RNC Day 1: Where the f**k are the protesters?

Is it the storm? Or the Storm Troopers?

POLICE VIOLENCE TODAY IN BURLINGTON VT

Today in Burlington, VT there was the Conference of Governors, who met with Provincial Premiers of Canada to discuss, among other things, the Tar Sands pipeline that will be going from Fort Murray, Alberta to Portland, ME:



As the Delegate Buses were leaving, Occupy New England Regional Gathering formed a blockade to send a message about Tar Sands.

The police responded by firing pepper balls, rubber bullets, spraying pepper spray, and beating people with nightsticks.



Said Kara, an eyewitness, "The Riot police geared up, skipped buttoning their clothes, and slammed people into the ground soon after they had used pepperspray and shooting rubber bullets at the protesters. This was the first time."

According to Kara, the protesters were not detered by police violence, and regrouped to form a second soft block for a second bus. The police proceeded to respond to nonviolent tactics with violence.

At least 6 injured.

Call Burlington Police Department @ 82-658-2704. Twitter: #btvconverge, #j29

SHOCKING : CALIFORNIA COPS OPEN FIRE ON MEN - WOMEN - CHILDREN - BABIES

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FAIR USE

Cops shot non-lethal rounds toward men, women and children and unleashed a dog who charged toward a stroller during a clash with mostly Latino residents in Anaheim following an officer-involved shooting there.

Lauren (Blue Hair) challenges the NYPD to a rap battle

This is exactly the creative, nonviolent, provocative shit that I love to see.

Anarchopanda

this is incredibly awesome

Via Wired Magazine:

He’s an anarchist-pacifist, he told me after our chance meeting, but he calls himself Anarchopanda. You can find tributes from his fans on Facebook and a handful of videos of him on YouTube, hugging the riot cops dispatched to suppress the spontaneous marches that have surfaced every night since the bill’s passage.

DemocracyNOW! covers the #noNATO protests in Chicago

TimCast, LukeWeAreChange, and Jiraffa raided by police

Video streaming by Ustream


Video streaming by Ustream

Outsourcing? What about INsourcing? aka Prison Labor

"Going to China isn't cheap enough now, so they're sending our jobs to the prison system."

In 2005, 14 million lbs of beef was contaminated with rat feces. A recall was not allowed by the USDA, because it would draw too much attention to prison labor.

So here's the deal: ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is a group of corporations that write bills. Then they send them out to corrupt legislators and political leaders around the USA.

One of the things that this group of corporations has been working on is creating a prison labor force.

Some jobs are leaving the country. Others are staying in the country, but being sourced to Prisons. 1 in 100 Americans are in prison right now. We have the highest prison population in the world. Most prisoners are in for nonviolent drug-related offenses.


I'm pretty sure this is the textbook definition of fascism?

NYPD roughs up Food Bank of America at #OWS

Protesters throw a party outside a bank where they give away food for free.

The Police show up and tear down the tents, throw all the food into the street.

The Police ride away, the protesters arrested, the food despoiled in the street gutter.

That's capitalism for you.

A friend of mine commented sarcastically (it's hard to tell these days):

Damn hippies. Lookin for a handout. Why don't they just get one of those millions of jobs we have that pay just enough to over-qualify them for state assistance, but not enough to pay rent and feed themselves? Bunch of freeloaders. I wish the Almighty White Jesus Christ would come back right now and send all these heathens to the abyss.

The Battle in Oakland

The Battle of Oakland from brandon jourdan on Vimeo.

Oakland Police start shit again: Firing grenades at a peaceful protest

No Sound

more

Journalists kettled and arrested, via FDL's Kevin Gosztola

Photos of Oakland's Move-In Day via Len Tsou

Paramedics remove a pregnant woman from Occupy Oakland after Police Assault her, jabbing her in the kidney with a baton. via Mercury News

Obama signs NDAA, ACLU disgusted

via The Young Turks


So am I.

The Guards of State must reconsider their position

This is a message to the Police, to the military, to the TSA, to Homeland Security and to members of every other enforcement arm of the government.

via StormCloudsGathering
h/t to Kevin Zeese

Anonymous issues statement regarding #NDAA and #OpBlackout

TRANSCRIPT
____________

Citizens of the United States,
We are Anonymous.

This message is an urgent warning to the people of the United States. The government has been plotting treason against you.

An addition to the National Defense Authorization Act, Sections 1031 and 1032, will allow the United States government to imprison any person who commits any act they disagree with indefinitly and without trial. Section 1031 reads, "A covered person under this section" includes, "any person who has committed a belligerent act." All persons accused do not get a trial. The Feinstein Amendment, 1031 e, states that, "nothing in this section shall be construed." The Supreme Court are the only ones with the power to construe laws. If this law is passed exactly 24 hours after this video is published, there is no turning back.

They will call us liberals and fanatics. Those are words. Look at the proof. The United States government is decieving you. If you do not wake up now, it will be too late. Your last day of freedom is today. Will you ignore this message and continue your day without another thought? Or will you fight back against this corrupt and vile government? The choice is yours. The latter is best. Petitions will not work this time. Corporates and Billionaires have backed up this law and the government is certain that you will not take action. They are certain that their "bread and circuses" tactic will succeed. Let us prove them wrong.


