Occupier/Army Ranger in ICU: Oakland PD "jumped me"

Kayvan Sabeghi, a veteran of the US Army Rangers, is in the ICU at Oakland's Highland General Hospital after a clash with Oakland PD during the Occupy Oakland protests. Sabeghi claims he was "jumped" by OPD officers who severely beat him and subsequently denied him medical treatment.

The group Iraq Veterans Against the War said Sabeghi was detained during disturbances that erupted late on Wednesday in downtown Oakland and was charged with resisting arrest and remaining present at the place of a riot...

"He told me he was in the hospital with a lacerated spleen and that the cops had jumped him," Kelly said. "They put him in jail, and he told them he was injured, and they denied him medical treatment for about 18 hours..."

The veterans group said in a statement that police struck Sabeghi with nightsticks on his hands, shoulders, ribs and back, and that in addition to a lacerated spleen he suffered from internal bleeding.

Army veteran injured in Oakland clashes with police (via Reddit)

• [jtegnell]

  Meanwhile at Occupy DC a guy runs over three protesters, seemingly intentionally.

  Yay America! It brings a tears of pride!

• [MrWednesday7]

  -1 now.

• [TheDarklady]

  You want something to tear up about, jtegnell? 

  How about the absolute blood-thirsty glee and gloating I’m seeing from the Tea Party sympathizers. Several feel these hit-and-run drivers and heavy-handed police are perfectly justified in what they’re doing. Some would like to see it happen more often, or so they claim.

  I fear for my country. It’s become a kind of bizarro world, where those who claim to promote traditional *values* are the ones cheering on the gladiatorial lions. Frankly, I’m more worried about the fanatics in *this* country than the ones across either of the ponds.

  • [atimoshenko]

    I fear for my country. It’s become a kind of bizarro world, where those who claim to promote traditional *values* are the ones cheering on the gladiatorial lions.

    I think that one of the key, defining components of any position/belief/movement/etc. is what it positions itself against – how it defines ‘evil’ or ‘enemy’ or ‘other’. I would argue you can see this pretty clearly in the current liberal-conservative divide in the US. Very, very roughly put, liberals position themselves to oppose “the powerful” or “the oppressive”, whereas conservatives oppose “the dissident” or “the heretical”.

    The liberal position is actually significantly more flexible because it is a lot less specific. Within the framework of opposing “the powerful”, one can oppose patriarchy, and racism, and heavy-handed government law enforcement, and big business and the ‘one percent’. On the other hand, opposing dissent and heresy can lead to some internal inconsistencies. The framework for what is acceptable and what is heretical is quite complex (i.e. it talks not only about principles, but about specific manifestations of a pastiche of principles), and while it is pretty consistent with polar views when established, the opposition to dissent means that the framework cannot change even as the world does. Thus, in the face of a changing world one doubles down on core beliefs.

    I feel that this explains how people can ultimately end up cheering against their own stated ethical principles and their own economic interests. The changing world has resulted in their principles and interests manifesting themselves in new ways. However, with their evaluation of good and evil – of self and other – being tied to an unchanging old checklist of specific manifestations, one can only end up sticking with the (now illogical) manifestations, and not with the actual underlying principles.

    • [Reuben Rova]

      Are you stating that libs exist to fight power and cons exist to fight dissidents? 

      This is a gross over simplification. Your position implies that the parties only exist to oppose each other. In reality both of the parties are different faces on the same head. I do not claim any grand conspiracy. only that both parties are after essentially the same thing. They are consolidating power in the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. They have been playing the people against each other in this country to keep us divided and blind to there consolidation of power. 

      Only now they have gone to far and we are beginning to see the truth and stand against it. It is time to take off the blinders and see our government for what it really is and to blame the people that paid the bill to form it in this fashion. 

      • [atimoshenko]

        I would not apply what I wrote to political parties at all. Sure, the parties in some way try to represent the two dominant philosophies/frameworks, but for the most part politicians in a mature political system end up behaving like self-serving sociopaths, paying lip-service to whatever is expedient in order to expand their positions of power.

