Fuck its silent in here.......

[J. Walter Weatherman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-kornbluth/the-police-riot-at-berkel_b_1091208.html

Here, you can see the police suddenly start to attack the protesters without cause. The young man in the front that they keep beating even after he's unable to get up is a first-year graduate student in my department named Josh Anderson. He was the first of a number of students that had to be taken to the hospital that day. As you can see from the video, neither he, nor any of the other students being beaten with batons strike back at the police with violence. Instead, you can see him, barely able to stand, gingerly raise a peace sign after being repeatedly struck on the head, neck, ribs, and legs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buovLQ9qyWQ

In the following video, the first woman (in pink) that the police drag out of the crowd by her hair is Professor Celeste Langan, a beloved professor of British Romanticism and media studies in my department and director of the UC Townsend Center of the Humanities. As she places herself in front of students, the police approach her with batons. She repeatedly told the police not to beat her but arrest her instead. As you can see here, they respond by dragging her out by force and throw her to the ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNHXuf6qJas

When the police violence occurred again later that night, they broke the ribs of another English professor, poet Geoffrey O'Brien. When the police wouldn't stop beating him even after he too had fallen to the ground, a good friend and fellow graduate student, Ben Cullen, rushed in and demanded that they stop. The police, in turn, rained multiple blows on him, bruising his ribs as well. And just in case it's not clear yet that the violence was not only against 'some kids looking to make a fuss,' the police also thought it necessary to jab 70-year-old former Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Hass several times in the stomach with a baton as well.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/11/MNH21LTC4D.DTL

University police say the students, who chanted "You're beating students" during the incident, were not innocent bystanders, and that the human fence they tried to build around seven tents amounted to a violent stance against police.

But many law enforcement experts said Thursday that the officers' tactics appeared to be a severe overreaction.

...

"The individuals who linked arms and actively resisted, that in itself is an act of violence," UC police Capt. Margo Bennett said. "I understand that many students may not think that, but linking arms in a human chain when ordered to step aside is not a nonviolent protest."

Bennett said police merely wanted to enforce the ban on camping on Sproul Plaza, but were prevented from doing so by students.

"Students who linked arms were interfering with the officers who were attempting to remove those tents," she said.

Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department, said he saw nothing inappropriate in how one deputy shown in a video used his baton. Nelson said it appeared the deputy was trying to keep students from breaching a police line.

"You see that one guy there? His technique is spot on."

Edit...

Geoffrey O'Brien explains his broken ribs:

Later in the evening, police moved in to forcefully dismantle any tents that were set up. O'Brien said he was injured when he tried to intervene with what he said was the brutal arrest by an Alameda County Sheriff's deputy.

"I said, 'if you're going to hit somebody, hit a professor,'" O'Brien admitted. "The cop said, 'you want some?' It was a rhetorical question, and I was hit viciously in the ribs and went to the ground."

When he tells this story years from now in the literati old folks home, that line will have changed to: "If you're going to hit somebody, hit a poet."

[J. Walter Weatherman]

http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/the-grass-is-closed-what-i-have-learned-about-power-from-the-police-chancellor-birgeneau-and-occupy-cal/

We want to clarify our position on "no encampments" so you better understand why we do not allow this to occur on our campus.  When the no-encampment policy was enacted, it was born out of past experiences that grew beyond our control and ability to manage safely.  Past experiences at UC Berkeley, along with the present struggles with entrenched encampments in Oakland, San Francisco, and New York City, led us to conclude that we must uphold our policy.

In order to prevent a situation "beyond our control and ability to manage safely" from arising, he empowered the Alameda County Sheriff's department to bring riot cops in to do what riot cops do, which is control people by hurting them until they comply. This triumvirate of administrators feel that what happened was a controlled and safely managed situation.

...

... A sentence like this one:

We are not equipped to manage the hygiene, safety, space, and conflict issues that emerge when an encampment takes hold and the more intransigent individuals gain control.

is just another way of saying that when "intransigent" individuals refuse to acknowledge the university's authority, the administration won't be able to exercise its authority, so it will therefore need to exercise its authority. This is exactly as tautological and contradictory a line of "reasoning" as it sounds, a rhetorical snake eating its own tail. To maintain hygiene, the students cannot use tents to keep themselves warm; to manage the space, students must be kept out; to address "conflict issues," students had to be attacked; and to keep the students safe, they will be beaten.

The beatings will continue until safety improves.

It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience.  By contrast, some of the protesters chose to be arrested peacefully; they were told to leave their tents, informed that they would be arrested if they did not, and indicated their intention to be arrested. They did not resist arrest or try physically to obstruct the police officers' efforts to remove the tent.  These protesters were acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience, and we honor them.

What he describes — occupying space in a way that nonviolently prevents the police from doing what they want — is actually the very definition of "non-violent civil disobedience." On the one hand, it is utterly non-violent: linking arms and holding on to each other as the police try to knock you apart is not "violent" but is precisely the opposite. It is the endurance of violence. And second, it is civil disobedience, again, precisely by definition. They were disobeying civil authorities, obeying the authority of their own consciences and solidarity instead

I want to skim past this sentence on to the next part, however which is in some ways the most remarkable part: he argues that the "tradition of peaceful civil disobedience," which deserves honor, is a tradition of obedience to civil authorities. He says that "we honor" those who do not obstruct the administration's decisions, and that those who are "acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience" are, it turns out, those who obey authority.