We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not Forgive.
We do not Forget.
To the United States government, you should've expected us.

SFPD sergeant orders officers: "If [Occupy protesters] do not do what you tell them, strike them."

via BoingBoing.net

In this video from the kettling of Occupy San Francisco protesters, SFPD sergeant Peter Thoshinsky (helmet #2197) is recorded walking the police line, ordering his officers, "If they do not do what you tell them, strike them."

The protesters who record this are understandably upset and try to engage the officers in a dialog about whether such an order is legal and should be followed. There's a certain amount of violating Godwin's Law here, which is understandable, even if it might not be the best way to win the day.

"If they do not do what you tell them, strike them." says SFPD while kettling OccupySF 2011-12-07

Undercover Cops assaulting #OWS protesters

The Plainclothes Officer on the left is the man who @LukeRudkowski videotaped after being punched in the stomach by him.

This is a common police tactic, in which plainclothes cops assault peaceful protesters in an attempt to spur them to violence, giving the police the excuse they need to legitimately (in the public's eye) start mass arrests.

They tried performing Mass Arrests earlier today, but ended up quitting half way through when they were unable to spur #OWS protesters to violence.

#OWS Stay strong.
SOLIDARITY

Seattle Police Mace 84 year-old woman; Pregnant Teen

Today Occupy Seattle held a solidarity march for Occupy Wall Street-- which was evicted yesterday in a suprise raid by the NYPD. Now there are reports of police brutality coming from the raid on Occupy Wall Street, but I actually want to focus on this Solidarity March that happened in Seattle.

Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel said he didn't have specifics on this incident, but he said pepper spray is "is not age specific. No more dangerous to someone who is 10 or someone who is 80."

Oh good, so the Seattle Police Department feels equally okay pepper spraying both our children and our grandparents with a chemical weapon. That makes me feel really safe and secure. Thanks Officer Friendly for your kindly neighborhood watch.

I guess the Seattle Police feel that Chemical Weapons need to be deployed to protect us all from cheek pinching and lemonade stands.

Now reports from the protesters say that the Police were firing pepper spray indescriminately into the crowd. This is probably the case because Jeff Kappel, when asked if it were harmful said, "we probably wouldn't be using pepper spray if that was the case."

Jeff Kappel, meet me at camera three. What’s that? I’ve just got the one camera?
And you’re saying there’s nobody else here, it’s just me. And you’re saying I don’t actually have an earpeice. Okay.

Jeff Kappel, your job as spokesperson for the Seattle Police department means that you need to be able to talk with a well-informed authority. But I have to ask-- have you ever been pepper sprayed? Because I have. Sort of. I wasn’t directly hit, I was just pushed into a hanging cloud that had disbursed into the air after somebody 40 feet away from me had been sprayed. You know what this minor exposure felt like? My lungs were burning. My throat was burning. My eyes were burning. I could barely breathe. The people who were hit directly with pepperspray experienced a level of pain that I cannot imagine. They were writhing in pain on the ground, vomiting, barely able to draw a breath. Some elderly women I was with were suddenly unable to breathe and had to be taken away in an ambulance.

Those sprayed described the feeling of pepper spray on the skin as being akin to placing one’s hand on a hot stove, but being unable to pull it away for hours. And the effects don’t go away after just a few minutes. They don’t go away in a few hours. They don’t even go away in a day. The injuries sustained by the use of this chemical weapon last for days.

And you used this chemical weapon on a pregnant woman.
And somebody’s grandmother.

I want that sink into your conscience for a little while. Would you pepper spray your grandmother, Jeff?

So Jeff Kappel, do us all a favor, would you? Before you start to open your yap and spout some bullshit about how this chemical weapon probably isn’t harmful, I want you to ask one of your fellow officers to give you a faceful of pepper spray, to stab you in the gut with a night stick, lock you in a jail cell, and then deny you access to treatment for 24 hours.

Then you will have the knowledge and authority to tell us all exactly how harmless it really is.

Footage of arrests at #OWS that the NYPD didn't want you to see

Tear gassing in Kitchen:






Marine Sgt Thomas was there:

A message to all police officers by Mike Ruppert

A Message to All Police Officers From Occupy Wall Street from CollapseNet.com on Vimeo.

THE MOST DAMING FOOTAGE YOU WILL SEE of OPD

I have no words to express how I feel.

This is something you would expect to see in some backwards police state like Yugoslavia, China, or Israel.

Why is it that places like Tennessee are letting the protesters occupy, but Oakland California are shooting people in the face with teargas canisters, and lobbing flashbang grenades at medics?

I heard today from "Mommy" from Occupy Boston, that people were having their wrists broken by the police, were held in custody without charge for 24 hours while that wrist was broken, denied medical attention, and then released with a broken wrist. They also arrested medics who were treating people injured by the police.

This use of violence against nonviolent protesters only makes it more clear how illegitimate the state is.

If the government of Oakland, and Boston want to redeem themselves, the officers involved in this brutality must be tried as criminals for assault and battery, or where the use of weapons is clearly intended to maim and injure, as they did Scott Olsen, they should be charged with attempted murder.