        No, what I was trying to capture were the root ‘allergens’ that modern day liberals and conservatives (in the actual population, not in Washington) would most vigorously respond to. Think of it this way – what are the things that you would have to oppose/be upset about for someone on the left of the political spectrum to think “yeah, he (or she) is a pretty good guy (or gal)”? What about the same for someone on the right? And yes, this will certainly not capture 100% of the political views out there today’s America (my own included), but I would be surprised if it did not capture a plurality…

        The way I see it, the answer in the first instance (left) would be something along the lines of a quite general and flexible principle of opposing power/oppression, while the second instance (right) would be a much more specific mix of Judeo-Christian morality, flag-waving patriotism, free market individualism, American exceptionalism/idealist foreign policy, and unwavering loyalty to your ‘group’. So, to piss off a ‘liberal’ (allow me the generalisation) one would have to promote the interests of the privileged, and to piss off a ‘conservative’ one would have to bring up an issue that explicitly or implicitly undermines one of the already-accepted positions.

        In this way conservatives will cheer the cops against the Occupy movement both because cops are often positioned as agents of America, the Beautiful, and because the Occupy movement is arguing that (free-market) individualism is today, at best, a mirage. On the other hand, send those same cops to confiscate the guns from some Texan militia and conservatives will start to see them as jack-booted agents of a communist government. Thus, while more explicitly defined prescriptions tend to keep a group more ‘pure’ and cohesive, the downside is that the world is so complex that those prescriptions will struggle to be internally consistent across all possible situations.

      • [Daniel]

        Are you stating that libs exist to fight power and cons exist to fight dissidents? 

        This is a gross over simplification. Your position implies that the parties only exist to oppose each other. In reality both of the parties are different faces on the same head.

        I have never heard of the “liberal party” and the “conservative party,” at least not in American politics.  Maybe you’re thinking of the Democratic party and the Republican party?  Both of those are fairly conservative.  I’d also point out that until L.B.J.’s administration the Democratic party was the conservative one and the Republican party was, in many ways, the liberal one.  (Of course, what constituted “liberalism” and “conservatism” at the time was different because the status quo was different.)

        I don’t really think it’s a gross oversimplification.  Here’s Friedrich Hayek, darling of modern conservative economic thought, explaining that liberals are liberals because they want changes and conservatives are conservatives because they fight changes:

        http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/cons.htm

        If you want to say Hayek was wrong about anything ever then I have about 300,000 randroids/glibertarians you can argue with until the end of time.

  • [Shane Simmons]

    Bizarrely, last night on Twitter, I was looking at the  #socialism hashtag, and saw several people who were claiming OWS was about socialism, and more than one person made the comment, “Have you ever heard of a veteran fighting FOR socialism?”

    I mean, I knew anti-socialism was turning into the new Red Scare, but I hadn’t realized it had gotten this bad.  Anything that doesn’t stick strictly to the far-right message is socialism now…

• [hungryjoe]

  I feel like OWS is not going a good job getting its various messages out.  The news is consistently about the protest, not why they’re protesting.  We know OWS is anti-Wall Street, but beyond that we’re left to fill in the gaps with our imagination. 

  This article says twice that Sabeghi was involved in anti-Wall Street protests.  It also says that he’s a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

  The Occupy Wall Street website is pretty self-congratulatory on how well they’re protesting, but it’s pretty short on actual message.  All of the Occupy websites I’ve visited read like they’re just news sources for the protest community.

  I’m as outraged about this as the next guy (whether or not Sabeghi is a veteran), but I feel like this news will not have any effect at all on Wall Street.  In fact, it redirects a lot of righteous anger from Wall Street to the Oakland PD.

  • [occupyordie]

    the fact that oakland PD is so brutally repressing these folks is directly linked the the fact that this country is either on the verge of or has already become an oligarchy–its all symptoms of the same disease.

  • [Guest]

    Clearly the protest movement is responsible for the news choices of the major networks, which obviosly have good reason to cover challenges to the profitable status quo.

    Yes, that was sarcasm. 

