As long as FOX can, with impunity and no correction, call the man charged with attempting to assassinate President Obama and his staff the “OCCUPY SHOOTER” like their & Friends did along with the not-a-Cheerleader, I don’t think any expensive lobbyists are required to knock down the reputation of these radical advocates of the first amendment. And assassination.

I work at UC Davis. I know Lt. Pike. He and the administration just negated all the good things that go on here. I’ve seen a lot of stupid actions and decisions in my years on earth, but this one ranks very near the top.

Obama? Oh yeah, the guy with this press secretary, who says:

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Barack Obama’s spokesman is suggesting the president believes it’s up to New York and other municipalities to decide how much force to use in dealing with Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

Spokesman Jay Carney also says Obama hopes the right balance can be reached between protecting freedom of assembly and speech with the need to uphold order and safeguard public health and safety.
Carney spoke to reporters Tuesday as Obama flew to Australia. He was asked whether Obama had been following the early-morning police raid on Zuccotti Park in New York, where Occupy Wall Street protesters have camped out for weeks.

Carney said the president was “aware of it.”

He said the administration’s position is that each municipality has to make its own decisions about how to handle these issues.

Shorter Obama & Co.:

“Hey, it’s not like we don’t support you an’ all, but you know, you stick your neck out for anything it’s gonna get chopped!”

The Great Equivocator.

National Lampoon ran a piece years ago, a parody of cop shows featuring the police department of (iirc) a junior college campus. At one point, the main character says “We can do anything we want. We’re campus police!”

It rang true then. It rings true today.

From mediamatters “Breitbart’s editors have chosen instead to keep digging a very deep and very embarrassing hole, while piling lies on top of lies.” But, that’s the only way to get to the top, isn’t it?

You’re right. I forgot the “Obama is to blame” tag.

As much as I would like to see Obama come out more forcefully about what is going on, I’m not sure it is his job to micromanage every single government employee starting with Biden on down. Only someone with the awesome powers of God (or Tim Tebow, but only late in the game) can do that.

A pig is a pig is a pig is a compensating pin-dicked security guard/rent-a-cop.

Just to put things in perspective a little more, it’s instructive to reflect on the fact that most of those being gassed are paying customers of the institution that’s directing these security forces to attack them.

I forgot the “Obama is to blame” tag.

Fer sher I can help you with that, anytime you need me.

At least Tebone coughs up a pass or two and gets lucky now and then, and hurls his body into the fray on a regular basis, instead of punting on 2nd or 3rd downs like SomeBody we all know and love in DC.

And if you plan on using this “But he’s just the President and he can’t do everything defense”, then I might suggest our Prez find some folk to work for him who can.

Or, failing that, just bugger off and leave the keys to somebody who can.

Those poor kids. Taught all their lives that policemen are their friends.

Well, rude awakenings are sometimes necessary in order to become fully mature. If it didn’t involve so many kids being hurt, I’d almost welcome it as a consciousness-raising experience for a whole generation.

And you know what? I’m not a violent person, but sometimes I understand completely why people want to tear other people’s heads off. Imagine if you were one of those kids’ parents. That girl’s dad is probably having apoplexy. How helpless are you when it is LAW ENFORCEMENT ITSELF hurting your children?

Too bad this picture and others like it is not hitting front pages everywhere. It almost seems like there is some kind of, I don’t know…media suppression going on or something.

You’re right. I forgot the “Primary Obama/Obama is to blame. Romney/Cain ’12” tag.

Hope you don’t mind me fleshing that out a bit for the firebaggers….

TBogg, other sources have the officer’s name as Tubby McHandlestache…

Dorky Eisenhower had the stones to call the 101st Airborne into Little Rock.

Double dorky Obama could have sent Federal Troops around to all the occupy sites.

No skin off his dick.

What a weasel.

Oh, I’m so sorry, Pan.

Sending in the Marines ( or AirBorne ) is too big a risk.

They might get shot in the face or beat so hard their spleen will pop out onto the street.

hey, you know, whatever these municipalities wanna do, they jus’ gotta do.

For the sake of the “health and safety” of the public.

Drop Clark, Lytle, Geduldig and Cranford an email (info@clgcc.com) or call them at (202) 628-0028. I think they need some help fixing this. According to their website they are …not just plugged in. (They do) the plotting and the strategizing. Big miss in the plotting department.

You know, I could be wrong, but it seems like the ‘blame Obama for everything’ crowd only comes out to play when the topic at hand is bad behavior on the part of someone else. Almost like they’re trying to change the subject.

Personally, I’m picturing a situation where we’ve got a Republican president, and there’s still protests going on, and this new president’s attitude is a bit more actively anti-protester than the passiveness you’re decrying as so horrible. So maybe “send in the troops to fix any protests” isn’t a precedent you should be so eager to set, because there will come a time when they won’t be helping the protesters. Hell, maybe it’s something you shouldn’t be doing now. The cops aren’t on our side, why should the army be? Why are you sure they’d fight for the protesters?

