst impulses from time to time, but otherwise leave him be.

Why not? He provides endless entertainment that can be marketed to the Rabble, and as long as what he does or wants to do is confined to what the Overclass deems meet, what's to worry, right?

Trump was effectively neutered as President by the end of February. Apart from his twit-storms, he really hasn't been able to do anything on his own since. To say he's figurehead is being charitable. Government is delegated to his family and cronies and he can go golf. This is essentially how enterprises of the sort he's familiar with operate. The Jefe doesn't actually do much. He doesn't have to. He has people for that.

Interestingly, he's failed with the congress, he's been slapped down by the courts, the military seems to ignore him (and treats with his son-in-law instead, knowing where the "real power" behind the throne is), and the media makes mock of him day in and day out.

According to the polls, his popularity, never great, has collapsed. He is a king without a country.

However, and we should be clear about this, the Trump regime is being allowed to set precedent. A precedent that says that direct oligarchic rule is OK by The Powers That Be. The Rubes are too stupid to say otherwise.

In other words, what comes After Trump won't be much different. Style wise it may be less tawdry, but substance? Pretty much the same.

The US is now over the notion that someone who knows what they're doing should be in charge. As long as the class of the Rulers is Ruling Class, Overclass, Oligarch-gangster, it's OK. Whatever.

The Rabble is to be barred forever more from the levers of power. Even the professionals and experts are to be barred from the halls of the Mighty until they are vetted for loyalty first and foremost.

What will be will be.

I long ago pointed out that if the Revolution ever comes to the US, it will come from the Right. And so it is. We're in the midst of it.

Ultimately, Trump himself is not the issue. It is the class he represents, the class that's seized power and intends to rule directly for ... eternity?

The Left, such as it is, appears to have given up on the US some time ago. The Left has been almost entirely absent from politics in the US since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and even before that, it was weak and ineffective.

So Democrats have been cast as "The Left" -- but they're nothing of the sort. They are little more than the somewhat less brutal rightist party. For a time, Libertarians tried to claim the "Left" mantle, but it didn't work. Their key concept -- "I demand the liberty to impose my authority on you, without government interference" -- is hardly a Leftist notion.

If there can be no Revolution from the Left, the question will be how to survive the shitstorm brought to us by the Oligarch-gangster class. Combined with climate change and everything else, it should be clear by now the Rabble is in for a world of hurt, unrelenting and increasingly cruel.

What a whirled...

Let Us Reason Together -- The Pope In Rome and Other Things of Interest and Import (3)

I gave up on the Catholic Church too many years ago to count, as have many nominal Cat-licks. There's just no way to maintain one's faith in the face of an institution so rotten to the core.

And then comes Francis, Pope in Rome, to seem to say, "Well, what is to be done, then? What are we to do about it, eh?"

Left to their own devices, institutions -- whether the Church (yes, I still call it that) or governments or major market enterprises -- fail. They fail themselves, they fail their duty, their communities, and in the case of the greatest institutions, they fail the world.

I've written fairly extensively since about 2000 on the topic of The Failure of Institutions in the post-modern era. The Catholic Church seemed to be leading the way, demonstrating daily how to fail monumentally... and yet survive. Hollowed out, perhaps. Irrelevant. But still there.

So here we had a case of a Nazi-Pope retiring... and a new fellow from Argentina, well known around the Curia but hardly known to the public outside Buenos Aires, being elected Pope and all of a sudden he's out there using his bully pulpit not so much to condemn and denounce and demean and discourage (Benedict, creature of the Inquisition, never could get over that part of his "ministry") as to uplift and encourage and call out the real evils that have for too long been tolerated if not actively undertaken by his Holy Institution. It's time for change.

And so, millions of people around the world, Catholic and no, have hope again, whereas many of those who have given up on the Church are in wonder at this man and his humility, his humor and his good cheer. Hope that he will reform the Church? No. Not that. But at least he might put a more human face on it. Somewhat less ghoulish is always good, yes?