  • [Dr P Fenderson]

    I assume all you guys read this blog, since you’re commenting on it. So…can I direct your attention to an earlier story directly outlining what the OWS people are asking for? 

    http://boingboing.net/2011/10/02/occupy-wall-street-declaration-of-the-occupation-of-new-york-city.html

    Also, here is *another* article from Slate talking about how the mainstream news, which I guessing you absorb regularly, is also confused about the very simple message that Occupy is sending: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/10/how_ows_confuses_and_ignores_fox_news_and_the_pundit_class_.html

    Or, you know, you could just use your critical thinking bone. Or ask them.

    • [hungryjoe]

      Yeah, I guess I am confused by the idea that the only consistent message is dissatisfaction with the current system.  It’s not what I’m used to.  Usually a movement like this lays out all their objections, then aligns themselves with either the Democrats or the Republicans anyway.

      Here’s a really positive and already successful thing that has come from the movement (Move Your Money Day):  http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/03/pf/move_your_money_day/index.htm?source=cnn_bin

      • [Cowicide]

        Here’s a really positive and already successful thing that has come from the movement (Move Your Money Day):  http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/03/pf/move_your_money_day/index.htm?source=cnn_bin

        Thank you for acknowledging that reality, hungryjoe.

        • [Antinous / Moderator]

          Actually, HuffPo started it one or two years ago.

        • [Cowicide]

          Actually, HuffPo started it one or two years ago.

          While it’s highly commendable that HuffPo jumped on board and pushed for it, they didn’t start it.

          The same people that’ve been pushing for a mass exodus to credit unions, local banks, etc. for years beforehand are the same ones involved with OWS (behind the scenes and udderwise) that are also now helping to make that former pipe dream a reality.

          That certainly includes people from HuffPo as well, but the magazine itself didn’t start the fire, nor invent this “idea” by any stretch.

          Actually, Boing Boing was further ahead of the curve than HuffPo if you are to read the comments, etc. and look at Mark’s posts, etc.

          For example, almost 4 years ago Teresa Nielsen Hayden (former lead moderator for boingboing to those few who don’t know) pointed out some discussions that included that attention-whore Cowicide and udders trying to explain the severity of the coming economic crisis despite the naysayers…

          http://boingboing.net/2008/03/21/good-comment-thread.html

          Within that thread, switching to credit unions was brought up.  But, it’s been discussed and pushed by many others and myself who are now involved with OWS.

          In the end, I guess it doesn’t matter as long as this keeps moving forward and, once again, I commend HuffPo for helping.  But, in the spirit of accuracy, I wish you wouldn’t say HuffPo started it.  Huge groups of people all over the United States started it years ago and have been begging everyone else to get on board… now those same people are a part of OWS in solidarity.

          Do some googling and you’ll see a push in the comments on YouTube to get everyone to switch to credit unions and local banks going back much further than a few years ago.  Unfortunately, I can see plenty are missing from Google nowadays (including my blog from 2004 that called for this), but there’s some stuff still left that’s newer…

          Also this almost 3 years ago…
          http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/02/17/698414/-Screw-bankers-BACK:-switch-to-a-credit-union

        • [Antinous / Moderator]

          Yes, well, my mother started telling me c. 1960 to bank with a local cooperative bank. But HuffPo still organized a national Move Your Money day in December 2009. There’s a difference between long-standing good advice and actually announcing a date on a national forum and telling everybody to get on board.

        • [Cowicide]

          There’s a difference between long-standing good advice and actually announcing a date on a national forum and telling everybody to get on board.

          Yes, HuffPo announced a date to do it, etc. and as I said I certainly commend them for it; my point is others conceived of this type of action beforehand (not as “banking advice”, but as a way to vote against big banks) and let’s face it, it didn’t get much traction for anyone including HuffPo until the OWS movement stepped up… and many in the OWS movement already wanted this to happen en masse years before HuffPo “invented it”.

          Once again, it’s just a bunch of Americans converging to get things done and OWS solidarity is the catalyst for many of those Americans.  So, it’s all gravy, either way.

          And… back to the point of this in the first place, it just goes to show how the OWS movement is changing and enabling things for the better while still only in its infancy.

        • [Antinous / Moderator]

          I only brought it up because my first thought was, “Hey, didn’t we just do this two years ago?”

          Got any brilliant ideas for what I should do with my IRA?

        • [Cowicide]

          Got any brilliant ideas for what I should do with my IRA?