Hell, the whole fucking point of the movement is people rising up to take their government back. Is it somehow not legitimate unless big daddy president gives him the seal of approval? Are we the people somehow not fucking capable of protesting on our own without him holding our hand? I mean, fuck, I thought one of the problems with Bush was that he gave the executive branch too much power. And now we’ve got people complaining that it’s a problem that the president isn’t sending in federal troops to override every local government decision. Again, is that really the precedent you want to set? Is that something you’re comfortable giving every abstract government the power to do, not just this one?

Obama needs to issue an executive order creating Super-Duper Free Speech Zones.

No Tasers or Pepper Spray allowed!

Your point is well taken, but it is striking that only a few months ago he had no problem standing up and declaring: “I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.”

And, yet, when his BFF Bloomberg decides to send in the stormtroopers time and again because his j.o.-buddies in the 1-percent club are getting peeved, then all we get is “the president believes it’s up to New York and other municipalities to decide how much force to use.” So, if the mayor of Oakland decided to waterboard the kids next, then he’d be cool with that, too?

You’re right: we shouldn’t need his help making change happen (god knows, he ain’t making it happen for us), but it would be kinda nice if he were at least consistent in his messaging and application of “universal” rights — what with him being the preznit of those Americans being pepper sprayed and all.

I went to UCDavis, for awhile. They weren’t known for their political sensibilities at the time, no more than were the Southern Branch. I recommend that the Ag people move the cows out to the centre quad and let them graze, between Occupy’ers and cops. Let’s see who wins.

it would be kinda nice if he were at least consistent in his messaging and application of “universal” rights — what with him being the preznit of those Americans being pepper sprayed and all.

He doesn’t want to second guess the police. You remember what happened the last time he did that when his good friend Skip Gates’s inability to keep a civil tongue in his head landed him in a well-deserved jail cell.

It was the most horriblest thing an American president ever said. It was a travesty of verbal injustice against our brave boys in blue.

As good, peaceful, LAW-ABIDING American citizens we should never want a repeat of such dangerous words, which were blatant encouragement toward blood-drenched anarchy, oogas dancing the booga in the streets, and uncontrolled nuclear exchanges.

Hard to tell a fascist when they can’t freely express themselves though. One thing about the teabaggers, Rush, Beck, Ms Palin et al is that they ramped up the level of acceptable(to them)discourse and action so much that it is pretty hard to say there is no distinction between conservatives and normal human beings.

I don’t want Obama to step in and do anything. He’s become utterly irrelevant, in this realm at least. He’s not the worst part of the system everyone is protesting but he’s definitely part of it, and nothing more. That simple statement also reflects a tragedy of missed historic opportunity that almost defies belief, but that’s really all water under the bridge now, people are not waiting anymore and taking to the streets.

I know a lot of people claim that he was never elected to pursue these changes himself, that he’s just there to hold things together as best he can and uphold the status quo and so on, and that’s all anyone could have expected of any President. I disagree, but at this point, it really doesn’t matter. He’s beside the point.

It is a big risk. But shouldn’t all effort to protect the occupiers from heinous local and state repression begin in the House?

Isn’t Boehner the go-to guy on this? Or the Chairman of the Comite de Salut Public. Eric Cantor?

Good point. So, I’ll tell you what: if Obama will sit down and have a beer with Bloomberg and the kids from Zucotti Park, then I’m buying.

Unfortunately, I get the sense he’d much prefer to just do another round of golf with Bloomberg and send those damn hippies packing. (Until ’12, that is, then he’d very much like to see them as part of his progressive grassroots movement that’ll take this country forward on a path towards equality and greatness and yada yada lip service…)

Y’know, for pasta, yer pretty smart…

I remember calls for the Kenyan Usurper to intervene in Wisconsin too. He didn’t, and IMO was proven correct in that case. He and Eric Holder tried to do the right better thing in moving prisoners from Guantanamo to U.S. soil. Congress knocked them back by a huge margin, and as near as I can tell, public opinion has been on the side of Congress (incorrectly, IMO).

Some battles call for White House intervention. Others need to be hashed out on campuses, in municipal parks, or in front of Statehouses. And some battles need to take place over millions of dinner tables or during commercial breaks in communal TV viewing. Hard to tell in the early stages what is appropriate, and some times shifting circumstances require new tactics.

I kind of agree with thingwarbler about the lame messaging coming out of the WH on occasion. But it can’t be that easy for the press office folks to keep up either. And Obummer is trying to retain much of what has worked and been good in our decaying institutions.* That requires sometimes playing it safe, and sometimes kissing some asses that one would prefer to kick. Sometimes the judgment on how to proceed will be wrong, although that may not be obvious until well after the fact.