Meanwhile, the mean people are OUTRAGED!!!!™ It's hard to explain what a big change this is, for until very, very recently, it was the good people who were constantly seething with impotent rage at the blindness and cruelties of their Betters. That the good people should be in a constant state of rage and rebellion at the depredations of the Overclass, but would never be able to do anything about it was taken for granted as the way things were supposed to be. The Overclass laughed at the impotence of the masses, remember? It wasn't all that long ago.

And then comes Francis and says, "You know, this has got to change." The world turned upside down.

Behold.

The cruelties haven't ended, but the Overclass isn't laughing any more. And more and more, governments are once again wondering if they should actually pay attention to their people rather than continue to rule contrary to the public interest.


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"Other things to come."

The Enigma That Is "Mitch" Romney

I've noticed the few times I've been able to check in to the Intertubes lately that there are a number of posts and articles circulating about Romney's religion, specifically its controlling and authoritarian nature and the fact that Mormon church missionaries and officials are essentially enjoined to "lie for the Lord" as part of their calling.

The behavior of both Ann and "Mitch" Romney (h/t Letterman) has been a demonstration of both characteristics from the get-go, and the fact that people are only now beginning to connect the dots is something of a mystery. I was certainly out front in noting that "lying for the Lord" was something that Mormons do, and in some cases are expected to do. It's part of Mormon culture.

I also pointed out that when "Mitch's" father was endowed in the Church, there was a vow of vengeance against the United States for the murder most foul of Church Founder Joseph Smith and his brother.

Note has been made of the fact that "Mitch" is himself a "high official" in the Mormon Church, but a Mormon bishop is not the equivalent of a Catholic or Episcopalian one, and a Stake President isn't quite the same thing as an Archbishop. The issue for "Mitch" is not that he holds a position within the church hierarchy -- which he does -- it is that he is in direct and apparently frequent contact with the Mormon Highest of the Mighty. He's quite proud of it too. (The link goes to a very revealing radio interview from last December. It's... interesting.)

So the question is raised about whether a President Romney would serve his church or the nation. Would he act on the Vow of Vengeance? Would he take direction from the current crop of wrinkled old men who run the Mormon enterprise from the shadows?

Now of course I remember the same sort of questions being asked about John F. Kennedy when he was running for president. Anti-Catholicism was still very prominent in this country, and electing a Catholic to the highest office in the land was considered too horrifying to imagine for many Americans.

I don't know that there is nearly as much anti-Mormonism abroad in the land today as there was anti-Catholicism back then, and that makes questioning Romney's religion problematical. To me, it's worth understanding some of these matters, but it's not, ultimately, all that important, in part because there are probably as many admirable aspects of Mormonism as there are questionable ones. As far as I'm concerned, all organized  religions are cults of one sort or another, and for believers, their cult is always the Best.

No, my issue with "Mitch" doesn't revolve around his religion. Instead, I question his mental acuity. In other words, the man doesn't appear to be very bright. Cruel, certainly. Bright, not at all.

Which makes one wonder how exactly he managed to accumulate more money than God (well, in a manner of speaking), and to become the boon companion of such luminaries as Netanyahu and the rest of the Neo-Con crowd, let alone become the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Of course cruelty has become the standard necessity for political success these days, so that explains that. But he seems to have social and other difficulties (some of which are being snarkily attributed to early-onset dementia) that I doubt are really new but have probably always been part of his make up. The dude is mean and dumb.

So how does someone like that rise so high? Why does anyone else in his class tolerate him?

Speaking of class, I've noticed that Ann's behavior is distinctly nouveau. This woman may have gone to private school, but she obviously lacks breeding and could not have come from money, at least not old money. Say what I will about Bar-Be'elze-Bitch, mother (so they say) of the Bush Boys, she at least knows how to play the Grand Dame and can actually pull it off most of the time. Ann Romney can't. If this were an audition, she would have been thanked and sent packing long ago. Same with "Mitch" for that matter.

The enigma, for me, is how these people manage to rise as it were at all. "Mitch" and his wife are clearly not... "made" for what they have accumulated and seek to acquire. In some other role, they might be fine, but in the roles they want, they are abominations.

What's up with that?

[Note: Cat bite is healing thanks to powerful antibiotics, but it's one nasty mutherfugger; there have been no more wasps. Unloading of excess stuff continues.]