          Your IRA?  I dunno, is that you in the middle?

        • [Antinous / Moderator]

          We were way to the left of them.

      • [Dr P Fenderson]

        See – but that’s the beauty of this current movement. There isn’t just one thing they’re standing behind. It’s not as easy as a legislator either giving them the exact thing they want, or not giving it to them – and having the movement collapse. It’s a condition of the system we’re having to put up with now; a slew of problems that have been heaped on the public. It’s general unrest – not specific unrest.

        Here is more from Douglas Rushkoff, previous BoingBoing guest, on the movement and the points you have raised (I believe these were also linked to from BB):

        http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html
        http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/25/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-prototype/index.html

  • [Cowicide]

    I feel like this news will not have any effect at all on Wall Street.

    Despite your feelings on the matter and general naysaying, this movement in reality only continues to grow in strength, passion and effectiveness.  Despite you naysayers from the very beginning, this movement has unquestionably changed the national discourse that was previously, hopelessly entrenched in corporatist babble.

    In a very small amount of time, the OWS has already dwarfed the tea baggers who can only sit in awe as we continue to grow far beyond their wildest imaginations and (corporatist right wing radio inspired) irrational fears.

    As this movement continues to grow, it continues to inspire oppressed people everywhere; the seeds have grown into solid roots.  We have a solid foundation for mobilizing the nation to finally get a single payer system for health care so we finally invest in one another.  Truly invest in America.

    The corporatist media machine has been forced (and I mean FORCED) to suspend its normal programming for manufacturing consent.  The machine is reeling and trying its old tricks to ridicule, lie and ignore the movement… but to their absolute terror… it’s not working.  The media is finding that the MORE they LIE, the LARGER this movement is getting.

    The movement is spreading because people are waking up and realizing the mainstream media is full of LIES.  These lies have been the only thing between solidarity of the American public against the corporatist elite. Once the corporatist media lies don’t work anymore on a huge segment of the population, their power on wall street, washington and our individual rights and freedoms are sunk. We are heading closer to that victory. We’re winning this war against them.

    So what have you done?

• [Rephlex]

  If you even have the most minimal of knowledge regarding the Ranger qualification course, you’d be a bit surprised with this fellow ended up bedside willingly. They are tough cookies and no doubt this guy has been in the “shit” as they say.

  How monstrous it must be to go through all of that and be beaten by the very police that are supposed to uphold the laws that he swore to protect in oath.

  Sickening.

• [Mordicai]

  S’weird.  The Tea Party seems almost like a fabricated “movement,” like one big marketing plot; Occupy Wall Street et al, on the other hand, seem to be be getting people in power concerned enough to lash out irrationally.  Weird.  Almost like one group is an actual political force, & the other is a product of a commercial narrative.  Huh.

  • [Gideon Jones]

    Or, here’s a crazy thought- what if one group was engaged in meaningful protest of people who care about their images, people who can be booted out of their jobs by the protesters, and who responded accordingly.  

    The teapartiers showed up at town hall meetings and at their congressmen’s offices, yelled at those congressional leaders, organized primary challenges against them and/or threatened to vote against them unless they changed how they were behaving, and did so several months later.  

    OWS is camping in parks and blocking off streets.  

    One approach is effective and involves no police presence/force, the other… isn’t.  I seriously thought the organizing we did around Dean and Obama had actually taught the left something about the absolute worthlessness of this sort of theater protest, but apparently not.  We’re back to drum circles and giant puppets, rather than political organizing.  Woo hoo!   

    • [hungryjoe]

      Yes, exactly.  Although maybe this will become more useful when elections come around. Hopefully all the street protests will not alienate the centrists.

      On the other hand, all that previous organizing for Dean and Obama didn’t seem to get us much in the end.  Three years into Obama’s presidency, and this is where we are.  It’s not surprising that we’re back to square one.

      • [Gideon Jones]

        Uh, presidents can’t do much of anything without congressional approval unless it involves military matters.  When the left sat at home in 2010 and let the teaparty destroy our bare congressional majority, it pretty much guaranteed nothing would be happening politically for the next couple years.  