*Caveat thingies: I may never figure out why BHO thought the HAMP program would actually work, given what was already known about the creeps involved in real estate finance. And there are other decisions, mostly involving our financial institutions, that are quite problematic. But those financial institutions are the first among the collective oligarchy currently ruling the Land of the Star-Spangled Baby Jesus Weeping Eagle. The Islamofascist Indonesian-Kenyan Interloper is trying to negotiate very tricky waters.

The moment that Obama instructs the Justice Department to look into civil rights violations at the occupy events, the Mighty Wurlitzer will immediately trumpet that Obama has sided with the rabble against the police, all of whom were heroic at the Twin Towers 9/11! 9/11! 9/11! Then you’ll get Fox headlines about the Anarchist in Chief which the other networks will pick up passively as “Is President Obama an anarchist at heart? Views differ…”

” He’s not the worst part of the system everyone is protesting but he’s definitely part of it, and nothing more.”

Haven’t Congress and the President always been the the original 99%?

That is, 99% of all elected officials are part of the system everybody is protesting and 1% are honorable and are trying to help.

But haven’t we all long since agreed that there’s nothing for Obama to gain by trying to do right by Fox merely by doing wrong? I mean, we’re always going to see the Fox chyrons about Obama being the harbinger of doom, no matter what he does — surely, even his inept PR team have figured that out by now. So, why this incessant worry that they might write something bad about him if he does something right? At least he’d stop hearing us DFHs yell at him for being a sell-out.

I think we have a very fickle public who, for the moment particularly after this latest episode of police thuggery, are on the occupy side. But once the narrative is changed, this mushy middle can be easily influenced to believe that Obama is anti-police (he’s Black, after all) and they will jump on that bandwagon. The 20% progressive/20% rightwing wingnut base don’t factor in because they are entrenched; you just need them to not go full metal stupid and vote for Nader/Mystical Indian Princess because “That’ll show them!”

The sad fact of the matter is that these people in the middle are easily swayed, they vote, and they’re idiots. In order to win, you need a hefty sliver of this idiot vote.

Fair enough. Meanwhile, here’s the master snake-oil salesman doing the time-worn “I feel your pain“ routine in preparation for endless ’12 campaign spots to that effect.

Maybe if the make-up artist gently pepper sprays him, his tears on behalf of the 99 percent will look almost genuine for the full 30 seconds it’ll take him to ask for their vote.

Are they still teaching kids that?
Because I can just about bet that most of them didn’t think so by the time they got out of high school, and probably didn’t think so when they started HS.

Excellent suggestion. There are still quite a few cows on campus, about three blocks from the quad. It would be awesome if each cow were led around the quad by a protesting student. But let’s not get into the whole Occupy Cows thing….

Incidentally, my police radio tells me there’s a bunch more stuff happening right now on campus, and both the Chancellor and Police Chief are involved in the negotiations.

Point one: Tell the chancellor (chancellor@ucdavis.edu) to fire that cop. Yes, it would be symbolic, in that the individual is not the problem, but it would be a potent symbol. And should be done.

Point two: Stop moaning about how someone else should do something. This is not about the President. It’s about you and me — US. Join your local Occupy, assuming there is one, or take them supplies, or just write to the local paper. Anything. But do it yourself.

Ya know what else? I’ve never seen Breitbart and Obama in the same room. Or Obama and Hitler. You make the call!

Nader/Basilbeast 2012!

Nader Proglodytes want Obama to hurl himself into the nearest jet engine intake as a symbolic gesture that he stands with them, because they deigned to project their fantasies onto him and vote for him rather than toss the election (again). Then they will proceed to demand likewise of the next guy.

Obama, not surprisingly, takes his own fate a little more personally. …The treacherous BASTARD!!!!1

(The normal backlash by Progs is to wail, “Bush isn’t our fault! We’re too insignificant to be of consequence!” then promptly threaten to blow the next election. Destroy the village in order to save it, blah blah blah yip yip yip yap yarp. They’re always ready to sacrifice you for their ideology yet they think they’re superior to any other political fanatic.)

Ya know what else?

Word! Action!

Romney/basilbeast 2012!

The moment that Obama instructs the Justice Department to look into civil rights violations at the occupy events, the Mighty Wurlitzer will immediately trumpet that Obama has sided with the rabble against the police, all of whom were heroic at the Twin Towers 9/11! 9/11! 9/11! Then you’ll get Fox headlines about the Anarchist in Chief which the other networks will pick up passively as “Is President Obama an anarchist at heart? Views differ…”

I don’t wander the fever swamps as much as you, but I’m already hearing pretty much this exact message, so what’s there to lose?

Most of the time the Blame Obama crap over here is just painfully dumb and completely misguided. This time…. not so much. We’re witnessing the largest protest movement in 40 years (correct?). I’d like to hear something more than lawylerly weasel-speak.

