America's Authoritarian Turn
JOHN MINCHILLO
Ever since the rise of Occupy, corporatist authorities have been trying to figure how to squash our emerging social movement. First they tried a media blackout, but when over 700 nonviolent meme warriors were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge our Gandhian ferocity catalyzed a thousand encampments and the 1% could ignore us no more. Next elites tried the Bloomberg model of midnight paramilitary raids backed up by excessive force and sometimes-lethal munitions. That worked well to evict encampments in New York City, Oakland and nationwide … but it backfired when occupiers became diffuse, appearing at scripted events and interrupting the spectacle of corporate-funded politics with mic checks of truth. Now they are trying the new tactic of “lawfare” – using draconian laws to squash free speech in a last ditch effort to put an end to people power.
A week before the G8 Backdown, the US House of Representatives voted in near unanimous consensus in favor of an authoritarian law, H.R. 347, that makes it a federal crime to disrupt “Government business or official functions” or to enter any building where a “person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting.” In other words, to mic check Obama is now a federal crime punishable by a year in prison. And so too is the banner drop if it takes place in any building that a “protected” person might be visiting in the future, even if jammers don’t know it. And so is the anti-globalization tactic of blocking road access to a meeting of world elites, there is a special clause about that too. Obama signed the bill into law on March 9.
History shows that using authoritarian laws to silence the authentic, legitimate concerns of the people always boomerangs into a fatal loss of legitimacy. Governments derive their authority and right to exist from the people and when the people are ignored and beaten back regimes fall.
Read more about H.R. 347 at the dailyagenda.org and the lawfareblog.com and then brainstorm below on how Occupy can outmaneuver this new tactic of repression.
97 comments on the article “America's Authoritarian Turn”
Displaying 61 - 70 of 97
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Anonymous
THANK YOU!
Anonymous
Totally agree--I also work and am a parent--I make time to protest and I bring my child with me--my mom,my daughter and myself make three generations protesting together!!
Anonymous
Thank you for answering the previous commenter's question intelligently and definitively!!
Anonymous
If you don't like the U.S. move to North Korea and oh by the way these idiots represent one tenth of one percent not 99%. They are looked on as a joke, although not as much as the maxist on Ad. Keep up your great work. Productive people can always use a few laughs and you lefties are an unending source.
Anonymous
or perhaps if you dont like it the chioce should be stay and fight to make it better . and if you do like the current fascist state of things ...go to north korea . you will feel right at home . resistance to tyrants is obediance to God....thomas jefferson. to sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men . abraham lincoln. your assesment that we are looked on as a joke seems a bit incorrect as well. have you not seen the police responce? the police do not "crack down" on jokes. they ignore them like they did the tea party. politicians seem to understand this is no joke . they certainly are talking about our issues . so if you dont like progress and are to scared to stand up yourself fine . sit down and shut up while others fight for your liberties justice and freedom .
661_LAGNAF
Couldnt agree more... I think most people are lazy to do their own research.. Hence KONY 2012 and the joke of a scam that is for more american imperialism. I hope Occupy takes the world into the age of Aquarius. I stand behind protesting your rights. My father always said if you dont exercise your rights you will lose them. And after the CIA dropping crack into the streets people forgot about the sixties and protest. Hopefully we get back to it... Personally I havent seen a good protest since 92 when we protested the verdict of some abusive cops that misuse their powers.
Anonymous
Why is the knee-jerk reaction of close-minded individuals always "If you don't like it here, then go somewhere else"? Where would we be today if that had been the attitude of the early revolutionaries? Imagine if instead of campaining on behalf of freedom Ben Franklin printed story after story about how we should just accept how the British ruled us and that dissenters should go somewhere else? How many of those that currently hold the "like it or leave it" attitude will change their tunes when it is their turn to go to jail for exercising their rights? Everyone knows it is easy to just accept the status quo when one is on the inside benefitting from it but what are they going to do when they stop believing the corporate lies and realize that they are really on the outside, that the status quo has been changed to exclude them? How many housing bubbles, tech bubbles, Great Recessions, etc. do we have to have before everyone realizes that the rights they believe they have and the government they believe protects them have been co-opted by corporations and the money that runs them? A lot of questions. I wish I had the answers. It makes me sad that the country I love has been taken from us by the very corporations that we freely give our money to.
For my critics: I love my country so much that I am currently serving as a company commander in the Army and am in my eleventh year of service. I have deployed twice to Iraq defend your right to criticise my comment. I proudly belong to the other 1% of Americans: those that have served their country in the Armed forces. How many people who have stated "If you don't like the US then leave" can say that?
Anonymous
* campaigning
Anonymous
sounds like you have time on your hands to read this article and then comment why others also have time on their hands...do you see the hypocrisy?
Anonymous
Get over yourself, 99% of 300 million Americans is a lot of people. All Americans are having their freedom of speech and right of assembly stolen from them on the pretext of safeguarding freedom, not just a marginal antisocial radical élite.
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