        The fact that the left has apparently decided to do the same thing again, just more loudly, isn’t exactly reassuring.  The only way to accomplish what the OWS people want is through political engagement, and they’re not doing it.  It’s depressing.

        • [Guest]

          the ONLY way? no. YOUR way. It sounds like you’ve marginalized yourself.

        • [Manuel Smirnoff]

          “ When the left sat at home in 2010 and let the teaparty destroy our bare congressional majority,. . . ”

          Speaking for The Left, Inc., we stayed home because the congressional majority acted like they were on the other side of the isle, and thus did not deserve our support. Had they been voting and promoting the values we support, we would have, in turn, supported them. Instead, we’d had two years of caving in–you’d never have known they were a majority by watching them in action, if you call constant capitulation “action”.

          “The only way to accomplish what the OWS people want is through political engagement, and they’re not doing it. ”

          Laughably not even close to a true statement. Political engagement is a joke.

        • [n8zilla]

          60% of the seats is more than just a “bare majority”… and they squandered that historic level of control. you want to blame someone for disillusioned voters? blame the jerks who filled those voters full of hope and then just got back to business as usual. it’s truly amazing how many folks are aghast when people point out how terrible these shit sandwiches we keep getting from the Democrats taste; as if we should be complementing the cooks, instead, and asking for more.

    • [atimoshenko]

      One group wants to empower themselves within the current system, while the other sees the current system as fundamentally flawed and wants to change it. The two groups have different goals, hence their effectiveness must be measured differently, and the reaction of the system towards them is understandably different as well.

      Put otherwise, the Tea Party is ‘commercial’ in the sense that one cannot accomplish anything in the current system without immense financial backing. The Occupy movement, on the other hand, is upset precisely with this fact, and must thus use tactics that are both inexpensive (they have no money), and that cannot be effectively opposed through the mere deployment of funds (their opponents have a lot more money than them).

      • [Gideon Jones]

        One group wants to empower themselves within the current system, while the other sees the current system as fundamentally flawed and wants to change it.

        The problem of course is that only one of those goals/tactics is effective.  The other is responsible for about 40 years of decline, as one right wing administration and congress after another came into power and destroyed the country, one bit at a time.  Meanwhile the left was (and is apparently back) dicking around in the streets trying to “fundamentally change the system”.

        • [atimoshenko]

          The problem of course is that only one of those goals/tactics is effective.

          Not necessarily. Just ask Louis XVI.

          I also do not think that it is a left vs. right thing any more. The left lost at power, pretty much across the world, because the left positioned itself in opposition to power (see my reply to TheDarklady). The heart was mostly in the right place, but one cannot oppose the powerful when one becomes powerful enough to oppose them because… well… one is oneself ‘the powerful’ by that point.

          So to go back to my ‘no longer left vs. right’ claim – the traditional ideas of the left have already been demonstrated as inadequate/impractical for governance, really having their last gasps of breath somewhere in the early-to-mid 1990s. What we are going thorough now is the demonstration that the traditional ideas of the right are abusive and inefficient. The problem is that we do not yet have a consensus answer to “if neither left nor right, then what?”. In fact, we do not even yet have a consensus identification of the root causes of the problem. Little wonder then, that the Occupy movement does not yet seem to have any single, concise message.

        • [Shane Simmons]

          Not only that, but the right has the audacity to blame EVERYTHING that has gone wrong on the left, and high-five each other for their blazing insight…

        • [dbr]

          I mean, honestly, ‘of course’?  Do you have anything resembling evidence that your preferred tactics are the effective ones?  That if we’d consistently elected Democrats everything would be Wonder Wheels & cheese dip?

          You look at a long decline and for some reason choose to blame some marginal actors doing something you find distasteful.  Scapegoating: an effective method of preserving moribund ideologies since, well, forever.

        • [Amy L Sacks]

          Tch.

          Democrats have been gleefully “me tooing” Republican excesses for years.  You only have to look at how many of them jumped on board Bush II’s war machine after 911.  99% of Obama’s blather is just austerity with a sugar-coating of faux compassion for the people he’s helping the banks fuck over.  Obama cares about Obama and the rich people who made it possible for him to run in the first place.  The rest of us are just there to kneel before him in silent adoration/supplication, while digging in our pockets for tithes that we don’t even have.