That is a remarkably stupid comment. It sounds like something a GOoPer would say.

I believe the correct response here is ‘fuck him.’ What a loser.

I think the unspoken point is that the huge crowds that Obama attracted when he was candidate are by and large the same people who are involved in the occupations. They saw him as their instrument for change. He turned out to be the instrument of stasis and privilege. He led people to believe he was for change. Maybe people fooled themselves, but whatever. He is hopeless. Even Jack Kennedy did a little bit for the Civil Rights movement before he was murdered. I remember. And I was no fan of Jack Kennedy.

The mushy middle vote, but they are not the courts of law. We can’t evaluate these events on the basis of changing polls. If there had been a poll in 1962 or 1963 on the Civil Rights Movement, the overwhelming majority of Americans would have been against it. I remember. It took someone in the executive office to push the change to fulfillment. This is the point about Obama. He is doing nothing, absolutely nothing. It will be his legacy.

Agreed Obama needs to defend himself. I have not heard of any ties behind OWS and religion. I have heard this shooter thought Obama was the Anti Christ and that means he falls under the Fundies domain.
Us Lefty types tend not call people the Anti Christ it wasn’t us, it wasn’t OWS.
He sounds like a Fox News viewer.

What kind of Chicken Shiiiit peeper sprays kids sitting down. Is he really that afraid or desperate to appear tough but afraid of doing anything when he might get hit back?
Maybe the police should start psych screening for bravery it seems they need some.

Damn. This place hasn’t had so many fun buddies since the “Nader can go fuck a cow” post. Is this what Saturday nights are usually like in this joint?

His shield (badge) should be taken from him and cut into tiny pieces in front of him. Then he should be handed it on a plate with some salt and pepper spray.

Fun buddies?

Teabaggers>Firebaggers

No. Wait.

Firebags=Teabaggers

Don’t try humor/snark with either bagger…..

Remember early on, when the white-shirt Tony Bologna of the NYPD just casually pepper-sprayed the helpless young ladies who had already been corralled and placed behind a barricade? THAT sent me into fits, because I am old enough to be these girls’ mothers, and if I were the mother of one of these girls, I’m afraid I would be in jail right now, because I don’t know if I could have resisted hopping on the next flight to La Guardia, finding Bologna, and kicking his balls halfway to his sternum.

Look at these girls. These innocent, idealistic girls. Virtue just emanates from their every pore. Who could imagine blasting them in the face with pepper spray, especially when they weren’t doing anything wrong?

The media’s done a very good job of suppressing the ugliest stuff. But in the age of video-equipped cellphones and Twitter and YouTube accounts, even that stuff can get spread all over the place regardless of whether the nightly TV news deigns to notice it.

What a sick, loser country.

How about some parents threatening to sue the administration? There is no Gov. Rhodes to blame.

Great images. Your government in action. Keep voting for it.

If you are a lobbying firm that sent out a proposal describing how you will do “opposition research” designed to create “negative narratives” about the occupy movement for a cool $850,000 and then your memo ends up on the front page of MSNBC.com as well as on the teevee and this all happens on the same day that the other big national story is a bunch of occupy students being hosed down with pepper spray by Chubby McCampuscop …. well, you kind of suck at your job.

Luckily for the firm, the story broke during the Weekend News Black Hole, so it will be off the establishment media’s radar screen come Monday morning. Unless we make a nice big stink.

Forgive me, but you all sound like this is new. What do you think happened during the Civil Right Movement or the Vietnam conflict, which is less then 60 years ago.

You had the same problems with Ford Industies, (forgot the name) but when the shirt factories disaster happened. These are the same tactics used in the last few centuries, that have clear records.

I am absolutely sure this happened well before. It is the same cycle of who has the power and who fights to get the scaps. Nothing has changed.

Fun buddy=someone with some smoke or drink you can mooch
Fun buddy=someone who is harshing your buzz

thank you…. that was perfect. I don’t expect O to stand up against his wall street buddies, but if he can’t stand up for Americans and say what he said for Egypt, then he should stop with the hypocrisy in the rest of the world.

As even the blinkered university administration seems to have tacitly admitted. At least, I haven’t heard anyone pull out the old “outside agitators” chestnut that was a favorite of Southern police chiefs during the Bull Connor era of setting police dogs on little girls who wanted to go to the same schools the white kids attended.

Yah,

firebagger=option 2

on point 1 the chancellor is the one who sent in the cops and had a post about the occupiers being all bad. She has now called for an investigation, but only after a petition was started to get rid of her.

That’s one of the things that most shocked me about this — not that the cops reacted with pepper spray, but that the protest happened in the first place. UC Davis ain’t exactly Berkeley.