From the AntiFa Trenches, c. 1938 (contd)

IWW Poster c. 1934

The San Francisco Waterfront Strike of 1934 was really what put the fear into the Overclass. From then on, the gloves came off. Our Betters figured they had little more to lose than what they'd already lost in the Depression, so why not take their fears and frustrations out on Labor?

From "The Peril of Fascism," Magil and Stevens, 1938; International Publishers.

A ... reign of terror prevailed ... in the coal and iron mines of the Birmingham (AL) region. In the spring of 1934, five strikers were shot and killed and many wounded in a strike of iron ore miners against the Unite States Steel and the Republic Steel companies. Assisted by the Birmingham police, a terrorist band called the White Legion was organized with the avowed purpose of "driving Communism out of Alabama." By Communism, the White Legion meant not only workers' political organizations but even A. F. of L. unions.

In Florida, fascist gangs organized by employers kidnapped, tarred, feathered and beat trade union organizers and in many cases murdered them and buried their bodies in swamps or abandoned mines. Describing the reign of terror conducted by Florida citrus and tobacco interests against trade unionists, the veteran newspaper columnist Junius Wood wrote:

Flogging, tar and feathering, and even death are not unusual as a means of disposing of persons who are disturbing to certain interests or what is vaguely called "social order." They are not carried out under any law in the Florida statutes, but by persons who believe such methods are for their own public good, and their political influence is so great that court trials, or even arrests, rarely follow.

... Supplementing this terrorist campaign, reactionaries launched a drive for legislation to outlaw militant working class parties, to restrict the rights of trad unions and to limit free speech, press and assemblage. ...Significantly, most of the bills [in Congress] were introduced by politicians from Southern states where an embryonic form of fascism was already in the saddle.
...

In four states --Arkansas, Delaware, Indiana and Tennessee -- the reactionaries succeeded in pushing through laws excluding from the ballot political parties advocating "sedition," "treason," or th "forcible overthrow of the government." These laws are so worded that, in the hands of zealous reactionary officials,  they can be effectively used against any people's party which questions the beneficence of duPont-Hearst rule.
...

Even more sinister than this drive for repressive legislation was the secret underground campaign of the large corporations to strengthen their private armies and place them on a firmer military basis.

Sometimes, as we have indicated, these armed forces were organized as "vigilantes," or armed "patriotic" and "law and order" groups, recruited from business circles, professional jingoes and riff-raff from the underworld. Such groups began to appear in nearly every center where large corporations or plantation owners felt themselves menaced by strikes or trade union organization campaigns. In some cases, these groups had only a temporary existence and disappeared after termination of an industrial crisis. In other cases, they were orgaized on a more permanent basis. In Cleveland, Cincinnati, Hollywood and other centers, local posts of the American Legion or local officials began organizing and drilling armed contingents. The government encouraged this process by giving the American Legion 75,000 allegedly "obsolete" army rifles.

More frequently, however, these employers' armies took the form of company police or of trained bodies of professional gangsters, spies and strike breakers supplied by national detective agencies. Both the company police and the detective agencies are comparatively old American institutions, born in the formative years of monopoly capitalism; but during the anti-labor drive of 1934-36, they assumed vaster proportions than ever before, vesting new powers in the hands of the industrial titans and constituting a grave menace to the remaining liberties of the American workers.

Within the army there was a steady growth of fascist sentiment among high officers who clamored for a stronger military machine, not only to support the foreign policy of the United States, but to quell more effectively what they euphemistically called "domestic disturbances." At the end of 1933, in his annual report to the President, Army Chief of Staff General MacArthur (who led the troops in Hoover's famous victory over the bonus marchers at Anacostia) lengthily discussed the state of general social unrest in the country and concluded:

In the obvious state of unrest now prevailing throughout the world, evidences of which are plainly visible even in our own country, an efficient and dependable military establishment constantly responsive to the will of the government, constitutes a rock of stability and one of the nation's most priceless possessions.