          No thanks.

          I don’t understand how you can on one hand claim that the far Right has been the major force behind political change for almost half a century, while simultaneously claiming that the far Right’s sanctioned “opposition” needs more time, money, votes, and energy so it can prevail against the people it has –in your own estimation– failed miserably in prevailing against for at least four decades.

          If the Democrats have routinely done such a piss-poor job of “opposition,” maybe it’s because they’re a lousy excuse for an “opposition” party and don’t deserve any further support.

          If you find demonstrations personally distasteful and/or inconvenient, don’t participate.  But don’t expect others to ignore the evidence of our own experience.

    • [Guest]

      I think it’s quaint the way you pick on what the protesters (“they”) do, then switch back to using “we” to make an emotional appeal for unity.

    • [Al Billings]

      Gideon, you seem to think that electing another Democrat or Republican suckling on the corporate teat is going to change something. OWS knows who owns the politicians and it isn’t the people.

• [Серега Invectro]

  hmm, realy interesting

• [doggo]

  Regarding the ineffectiveness of Obama, what I see is the Council Wars we saw in Chicago during the Harold Washington years writ large. In fact it’s eerie how similar it is, but on a grand scale, a national scale.

  Harold Washington  was the first black mayor of Chicago, from 1983-87, and during his tenure the city a faction of the city council opposed him at every turn. The faction claimed it wasn’t racism, and that they just opposed his ideas.

  I voted for Washington, and I voted for Obama, both to help break the racial barrier in higher elected office, and because they were charismatic Democrats that I believed would be good leaders.

  Obama has been a disappointment, but I don’t blame him as much as I blame the Republicans’ obstruction. I still stand by the president, and I still believe that Barack Obama is a great president.

  I just hope that the next time around people vote these insane House & Senate Republicans out so Obama can do his job better. The truth is, he’s done a lot of good, it just gets buried by the Republican propaganda and the sheer magnitude of the problems that eight years of a Republican administration has left us with.

  If I had to pick one issue for the Occupy movement to concentrate on, it would be to eliminate, or severely limit lobbying and campaign contributions by for-profit organizations, including reversing the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Because if “corporations are people”, then they’re dangerous sociopaths that we need to be protected from.

  Other than that, I’d want more regulation of all industries. Regulation with teeth. Because ultimately you just can’t trust business to do the right thing. Time and time again business cries that regulations are a burden and inhibit their ability to “innovate” and “create jobs”, and it costs too much, etc. And time and time again business breaks its trust with the citizenry, polluting air, water, and soil, exploiting employees, producing defective and dangerous products, and generally fucking everyone over at every turn. Business has proven over and over that it cannot/will not regulate itself. Business cannot be trusted.

  Hell, one of the big problems is there aren’t enough people in the various regulatory agencies to properly do the regulation. There’s an opportunity for jobs. And charge the businesses taxes to pay for the regulation (and regulatory jobs). 

  If they threaten to move overseas, fucking let ‘em. First of all, who wants a sociopath living next door? Second, tax the shit out of foreign imports. There has to be be people in this country who are willing to run a business in an ethical and responsible way. We can produce everything this country needs within its borders. Those things we need to import materials from other countries to produce are going to cost more. I can live with that.

• [Guest]

  I hope the veteran the post is about is doing okay. 

• [no40acres]

  Google “Authoritarian Personality” and think about the people that are against this movement. One of the characteristics is that no amount of factual evidence will sway them and change scares them. Those in power (who are of this ilk and/or sociopaths) cynically manipulate these people to their advantage. OWS is about finding a better way to organize society for everyone’s benefit. However, the hurdle of the entrenched powerful and their blindered followers may be too great to overcome by political means.

• [David Witt]

  ‘Our bare congressional majority’ = LOL. Who is this ‘our’ you speak of, Lone Ranger? One large reason for the OWS protests is the realization that the Democratic Party at the national level has been co-opted by its ‘business wing,’ and has given precious little to anything remotely seen as ‘liberal.’ Obama has done as much for the constituents of OWS as he did for the Egyptians – some beautiful rhetoric, then full speed ahead with the status quo.

