After the Darkness

I’m glad to see Wikipedia back online, and all the black bars removed and darkened sites restored to normal. I hope the message got through to the big top circus that is the US congress, that we’re mad as hell and we’re not gonna take it anymore.

I wrote to my Senators yesterday, and today I received a response from Senator Feinstein. She says she’s working with many interested and concerned parties to rework the legislation. Yada yada yada.

What I don’t think the congress understands yet is that the Internet is not US soil. It rightly belongs to the people of Earth, not the corporate greedstate of America. The Internet represents one of our last best hopes that we may come together as personnes sans frontières, seek social justice, and learn peace.

So legislators, who are elected by the people but employed by corporations, need to keep their gritty, porcine snouts back and stay out of our way. 

In other words, We the People Occupy the Net.

Change

Finally Fed Up

"A vast new protest wave has swept through New York, as some 20-thousand people marched demanding better jobs and economic opportunities."

“Banks cannot prove they own the loans…”

Coming Home to Roost – Congressional Oversight Panel, “Banks cannot prove they own the loans…”   http://deadlyclear.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/1448/

In the recent filing November 9, 2011 of an Ohio case, Deutsche v. Holden, in the Court of Common Pleas in Summit County, (Akron) Ohio, defense attorneys submit that the note had not been transferred pursuant to the PSA therefore the foreclosing entity (Deutsche) did not own the note and mortgage.

Holden‘s Motion to dismiss cites the November 16, 2010 Congressional Oversight Panel’s (COP) report titled “Examining the Consequences of Mortgage Irregularities for Financial Stability and Foreclosure Mitigation” as well as the PSA and New York trust law.

Big and Little Balls

… or circles. Whatever works for you.

The Captain Speaks

Philadelphia police captain (ret.) Ray Lewis chose to protest and be arrested in NYC. Here he explains his reasons and describes his experience.

The General Speaks

Here's a speech – quite a speech indeed – by a former major general, in support of the people.

"Maj Gen Bert Stubblebine (US Army ret) – President of Natural Solutions Foundation – delivers a passionate message to #OWS."

He's very opposed to vaccinations of any kind. Well, I don't know about that. Listen and consider his message for yourself.

"War has been declared on us, the people of the planet. Our weapon is truth."

Obama Speaks In Support of Protest

Unfortunately, his timing was a little off, and his sense of the demographic to which his office is accountable.

Disestablishmentarianism

I like this quote attributed to J.K. Rowling.

The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.

sic semper tyrannis

Originally posted to my other blog, 11.17.2011.

I received an email from a friend, expressing his dismay over the governance of our country. I have to agree. Again and again, lines of poetry come to mind; lines of the very poem from which this blog takes its epigraph:

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

- W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

Read the last 2 lines again to yourself, aloud.
Oh yes, so it goes in America these days.

next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims and so forth
- ee cummings

Anyway, I'll share the thought with which I responded to my friend: to hell with governance. It has done us very little good, ever. Governance is good for building roads and starting wars. Meaningful, systemic, sustainable change doesn't come from the top. And we should never doubt the talent of a few honest, committed people to bring change to life. Because that's the only thing that ever has.

What we need now is leadership, not governance. If only we can get governance to stop brutally evicting leadership from the public parks, we'll be on our way.

Actually, it’s better for the cause of progress if the police keep right on attacking and evicting, beating, teargasing, etc. As always in history, tyranny is the symbol and catalyst of the restoration of freedom.

Here’s a great short video to watch: A special comment from Keith Olbermann, 11.15.2011.

The Potty Riot

Police in Oakland attack and arrest protesters who need to pee.

University of California Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said on Wednesday that campus police had explicit orders when confronting Occupy UC Davis protesters in the school’s quad last week — but those orders were ignored, she says.

“We told the police to remove the tents or the equipment,” Katehi told The Sacramento Bee. “We told them very specifically to do it peacefully, and if there were too many of them, not to do it, if the students were aggressive, not to do it. And then we told them we also do not want to have another Berkeley.”

http://goo.gl/U05xsIf this is true, then a great many people, myself included, were wrong in calling for the resignation of the Chancellor. If she’s being honest about her orders, then the cops alone are to blame.

Cowards Among Us

It strikes me as odd. In almost every culture, and even among other species, the adults consider it their moral duty – at least their biological instinct – to protect the young and the helpless from bullies and predators. This imperative is generally endemic to males, but females will also stand and defend. Women are brave, don’t get me wrong.

I was raised to respect men who speak out against tyrants and stand up to thugs. And since I have yet to personally see or hear a woman side with the police in Berkeley and Davis and against the students, my message is mostly for my fellow men who take that position.

It strikes me as odd that some men not only won’t defend the weaker group – weaker by virtue of being unarmed – but these men will let themselves be seen in public doing the opposite.

I find it strange to see grown men in the places where we now conduct our public dialog, openly supporting armed violence against legal protest, right here in the United States. And indisputably showing themselves as unmanly in the process.

