Heavily armed police, many of them in riot gear, marched on the Zuccotti Park in New York City today, arresting 200 people and clearing the park of Occupy Wall Street protesters. New York’s mayor Bloomberg defended the attack as a question of improving “health and safety conditions.”
It was the latest in a number of increasingly violent crackdowns nationwide, with a particularly ugly incident in Oakland leaving a former US Marine seriously wounded. From Atlantic to Pacific, aggressive crackdowns are becoming the rule, rather than the exception.
Is this simply a coincidence, with local officials reaching the same conclusion about the need to violently silence dissent at about the same time? Perhaps not, as indications are growing, fueled by comments from Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, that the crackdowns came in a consultation with other mayors. This fueled speculation that the federal government might have been involved, which grew after a report that an unnamed federal official confirmed the Department of Homeland Security’s involvement. The Justice Dept has said the Oakland call only included mayors.
The Department of Homeland Security has been at the center of a series of policies since its creation that have left local police departments the nation over armed to the teeth and trained to adopt military tactics. The reaction to the Occupy protests sees these new military-style police forces taking their heavy-handed approach in response to rallies.
The DHS consultation and potentially its coordination of violent crackdowns is an alarming new policy, one which is liable to escalate as next year’s national elections draw close, with the hope of clearing at least the most visible reminders of a dissatisfied populace.
YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES
If the Occupy Wall Street movement has its way, if they rob from the upper half of society and pass half of the wealth down to the lower class where they feel it belongs, then everyone in the upper half will loose half of all they own.
Problem is, our upper half voting majority owning all the wealth and their trigger finger on all those nukes, well, you know how it goes.
"coordination of violent crackdowns is an alarming new policy"
The USG has been coordinating and carrying out the most violent crackdowns in about 10 countries and counting. And this is just lately. Alarming? If an alarm bell rings for 10 years, at least, can you stay alarmed for 10 years or just get used to it and tune it out.?
Americans have tuned it out and are just hoping to avoid personal inconvenience. The real Americans, the courageous ones, the honorable ones, the peaceful ones are the ones at Occupy USA getting beat up and arrested . The rest of you aren't worth the air you breathe
I'm actually surprised it has taken this long for it to get to this point. I guess they were waiting for the general mood to lighten-up just a little – you know, get bored of the novelty – make the crackdown more tolerable to the general palate.
The authorities are taking action on the Occupy movement, and Antiwar.com is reporting it. Its official! The war is now here in the U.S.A.
Looks like the Obama administration held off as long as it did because it was hoping that the Democratic party would be able to manipulate OWS into becoming its Tea Party. They finally pulled the plug because OWS became an embarassment: Violent anarchists in Oakland, dirty hippies beating drums and turning parks around the country into huge toilets, etc.
Wow, somebody's got his head stuck in the FAUX News toilet.
The agency is named like a phrase in a Orwellian book. Obama's wars are kenetic actions. Sounds like double speak to me. There is a political class in the US, a minority.
Syrian crackdown style being applied by US to quell Occupy protests.
American government are a bunch of hypocrits.
Yes Lloyd. The hippies are a threat to democracy and must be stopped.
I actually agree with your first sentence, but sadly you've shown yourself to be a Fox News parrot with the last few nuggets of information.
I didn't say the OWS kiddies were dangerous, just an embarrassment to anybody associated with them. Dummy.
The Federal Government is acting in the interest of the real American people. They are protecting those who count from those with no accounts. We must not let a minority of 99% control those whose engines create jobs, build buildings and manage the finances of the greatest country in the history of the world and perhaps the entire Universe. This is God's country and God loves those who love him and contribute to Him.
God is represented by those who crackdown on non-believers. The non-believers who protest against everything that has made America the strongest nation in the history of the world with the greatest military might the world has ever known.
We must take the non-believers, round them up and put them in the holes from which they came, forever.
Nationalism as religion? Who da thunk it.
Achtung!
I don't think they're getting your sarcasm.
He may have meant it as sarcasm, but it was the right thing to say.
Okay, I'm just joking.
Well, it's all JV practice scrimmages for the day of the big game. You don't think they went to all the time and expense, on your dime, to indoctrinate and arm these goons without putting them to use did you? Think about it. You have ten years worth of combat troops rolled through the meat grinder and spat out onto an economic waste land and thus sucked up into the policing organs. They've been deadened and conditioned to treat civilians as the enemy and their own survival comes first. They'll pull the trigger because they're a different color of cat than those from the past.
Of course they coordinated it. Same way that we suddently got approx 80% African American as the actors in tv commercials almost overnight after the Obama election. Big brother is a lot bigger than we can imagine.
"Did Feds Coordinate Occupy Wall Street Crackdowns?"
As the phrase goes, to ask the question is to answer it, and in the affirmative, of course.
Jurgen Stroop and the Warsaw Ghetto, anyone?
We've seen this before, and we know where it leads.
Well, rumor has it that the orders came directly from the DoD and the Dept. of Homeland [in]Security. I also know that the posters here will notice the similarities in the techniques and the MO of the pigs with those of the Israeli Death Forces.
ARTICULATE — DEDICATED
A dissident, one who differs openly against the rich and powerful, they are one in a million and the FBI knows that the vanguard of this Occupy movement contains a whole bunch of them. So, all these mass arrests have a primary goal of signaling out the dissidents and getting them into a data base.
Next time you see interviews being done on protester who were arrested, take note of how many are most articulate and dedicated.
The DHS is really the Department of Power Establishment Security.
AMERICAN REVOLUTION — 2011
It is not the 1% most wealthy, but the 51% most wealthy, the 51% majority with all the wealth, they who keep in poverty the lower half of society.
Truth is, the 99% are only the 49%, and they are flat out the minority. The zero wealth, less educated and out numbered minority.
So, do they have any concept of what it means to take the right to rule away from the voting majority? Why, its anti democratic and looked down upon as a dictator mentality.
Do they have any idea of what it means to pry wealth loose from them who have all the wealth, especially when they are the majority. Why, its criminal behavior and a most anti social endeavor.
"They're bringing the Scoops! The Scoops are coming!" – Soylent Green
See Grant Park 1968, any questions? The more things change…