  The reason the OWS protests are effective is because they refuse the false dichotomy offered by the Establishment Political System. There is also no reason why people can’t participate in OWS and within the political process, but the concern trolling by the professional center is just that.

  My wife, who grew up in France, long ago wondered why there weren’t more strikes in the US, as in France they are an effective, if inconvenient, way of popular expression in political struggles. I explained to her the long history of US strike breaking, and the decades of anti-union, anti-liberal propaganda. Lots of otherwise right-minded folks in the center are turned off of this sort of thing because they have been brainwashed, and have neglected to learn from history. 

  Make no mistake, OWS is WAY more scary to the Establishment than Obama, Dean, and the other caricature villains they rail against. That OWS is not received comfortably by many citizens in the middle says more about the indoctrination of the latter than the veracity of the former.

  OWS has its faults, but it is doing the job of showing us how corrupt the system is – as evidenced by the  authoritarian reactions against vets like Kayvan Sabhegi and Scott Olson. It’s a mirror on our society that the Ribbon Magnet crowd is not as patriotic as they seem, and would no doubt be coming down on the Founding Fathers themselves if they were around today.

  • [Daniel]

    OWS has its faults, but it is doing the job of showing us how corrupt the system is – as evidenced by the  authoritarian reactions against vets like Kayvan Sabhegi and Scott Olson. It’s a mirror on our society that the Ribbon Magnet crowd is not as patriotic as they seem, and would no doubt be coming down on the Founding Fathers themselves if they were around today.

    240 years ago, the TEA party would have been marching on Philadelphia with signs that say “Tread on me”, “Go hang yourself, Franklin,” and “You don’t fight for me, George.”

• [Strato Head]

  What the TeaParty has accomplished is voting their fundy candidates to office. That’s it… oh…and giving us a 10 fold increase in the rise of hate groups, right wing militias, “oathkeepers”, and that has led to several attempts at right wing violence that thankfully, most of which have been busted early on in their attempts.
    OWS in all it’s diverse glory, is nothing like that.  
  and what’s wrong with a massive group of people of diverse political stripes, and ideology’s coming together , working together, and if necessary taking a beating together to effect change for the common good?  Why is it that the so called “Right” is so against this idea? I think it’s fear. Honest to god(s/?) fear. They have to know that if all the diverse masses unite and stand up against the oppressive minority and the greed that drives it, they will lose. There are WAY more of us then their are of them.

  I get that the unified message could be more coherent. But just sitting around constantly bitching about how unpolished it is, and then instantly assume its “ineffective” based on your own personal marketing sensitivities… hows about you take your ideas to General Assembly and pitch your ideas.
  Get online and do something about it. Put your money where your troll is.

• [yeahyeahwhtever]

  Yep, the 1% owns the whole system, making voting irrelevant.  That’s why people are in the streets.  

• [lavardera]

  So when exactly can we declare an “Oppressive Regime” and call for “Economic Sanctions”? What exactly will it take to send a wake-up call?

  America – you are doing it wrong.

  • [Cowicide]

    Maybe the United States should sanction itself?  After all, our leaders seem to support it with their own words.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Td-4dYb9Y4

• [Reuben Rova]

  From the “Declaration Of Independence”: 
  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

  Life: 
  Only the well to do can afford health care. If you can buy health care you will have a better chance at a long prosperous life. To be equal we all need health care.

  liberty:
  The cons make decisions about what you can do in your home and with your body via abortion, and anti sex, or drug laws etc. The libs decide how you must act when you are out side your home via smoking bans, speech bans, religious symbolism bans, etc. Both parties want everyone to act and think a certain way without a choice to think and act for themselves.

  The pursuit of happiness:
  Greed and economic oppression are devastating the middle class in this country.  This fact is the catalyst that ignited the spark of the Occupy movement. Our pursuit of happiness begins with the secession of hostilities on the american people by the corrupt and greedy capitalist that control the lions share of the wealth. 

  If you have children imagine the world your future generations will have to raise your grandchildren and great grandchildren in. Will it be one of lies and oppression or will it be a new renascence of freedom and liberty? The choice is ours alone my friend. Will we unite or will we be trampled underneath.

  • [Cowicide]

    Thank you, Reuben Rova.