Come to think of it, UC Davis has a number of things in common with Kent State in Ohio — hopefully that list of similarities won’t grow to include four kids shot to death by National Guard troops.

The only time I’ve seen religion and OWS come up was during Yom Kippur in NYC, when there was a Kol Nidre service that had about 1,000 attend. I’ve interviewed people at Occupy Anchorage and Occupy Wasilla (!!!), and nobody expressed any connectivity with their issues and religion.

In an e-mail this morning, I wrote the Chancellor and told her I can not provide any more donations to UCD and that she needs to resign now. I went to the Davis Enterprise website and saw little, if any, support for her.

Yeah, the USA has come a long way from being the great slave-holding power that also waged genocidal war against native people. Whoop. Is ‘Labor’ still a dirty word, like ‘Liberal’? Yes.

So this is progress? Nah.

What if some of the people being pepper sprayed had any sort of breathing problem – someone could die. Has anyone of the mayors, police chiefs, etc. thought of such a thing? I doubt it but there could be huge legal settlements.

Occupy Wasilla?!?! For realz?

(goes off to Google)

Wow, they actually exist:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Wasilla/267816289924061

Fabulous.

Shorter Obama. I’m out of the country for a reason; I’m trying to avoid leading again.

This shit has been happening for 2 months now, and that’s the best he can come up with?

Davis isn’t Berkeley but it has had protests in the past. I saw them when I was a student there. One of my brothers worked there and helped organize the United Technical & Professional Employees union and they had many protests all through the UC system. Part of UC’s problem is that they have Mark Yudof as system prez, formerly of the Univ. of Minnesota and Univ. of Texas. A bullying fool.

Yeah. I’m kinda new here, I read a James Wolcott post about Beckham,an been coming back since. I mentioned the fine doggies passing to someone on HP and they said they stopped coming here since T moved to Firedog. I didn’t understand what she meant until recently.
Anyhoo…can’t act like I’m working anymore, gotta gt home to Mrs Hill. Don’t have too much fun.(that’s illegal, ya know)

Welcome to FDL. And our best to Mrs. Hill.

they’re pushing 35,000 comments at HuffPo over this, I don’t remember seeing that many commenst before.

it’s been on all the Chi stations icluding Fox who actually played ot straight for them – didn’t call them a bunch of commies at least!

I had to look this up for you before I leave, it gave me a nice chuckle.(from Immoral Minority)
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/316714_2502540608705_1408664571_2984991_492917712_n.jpg

Thanks. The Bogg aint Cheers but the performance art can’t be beat.

Yeah, and you pulled one there @66 old timer! Peace

Ohhhh, where would I sign said petition?

It appears that PB0 has cut these people loose already and is going heavily after teabagger sympathizers and the mushy middle. See also: Feds raid medical marijuana dispensaries in CA and OR. Can a campaign for the V chip and school uniforms be far behind?

This, this, this. The president isn’t going to come charging in on a white horse and send all the dirty cops and mayors to hell. This is a people’s movement, and it’s the people who should be fighting it. If you’re waiting for a savior, you’re missing the point.

Yoo Hoo, Oh Chancellor Linda and Lt Pike…Yoo Hooo….I think there’s a tumbrel coming down the street with your names on it….

The UC system needs to fasten their seat belts for more of this. Between the recent protests about the practically weekly tuition hikes passed by the Trustees(with matching salary hikes for the top administrators) and now students taking part in the Occupy movements, there are going to be plenty more of these demonstations to deal with.

It’s not going to be pretty.

But, Spaghetti, even if he doesn’t want to be our savior, can he at least be consistent? On the one hand, he says that each municipality should deal with #OWS with as much force as they see fit. On the other hand, we now learn that the FBI and Homeland Security have been actively involved in coordinating the latest round of clamp-down on #OWS.

I’m not suggesting that Obama personally asked the FBI to give our new hero, Lt. Pike, his can o’ pepper spray and told him to go to town, but clearly federal agencies are involved at this point — their boss can (or at least should be able to) decide how they act, if at all.

Chubby McCampuscop

Respect mah authoriteh!

I see the Obama *flying concern trolls* are out tonight, so I’m guessing that Bogg was frontpaged yet again. [fluffs the fainting couch pillows...]

All the usual suspects, though a quite polite discourse this evening.

“This is the point about Obama. He is doing nothing, absolutely nothing. It will be his legacy.”

I sure hope doing “nothing, absolutely nothing” is Obama’s Legacy. Cause that’ll mean that being president when Peak Oil comes home to roost a top the Washington Monument won’t be his legacy.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have ‘nothing’ than Peak Oil, for Obama to be famous for. (knocks on wood)

Feds raid medical marijuana dispensaries in CA and OR. Can a campaign for the V chip and school uniforms be far behind?

Boy howdy, I’d like to see that!

