Defending the Ancien Regime

I'm glad that hyper-tweeter 'blogdiva' (Liza Sabater) made the point early on the morning of Nov. 14, as Oakland was cleared out by a multi-city police force, that the raid was as much a product of President Obama and DHS head Janet Napolitano, as of the multicultural, ostensibly liberal government of Oakland. Whenever multiple jurisdictions are involved, you can be sure that DHS law enforcement funds are involved, and likely the regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces are involved as well.
When you come right down to it, the federal government perceives the continued presence of semi-permanent encampments in multiple cities as a threat to the public order - and there are always enough "Black Bloc" provocateurs in many cities to give that perception some validity. I won't go so far as Liza to say that DHS considers Occupy as "low-level terrorism", but the feds certainly give cities plenty of tactical riot funds to make park-clearance a major goal.

What is to be done? A phalanx of judges in Nashville, including some rather conservative ones, have slapped down the governor of Tennessee and the state police for clearing public squares, saying that political encampments are themselves a protected form of free speech. Why not extend that argument to multiple cities with a class action lawsuit against those municipalities who are quick to ban protests? I'm thinking Albany, Atlanta, Austin, Berkeley, Chapel Hill, Denver, Nashville, Oakland, Portland, St. Louis, Salt Lake City... hmm, the list is getting long. Notice how many cities with "liberal" governments are listed? Arguments for public safety appeal to conservatives and liberals alike. Maybe it's time to initiate an economic boycott against these cities and others.

On Thursday night, I'm on a panel at Colorado College called "What if there were no Bill of Rights?" I'll argue that most Americans shy away from the Bill of Rights if it interferes with their entertainment bubble. And those in political office at municipal, county, or state level, even if they are liberal Democrats, are quick to eradicate free expression when a special event comes to town, like a G20 meeting or political party convention -- raiding organizing spaces, banning the wearing of bandanas within city limits, etc. Judges in locales like St. Paul, Minn. have fined city governments for suspending Constitutional rights on "emergency" grounds, when they know full well their temporary laws will not pass Constitutional muster. Maybe it's time to get serious on the punitive fines for such cities.

(On another topic, I spoke on a panel about the changing role of automated warfare and what it meant for the veteran. Here 'tis.)

Game Over!

First, let's clear up any misconceptions: I am the same person I was yesterday, joyful to a fault and utterly convinced of the worth of the human condition. I don't think people should avoid going to the voting booth in November to keep the Tea Party at bay, and I think there are plenty of things the average citizen can do to stave off disaster. But on Sept. 25, I was slightly more willing to snap up that Republican bumper sticker, "How's that hopey changey thing working out for you?" I was slightly more ready to mouth the anarchist mantra, "If voting could change anything, it would be illegal."

The feeling has been there in the background since Scientific American published a study a few months back, saying that on at least four vectors of ten, the environment has already passed the tipping point of irreversible damage. This is not an excuse for inaction, but a reminder that the world's a shit and we're knee-deep in it.

Yesterday, I saw the movie Gasland after heavy prodding from my friend Hilary, and I'm very glad I did. Josh Fox demonstrates that natural-gas drilling is perhaps the most toxic form of resource extraction, yet there is little that can be done to mitigate the poisoning and brain lesions, because Dick Cheney's secret energy-policy meeting of 2001 was set up primarily to craft a 2005 Energy Act that exempted oil and gas drillers entirely from the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. Since hundreds of thousands of new natural-gas drilling sites now dot the U.S. landscape, it's almost too late for catch-up. And now several oil drilling advocates are actually rejoicing about the North Polar ice cap melting, since it will allow tankers to traverse the North Pole, making further exploitation easier. Shit, we won't stop until the last landscape is devastated.

Meanwhile, my annoyance with the present administration went up a notch on Friday when the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force raided peace centers and activists' homes in Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, South Carolina, and California. Oh, sure, they have great stories about looking for FARC and Palestinian connections, but at the end of the day, it sure looks like a Bush administration action - meet the new boss, same as the old boss. And this is not surprising. Obama and Clinton, as I am never tired of reminding everyone, were candidates of the Democratic Leadership Council. This is the minuscule range for change allowed in this country, yet it enrages the paleo-right to talk about "socialism in America." The only question left is whether the republic or the environmental landscape collapses first, but time's pretty much up.