Assistant Secretary of War Harry Woodring was even more explicit than the hero of Anacostia. In an article in Bernarr MacFadden's Liberty, Woodring. with all the zeal of an amateur soldier wrote:

Let me speak frankly! If this country should be threatened with foreign war, economic chaos or social revolution, the army has the training, the experience, the organization and the men to support the government and direct the country in the national interests... Our army happens to be the only branch of the government which is already organized and available not only to defend our territory, but also to cope with the social and economic problems in an emergency.

A "basic field manual" distributed to the army contained detailed tactical instructions for use against "mobs" and "crowds." The most effective methods for shooting, gassing, and bombing unarmed workers were discussed with fine scientific precision. "Blank cartridges should never be used against a mob, nor should a volley be fired over the heads of a mob even if there is little danger of hurting persons in the rear..." "Airplanes may be used for the purpose of keeping rioters off roofs by means of machine gun fire and, in conjunction with other arms, by dropping tear gas and high explosives..." "Hand grenades, especially those filled with chemicals, will be quite an essential part of the equipment." These and other bits of military wisdom were carefully set down for tje guidance of strike-breaking troops. Following the classic pattern of Italian fascism, the manual also instructed commanders in "disturbed areas" to establish contact with the American Legion and "other local organizations of law and order."

The fascist leanings of the army hierarchy responsible for these instructions is reflected in the following definition of democracy contained in the army's Training Manual No. 2000-25, distributed from 1928 to 1932 to youths taking military instruction:

Democracy: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meetings or any other form of "direct" expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic -- negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based on deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse without restraint or regard for consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.

Finally, the most ominous symptom of the growing fascist tendencies among the rulers of America was the appearance of a large crop of fascist and semi-fascist organizations, some openly controlled and directed by big business, others indirectly controlled, and still others, starting out as "independent" middle class movements of protest, but diverted  by unscrupulous and corrupt leaders into fascist channels.

...

The largest and most influential of the new host of reactionary organizations were either openly controlled or directed by prominent financiers and industrialists, or disguised so thinly that they were soon exposed. Among the organizations of this type were the American Liberty League, the Farmers Independence Council, the Sentinels of the Republic and the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution. This whole network of organizations, controlled by the most reactionary financial groups, uniformly operated under the slogans of "liberty" and "democracy, attempting to utilize America's strong democratic traditions to rally popular support for their anti-democratic program.

History, said Marx, repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. So with the Liberty League and its host of affiliates. The spectacle of the duPonts and the Hearsts, clothed in the cloaks and cocked hats of the revolutionaries of 1776, was political farce so broad that only those blinded by hatred for democracy and progress could miss it; so broad that it defeated the purposes of its authors. The Liberty League and its affiliates -- in spite of their vast financial resources -- failed to win popular support because they were openly controlled by the most hated men in America, by men whose ruthless exploitation and suppression of the people, in the daily course of their affairs, belied their professed belief in liberty and democracy.

So we see, everything old is new again, and if we think about it, we realize that the rightists and fascists are repeating themselves (as farce if you like) under the rigid tutelege of the oligarchs and plutocrats -- many of whom are the descendants of the same class sponsoring fascists in the 1930's. (The name Bush comes to mind, but we won't go there for now.)

What is different is that the "left" so called no longer exists as a political and/or proto-revolutionary force. All politics in this country these days is more or less rightist and much is clearly on a fascist pathway. "The Peril of Fascism" is a frankly Communist polemic from the era when Communists and Socialists and Leftists actually had a political structure and their agitation and demonstrations could and did have a political influence. Nowadays no such thing can occur. The opposition to the fascist tendendices in this country today is almost entirely confined under the Occupy rubric. While there are some elements of Marxist thought and economic analysis within the Occupy framework, from a political standpoint, Occupy is revolutionary but not "leftist." Nor is it "rightist." It consciously stands outside those categories and presses for something better than either.

At the moment, Our Rulers do not feel particularly threatened by the Occupy Movement cum Revolution, largely because it doesn't seem to be "doing anything" overtly to cause more than minor disrution of the looting and pillaging underway.

But we can see in Magil and Stevens' reports that there are more than a few seriously disabling and disrupting tactics the Overclass can easily bring to bear if need be to preserve their power and position.

We haven't seen anything yet...