Here in HippyTownUSA(OR Branch) I’m having a hard time separating normal folks from Firebaggers. I know a shitboatfullof-conservative-Rush-listening-dumbfucks who wear tie-dye (for Tebow’s sake) and they sound more reasonable than most FireBaggers. WTF? (What’llTebowFuck?)

We need clarity! We need a dress code!

If you happen to have a vagina, then you need a chip or a badge or a sparkle pony, with a “V” on it or somewhere near it somewhere. Otherwise, you wear a Penn State Football Program approved “school uniform”.

These raids in OR? Just tossin’ that out or got facts?

The DHS and FBI phone conferences with the mayors should be a psychological study in some cognitive bender similar to the students “electrocuting” their victims.

Go figure, the Obama Executive has been playing the same tune, the Washington DC police take the clothes off the pipeline protesters and put them in unheated jail cells. Makes you wonder what the information and policy flow is from the Obama Executive down to the locals.

And the campus cop must have been envious he didnt have a rocket propelled tear gas grenade to shoot horizontally to fracture an innocent veteran.s skull.

I agree with that. I mean, I wouldn’t oppose some encouraging words, but I also think they’d get wingnut wurlitzer’d, spun out of proportion and next thing you know it’s “Obama Acorn SEIU thugs funding protests blah blah blah.” Yeah, that’s what the wingnuts are doing already, but if Obama or the national dems step in more publicly, that same line of attack would shoot to the top of every MSM rag and talking-head show in the country. I’m sure they’re itching to do it already and waiting for Obama to give them an excuse.

I don’t know. My perception of what a president should be is kinda weird, I’ll admit: In the abstract, I think the president shouldn’t be a terribly public figure, and I’m in favor of government where power is dispersed-a too-powerful central figure (president, king, dictator, etc.) has never been a recipe for success, IMHO. And I think the establishment Dems, whether this was actually their strategy or just simple cowardice, have done well to stay out of it. A lot of the goodwill they’ve generated, and what makes them different from the tea party, is that they’re pretty much grass-roots and self-sustaining. If you think that there’s a lot of “OWS = left wing tea party” BS floating around now, imagine what it would be if they could more explicitly tie them to the national Dems.

I’m not an anarchist or libertarian by any means. But I do think that expecting the government to be a leader in social change is kind of missing the mark, and that this is a movement of the people and it has to succeed or fail by that measure. If it gets to the point where the national Democrats have to jump in to give it a boost to keep it from collapsing, well, I won’t be angry, but I worry that it would cheapen the success and poison the well of whatever was accomplished. I mean, I get why people are calling Obama cowardly, but my larger worldview is that leaders of democratic societies should err on the side of cowardice. 1) Change needs to come from the people, and 2) leaders charging in to take control of things, even if they’re on the side of good, can have bad repercussions or set bad precedents.

And by “they” in the second paragraph I mean OWS.

when Peak Oil comes home to roost

Given that Obama was a kid lurnin’ stuff in a madrasa somewhere in muslinland when that particular peak was hit I feel he is to blame for @82.

“…Makes you wonder what the information and policy flow is from the Obama Executive down to the locals.”

No, actually it doesn’t. Unless you’ve got shit for brains.

“Yoo Hoo, Oh Chancellor Linda and Lt Pike…Yoo Hooo….I think there’s a tumbrel coming down the street with your “names on it….”

Not to worry, Chancellor and Lieutenant.

Occupy Place de Concorde has pitched tents where the guillotine usually stands.

Unless you’ve got shit for brains.

Does being a troll off troll-meds count for shit for brains?

Remember PFC Bradley Manning.
His situation was very instrumental in kick-starting our present movement.
Has anyone heard anything about him lately?

Here’s more regarding the international coordinating activities of the Police Executive Research Forum.

Re Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:

“Malaysia starts war crimes hearing against Bush, Blair” (Presstv.IR, Nov. 19, 2011)

” I feel he is to blame for @82.”

Of course, he’s to blame for @82; as it has been suggested here that he’s to blame for everything. Really, what is the fu*kin’ point of a black, Democratic president if he isn’t a blame magnet. Even things that Bachmann and Palin accuse him of.

“…when that particular peak was hit…”

My bad. I didn’t just mean when U.S. Peak O was hit in 1972. And I didn’t mean the world Peak O which was it hit 6 years ago. I was referring to “Valley of Death Peak Oil” which some forecasters of earliness predict in ’13, ’14, or ’15.

While I don’t hear Obama saying “I do not chose to run.” I can faintly hear the rabble Hebrews now, chanting before Pontius Pilate: ‘Give us Gingrich. Give us Gingrich.

Obama’s black? Oh good lord jeebuneez!

That explains Goldman-Sachs’ quicky, books-enhancing, loan to get those oily Greek summaguns into EuroLand and the resulting med-pot raids in OR and that fuckin’ asteroid that came within 1,000,000 miles of killing all earth recently.