It’s not enough to say I have no respect for anyone who cheers on the bullies and the thugs in our society. There is a wide yellow stripe of stammering, semi-literate, arrogant aggression running down the indolent backside of America, and this writer intends to call it out and name it: cowardice.

I would never walk by if an armed attacker was assaulting a person seated on the ground, and at the attacker’s mercy. And it doesn’t matter one bit that the attacker is wearing a uniform. That just makes it worse; to assault citizens under color of authority is indefensible. In a sense, it’s worse than an attack by an outright criminal, because the criminal does not have a sworn duty to protect his victims. Any man who stands by and does not help, won’t at least speak out against violence inflicted by “peace officers,” is a coward.

It’s easy to side with the tyrants of the world. It takes courage to side with heroes. It looks like the tyrants have the advantage, and morally weak people want to be on the side that’s going to take the fewest blows. Others have the character to sit down with those who are right and get hurt, tasered, pepper sprayed. They don’t slink away and hide behind the weakness of weapons.

We will not strike a blow — but we will receive them. And through our pain we will make them see their injustice and it will hurt, as all fighting hurts! . . . But we cannot lose. We cannot. Because they may torture my body, may break my bones, even kill me . . . They will then have my dead body — not my obedience.
—Ghandi, the film.

In a letter to the chancellor of UC Davis, Peter J. Richerson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, wrote:

“The objective of a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience is to demonstrate to the citizenry at large that the authorities are an illegitimate elite that maintains power ultimately by force.” [http://goo.gl/u12vQ]

This is why, in the tradition of peaceful protest, the students at Davis sat down and locked arms. It made them completely helpless, not a threat to anyone at all. And it showed their attackers for the cowardly, low-life punks and bullies that they are.

It is why a great cry of outrage has risen across the United States and around the world in the past two days. Because we should not sit idly by while bullies attack people who cannot or will not defend themselves.

I am so impressed with the students at Davis and at Berkeley, for sitting down for what they believe, for remaining peaceful, for speaking the truth quietly and sometimes silently. They are strong despite the appearance of weakness, and they are good. I hope their parents – who are certainly busy filing lawsuits – realize this.

I am proud of the faculty, the poets and pacifists who have joined with them and been knocked down too. They all do America proud.

“The hearts of Martin Luther King and Gandhi must be beating in their graves; textbook nonviolent tactics,” said Dr. Richerson.

What I think of the police is self evident, redundant and digressive. But I am deeply ashamed of the small number of small people who have spoken out against the students, in support of the police.

If you support the acts of a bully, you are a bully.

This hateful – no, indifferent – stupidity disgusts me. But I think the students who were hurt would rather I didn’t say so. They would likely defend those who call them punks and say in some way that the victims of this brutality got what they deserved. The students would defend the free speech rights of those whose craven, twisted rhetoric I find so deplorable.

So finally, we who are awake must stand together against the violent, and against those who say their acts are acceptable because they could have been worse.

Yes, it can get worse.

It might get worse. It has been worse.

So it must be stopped before it bloody well does get worse.

If you think the cops were in the right, in spite of our laws and what I’ve called morality, then say so here. Say what you have to say, all of you, and let us see you for what you are. You have the right.

“Because no battle is ever won, he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”

– Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

The Primary Threat

What follows is a letter from Asst. Professor Nathan Brown of UC Davis to the Chancellor of the university, demanding her resignation for complicity in police brutality and failure to protect the rights and persons of her students and faculty. I concur with its sentiments.

I do not make a habit of posting material written by others, for obvious reasons. Writers don’t generally do that. And you can read my own open letter to Chancellor Katehi here. Professor Brown’s is better.

I am making an exception in this case because the following letter is important, not only to the moment but to the history we are creating; because it has already been re-posted elsewhere, beyond its origins; because I believe its nature invites redistribution for the common good; because truth spoken to power has a way of disappearing when power gets hold of it. And until the rights of people are cherished, at least we can try to protect the truth.

- Squelch

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

18 November 2011

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:

1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today

2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality

3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.” You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”

I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating “a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

Sincerely,

Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis

Nathan Brown’s page on the Davis English Dept Web site:

http://english.ucdavis.edu/people/directory/natbrown

More on the brutality at UC Davis

Contact link for UC Davis Chancellor Katehi:

http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/contact.php

Concerned citizens may also wish to contact the local district attorney and respectfully request an investigation into whether the officer using the pepper spray is guilty of a crime. Specifically:

California Penal Code § 12403.7(a)(8)(g)
Any person who uses tear gas or tear gas weapons except in self-defense is guilty of a public offense and is punishable by imprisonment in a state prison for 16 months, or two or three years or in a county jail not to exceed one year or by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.

And:

§12401. “Tear gas” as used in this chapter shall apply to and include all liquid, gaseous, or solid substances intended to produce temporary physical discomfort or permanent injury through being vaporized or otherwise dispersed in the air.

District Attorney Jeff Reisig
301 Second Street
Woodland, CA 95695
Ph: (530) 666-8180
Fx: (530) 666-8423
district.attorney@yolocounty.org
jeff.reisig@yolocounty.org