#Occupy – The Legal System?

#Occupy – The Legal System?

Illustration:  From www.whatnowtoons.com -- Keith manages to capture the moment brilliantly.

            We have received a number of questions as to why we haven’t been posting much lately.  Well, frankly, if you want up to date information, the site has a link to live coverage 24/7.  Second, we felt we had already said all there is to say.  Third, the Nation Magazine at Nation.com has covered it better that we could anyway. 

            However, lately we have noticed something about how this is reflecting American values.  Many occupiers are being arrested and the cops are being used to oust them around the country.  This is because they did manage to achieve one thing, which is to create the mass movement away from large banks to credit unions as a result of fees for ATM cards.  Now that actually cost them some money they thought they could extort, so the corporations are trying to stop these occupations.

            Compare the arrests, however, with what happened at Penn State when Joe Paterno was fired as a result of one of his coaches, Sandusky, being busted for homosexual pedophilia.  Yes, the guy was raping 10-year-old boys in the shower as people observed him.  It was all covered up.  Well, there was a huge riot in protest, even police vans were overturned, and not one person was arrested.  This is Amerika, after all. And we have our priorities.

            With all of the arrests for occupation, one would think there are prosecutions, no?  No.  So far as we have been able to determine, not one single case has been filed for prosecution.  The reason would be clear – it would cost too much.  In some states, the courts are only open 3 or 4 days a week as a result of budgets.  Imagine if all these people were prosecuted.  The courts would be clogged up.  In addition, what they have been arrested for could be described as freedom of expression, hence covered by the First Amendment, and hence eventually a federal case.  

            Of course, foreign policy is a part of capitalism as jobs are shipped overseas and we spend money on wars.  Does anyone remember a time when we were not at some sort of war?

            Mossad just bombed a missile factory in Iran, Time magazine says.  With only 2 to 3 hundred nuclear bombs, Israel is frightened of Iran’s nuclear program, even though our own intelligence agencies indicate they are not pursuing one.

            Obama is assured re-election because of the Republican field.  There are about ten candidates, only one of whom combines some intelligence and principles, and he is a psychopath.

Some other thoughts:

One feature of Capitalism that is not generally understood, even by the most militant Capitalists, is that Capitalism needs to grow, expand, and increase in order to even barely survive.  Perhaps the best book on this subject, and the most comprehensive and comprehensible, was written by Wallerstein a few decades back and called The Capitalist World System.   He goes back to its start in the 17^th century and shows its development.  It is not written from a Marxist or a Corporatist point of view but simply looks at the facts and puts them together into a meaningful format.  Of course, using facts is sometimes unfair to the libertarian elements and the current political biases, but they remain stubbornly true.

            A problem that Capitalism is starting to face is that its expansion is limited by the simply fact that the planet is finite in size.  It needs both new markets and new materials for exploitation (and this includes labor, or course), but these areas are shrinking.  Since the more successful capitalists must keep increasing their “wealth,” the rest of humanity must be further impoverished and exploited. 

            This is why we no longer have a divided world.  The system has expanded about all it can horizontally, so the only changes left are vertical, top down, in other words.  We hear a lot of talk about Greece causing trouble for Wall Street, but the total economy of Greece is roughly equal to that of the Dallas-Fort Worth area (and this excludes Denton, btw.).  Hence, foreign policy becomes, or should be considered a part of, the Occupy Wall-Street movement.

Just in!

            Occupy Aloah sang for two and a half hours, 45 minutes of protest songs, in front of Obama and the APEC dinner and nobody noticed.  The complete song is available:

Filed under Occupy Wall Street, Obama, Protests, U.S. Economy

Makana, renowned Hawaiian musician and guitarist.

Related stories

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• Occupy Wall Street Protest Enters Second Week; 80 Arrested at Peaceful March
• "Occupy Wall Street": Thousands March in NYC Financial District, Set Up Protest Encampment
• Decrying Debt and Budget Cuts, Students Stage Walkout to Join Growing Occupy Wall Street Movement
• Naomi Klein: Protesters Are Seeking Change in the Streets Because It Won’t Come from the Ballot Box

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Related Links

• Makana’s Official Website
• Watch Makana’s music video of “We are the Many”

AMY GOODMAN: This weekend, President Obama greeted world leaders at APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in his birthplace, Hawaii. Opening the plenary session in Honolulu, Obama said the Asia-Pacific region is essential for prosperity in the United States.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: And I want to emphasize that the Asia-Pacific region is absolutely critical to America’s economic growth. We consider it a top priority. And we consider it a top priority because we’re not going to be able to put our folks back to work and grow our economy and expand opportunity unless the Asia-Pacific region is also successful.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, activists with the group Occupy Honolulu coordinated a march on the summit to protest neoliberal trade deals under APEC, as well as what they call draconian security measures around this weekend’s gathering in Hawaii. More than a hundred protesters gathered at a local park and marched on Saturday toward central Honolulu, where the APEC summit was being held. This is activist Jason Farris.

JASON FARRIS: The whole ideology of global capitalism is that there’s a trickle-down effect. That’s the myth they’ve been trying to sell us for 40 years, and we’re still waiting for the trickle down. The middle class is disappearing, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. And, you know, that’s due to these policies, organizations like APEC.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, within the heavily guarded compound where the APEC meeting was taking place, renowned Hawaiian musician, guitarist, Makana, carried out his own act of protest. He had been invited to play instrumental music at the APEC gala dinner on Saturday night. He had previously performed at the White House in 2009. At the dinner, Makana opened his jacket to reveal a T-shirt which read, quote, "Occupy with Aloha." Then, instead of playing the background instrumental he was scheduled to play, he started to sing a protest song he had released earlier that day. As world leaders including President Obama and the Chinese premier Hu Jintao sat in the audience, Makana sang "We are the Many." Here, Makana explains why he chose to act the way he did.

MAKANA: So, I just came from playing the world leaders’ dinner at APEC here in Honolulu for the Obamas and, I guess, 19 or 20 other world leaders. So I showed up and did my gig. And I started to look around, and I thought about this song song I just wrote called "We are the Many." And it was an incredible experience to sing the words, those words, to that room of people. And I didn’t belt it out. I started out very subtly and subliminally. And I was like, "Ye come here, gather ’round the stage. The time has come for us to voice our rage."

"Did he just say what I think he said?"

And then I realized that, "Wow! I didn’t get in trouble!" So I played it again. And I made like a different version of it, ended up playing it for about 45 minutes. To be able to sing that there was an epic feeling. It felt right. My uncle always told me, "Play what’s in your heart, and play to the audience, you know. Play what you feel is right for them." That’s what I did. And I found it odd that I was afraid to do it at first. I found that disturbing. That’s kind of why I did it. I didn’t like the idea of being afraid to sing a song that I created. I’ve never in my life been afraid to sing anything. If that’s what we’ve come to in the world, where we’re afraid to say certain things in the company of certain people, I think that’s a dangerous place to be. And so, for me to move out of that space, I had to sing the song. And that’s what I did.

AMY GOODMAN: Hawaiian musician Makana, speaking about his act of protest at the APEC gala dinner with heads of state this weekend in Honolulu. We turn now to a fuller version of Makana’s song, "We are the Many."

MAKANA: [singing] Ye come here, gather ’round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage
From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won’t withdraw
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
’Til you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight
They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
’Til you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none
So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest
We occupy the streets
We occupy the courts
We occupy the offices of you
’Til you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

You can’t divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can’t buy
Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
’Til you do
The bidding of the many, not the few.

AMY GOODMAN: Makana, singing "We are the Many."

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