I think it explains why those pesky voles keep gnawing the wires off my underground sprinkler manifold too….

Seriously. It makes perfect sense that Obama personally ordered that campus cop to mace those kids in California. But he’s such a coward that he even managed to be out of the country when it happened. The fact that he’s attending some summit in Asia that was planned months ago just makes his culpability for the incident at UCD that much more clear.

After all, cops never overreacted to hippie kids demonstrating and stuff before. Being from Chicago, i can personally attest that was never an incident of police brutality against political protestors in the history of this fair city. Until Obama.

So how does one schedule one’s vacation at this point? Is “he” here? Is “he” away?

I might buy this after we have it confirmed that reports that the Department of Homeland Security were NOT in on the various conference calls between the mayors about how to handle the Occupiers. And that no federal aid or equipment was used in such crackdowns. Without that confirmation I say that is turning a blind eye.

Not interfering with local police decisions would actually work both ways. If his administration is aiding in the crackdown in any way this hands off thing is just a pose so he doesn’t piss off the ‘professional left in the year before the election while he is once again selling out the people who voted for him in 2008.

this falls into the “if he didn’t know, he should have known, for Obama.”

The tactics aren’t much different from the crack down on the other OWS movements. Coordinated by over 40 cities with the help of the FBI and Homeland security, Obama’s finger prints are all over this.

Funny thing is, the Republicans are going to paint Obama with the OWM, yet he is doing his best to destroy any political advantage he might be able to get from it.

How does he really think he can mobilize young voters again when he allows them to be pepper sprayed when ever they speak up?

gunsbeforebutter @92

Didn’t you know Obama’s black? You’ve been fooled by his white accent for 3 years. They can make anybody sound like who ever they want. You probably never heard Sylvester Stallone do ‘Hamlet.’ It’d break your heart.

And speaking of Greece’s problems, what’s with this coincidence: the day after Germany and France agreed to help the new Prime Minister of Greece get his country back on the track, Italy’s bonds go over 7% and they take over from Greece as basket case du jour.

Btw, forget about asteroid 2011 MD. Phobos Grunt is where it’s at. I have a beautiful conspiracy theory about it but not now.

Really, who the fuck cares about 7 ounces of dirt from an ugly moon that Mar’s gravity is working closer to the Red planet pretty quick?

Russia just picked that particular mission because of the the moon’s name. Phobos. FEAR.

9 tons of nitrogen teroxide and hydrazine circling the earth. A new kind of Russian Roulette.

When it hits, it’s like a real big Rufi in your blueberry and banana smoothie.

Nearly 100 posts? Let me guess… somebody blamed Obama for the pepper spraying OR said Obama hasn’t done enough OR Obama disappointed them for lord knows what reason OR TBogg talked shit about Nader.

I have not read any of the posts. I’m just curious… am I right?

I hate when TBogg gets front-paged…

Thanks, Knut. It amazes me, the extent to which whether to enforce U.S. laws that clearly have been broken has come to be seen as a matter of U.S. public opinion.

Just try, for instance, to get the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce the laws against torture.

http://www.change.org/petitions/police-pepper-spray-peaceful-uc-davis-students-ask-chancellor-katehi-to-resign

Teh Wiki tells us: “Katehi was born {1954}in Athens and grew up on Salamis Island in Greece. She received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 1977. She came to the United States in 1979, then earned a master’s degree and doctorate in electrical engineering at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of California, Los Angeles, in 1981 and 1984, respectively”

Immigrant engineers don’t necessarily have a firm grasp of such things as the right to free assembly or freedom of speech. Even if they become university administrators.

Not necessarily. In my experience engineers in general, especially those that become managers, are more conservative. The ones I work with would p-spray in a heartbeat and they are as American as assault rifles.

You’re golden!

Tediousness is a harsh mistress.

A little update to an oldie

Are you looking for a way to serve god and country? Your chance has come. We are now recruiting trainees for the UC Davis Police Department. If you are big, strong and stupid we want you. Please call (530) 752-8943. Remedial courses are available for the culturally deprived.

Canned Heat Sic em pigs

From Charles Pierce at Esquire:
“In case you missed it, disgrace-to-boozy-bar-room-skanks everywhere Annie Coulter has a new book out. Apparently, she was plugging it on some San Francisco radio embarrassment yesterday.
I draw your attention to No. 6:
‘Remember the lesson from my book: It just took a few shootings at Kent State to shut that down for good.’”
November 18, 2011 at 5:51PM By Charles P. Pierce

Apparently, the administration at UCDavis thought well of Anne Coulter’s wise words and heeded them: the pepper-spraying of the students was simply a bald display of power with the intention of intimidating any future wanna-be protestors. When the expectation of a measured response to a demonstration is taken off the table, future protestors can rationally fear, that any response from the police is possible.
Given that it has a name that is seemingly no longer implausibly reminiscent of a ministry in an authoritarian regime, perhaps it is time for OWS to add the dismantling of the DHS to its list of demands.

I knew when I saw 100+ posts it was a sure thing (although I checked just to make sure). Think how many bridges are being left troll-less.

Have you seen the silent shaming? It’s superb. Do please watch it. The linked video is the student news report, and it’s all worth seeing, but the climax is at the end, and it’s something that should go down in the history of nonviolent protest.

If I were you, I would “unknow” “Lt. Pike”. Based on his performance, we can say he has absolutely no respect whatsoever for the university, the people who staff and study at the university, what it stands for. Furthermore it is clear that he is a very nasty man with a bad power trip.

Are they still teaching kids that?

I have actually seen postings in various places on the internet from various apparently post-high school kids to that effect, so yeah, apparently so. At least a lot of the white suburban or (previously) socio-economically advantaged kids (girls, especially, it seems).

They knew that the cops could use excessive force and be unjust to poor black people and stupid druggies and the homeless and other riff-raff, of course, but the idea that the police would ever be pointlessly violent or unjust to THEM was simply unthinkable.

Nearly 100 posts? Let me guess… somebody blamed Obama for the pepper spraying OR said Obama hasn’t done enough OR Obama disappointed them for lord knows what reason OR TBogg talked shit about Nader.

I have not read any of the posts. I’m just curious… am I right?

Yep. All of the above.

We LOVES us some outbreaks of democracy in the Middle East, but here…not so much. A group of college students sitting on the ground with arms linked surely did pose a threat to heavily armed and (body, no doubt) armored police officers. That asshole Pike wasn’t spraying those kids because he felt threatened, he was doing 1) it was a way to impose his authority, and 2) because the fat fuck got off on it – he enjoyed it, and he’d do that and worse every day if he could.

The whole damned country is supposed to a “Free Speech Zone”, but it appears that the First Amendment is joining the Fourth Amendment on the legal scrapheap. As for the police being your friend, that ends right about the time people start high school. After that, as far as the cops are concerned, they’re suspects who haven’t been caught yet. An opportunity like OWS just offers them the opportunity to administer a little extrajudicial punishment without any ugly consequences, provided you don’t get caught on video.

Agreed. I do not think the Occupiers either expect or want Obama to do anything to ‘help’ them. He is part of the problem, a problem which exists within the dysfunctional apparatus of government of which the violent apparatus and activities of militarized police forces across the land are merely the evidence.

I applaud TBogg for focusing on this end of the stick, where the damage is being done. Okay if he doesn’t want to discuss the other end – this is his diary, short and to the point. But just as we know what happened in Abu Graib wasn’t just a few bad apples, so too here. The buck does stop at the other end of that stick (which by the way is far longer than it used to be, and for what?)

Pepper spray doesn’t kill people; people with pepper spray do. Right. Lock ‘im up and give somebody else the pepper spray. Not.

These occurrences aren’t just happening in one city or on one campus. This is, as is the Occupy movement itself, an orchestrated countrywide confrontation. As such, had we a genuine federal apparatus that was citizen oriented, it would behoove our genuine President to act. We don’t and he (not being that) shouldn’t.

I think I got over that when my brother got stopped a couple of times, in junior high, riding his bike in a way the cop didn’t approve of. (I suspect my brother may have mouthed off a bit, too.) It didn’t make me allergic to police, but it certainly made me aware that they aren’t the helpful, friendly ones in the grade-school readers.

I have a rash.

Have you seen the silent shaming? It’s superb. Do please watch it. The linked video is the student news report, and it’s all worth seeing, but the climax is at the end, and it’s something that should go down in the history of nonviolent protest.

The students have demonstrated far more restraint and professionalism than the cops or the administrators. I love the look on the Chancellor’s face as she walks through the Gauntlet of Shame. “I’m accountable this time? Oh fuck.”

Ann Coulter: Just one of the living, breathing proofs that there is nothing, nothing a conservative can say or do that will get him or her banished from public life — unless it involves opposing the collective wills of other conservatives. (Case in point: Pat Buchanan, whose longtime conservative buddies only bothered to remember that he’s a raving bigot AFTER he came out in opposition to invading Iraq. But once Iraq became a fait accompli, he eventually was allowed back into the good graces and the speed dials of TV talk show schedulers.)

Not to mention that if we had a federal apparatus — which, while he hasn’t changed it, Obama didn’t create — that was citizen-oriented there wouldn’t be a *need* for an Occupy movement.

Rising Hegemon had the best title for this event –
“Yeah, you better take the walk of shame
Because UC-Davis Chancellor Katehi you spent the entire day fucking the Bill of Rights.”

That is just a wonderful pic, rickhill – if we’ve got them dogs on our side, we must ultimately triumph!