..."Civil Disobedience" has always been, manifestly and unmistakably, a tradition of disobeying the civil authorities. I feel silly even needing to spell that out. And I feel embarrassed to work as an educator in the employ of anyone who would stand behind such specious stupidity. Linking arms and occupying the space between the police and their objective is a tactic used by just about every example of civil disobedience I can think of. It is, quite frankly the single best and most iconic example of the thing he says it is not. He is chewing up these words until they have become meaningless. Calling this language "Orwellian" is not hyperbole or exaggeration.

HE'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!

"The rule is what the people with the force to enforce it say it is. And it becomes the rule when you either obey it, or when they use their force to make you obey it."

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Justice Kennedy to the white courtesy telephone...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/supreme-court-to-hear-case-challenging-health-law.html

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, President Obama's signature legislative achievement, setting the stage for oral arguments by March and a decision in late June as the 2012 presidential campaign enters its crucial final months.

...

The court scheduled five and a half hours of arguments instead of the usual one, a testament to the importance of the case, and the court's ruling a few months later will present opportunities and challenges for the presidential contenders as well as for candidates in the battle for control of Congress.

...

The justices will hear two hours of argument on whether Congress overstepped its constitutional authority, 90 minutes on whether the mandate may be severed from the balance of the law if Congress did go too far, and an hour each on the Medicaid and Anti-Injunction Act questions.

In all, the Supreme Court agreed to hear three appeals, two from challengers to the law and a third from the Obama administration.

Timing-wise, this could turn into a regular electoral clusterfuck.

And Gilboners will become hard to avoid.

[Gilgamesh]

Justice Kennedy to the white courtesy telephone...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/supreme-court-to-hear-case-challenging-health-law.html

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, President Obama's signature legislative achievement, setting the stage for oral arguments by March and a decision in late June as the 2012 presidential campaign enters its crucial final months.

...

The court scheduled five and a half hours of arguments instead of the usual one, a testament to the importance of the case, and the court's ruling a few months later will present opportunities and challenges for the presidential contenders as well as for candidates in the battle for control of Congress.

...

The justices will hear two hours of argument on whether Congress overstepped its constitutional authority, 90 minutes on whether the mandate may be severed from the balance of the law if Congress did go too far, and an hour each on the Medicaid and Anti-Injunction Act questions.

In all, the Supreme Court agreed to hear three appeals, two from challengers to the law and a third from the Obama administration.

Timing-wise, this could turn into a regular electoral clusterfuck.

And Gilboners will become hard to avoid.

It's already turgid. However, Kennedy won't be the one to watch; it'll be Scalia.  Read his opinion in Gonzales v. Raich regarding the regulation of commerce jurisdiction in purely intrastate affairs.

[Bort]

Justice Kennedy to the white courtesy telephone...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/supreme-court-to-hear-case-challenging-health-law.html

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, President Obama's signature legislative achievement, setting the stage for oral arguments by March and a decision in late June as the 2012 presidential campaign enters its crucial final months.

...

The court scheduled five and a half hours of arguments instead of the usual one, a testament to the importance of the case, and the court's ruling a few months later will present opportunities and challenges for the presidential contenders as well as for candidates in the battle for control of Congress.

...

The justices will hear two hours of argument on whether Congress overstepped its constitutional authority, 90 minutes on whether the mandate may be severed from the balance of the law if Congress did go too far, and an hour each on the Medicaid and Anti-Injunction Act questions.

In all, the Supreme Court agreed to hear three appeals, two from challengers to the law and a third from the Obama administration.

Timing-wise, this could turn into a regular electoral clusterfuck.

And Gilboners will become hard to avoid.

It's already turgid. However, Kennedy won't be the one to watch; it'll be Scalia.  Read his opinion in Gonzales v. Raich regarding the regulation of commerce jurisdiction in purely intrastate affairs.

I will do no such thing.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-police-raid-eviction

"Can I help you?" an burly officer asked me, his helpfulness belied by his scowl.

"I'm a reporter," I told him.

"This is a frozen zone, all right?" he said, using a term I'd never heard before. "Just like them, you have to leave the area. If you do not, you will be subject to arrest."

By then, riot police were moving in, indiscriminately dousing the peaceful protesters with what looked like pepper spray or some sort of gas. As people yelled and screamed and cried, I tried to stay calm.

"I promise to leave once the arrests are done," I replied.

"No, you are going to leave now."

He grabbed my arm and began dragging me off. My shoes skidded across the park's slimy granite floor. All around me, zip-cuffed occupiers writhed on the ground beneath a fog of chemicals.

"I just want to witness what is going on here," I yelped.

"You can witness it with the rest of the press," he said. Which, of course, meant not witnessing it.

"Why are you excluding the press from observing this?" I asked.

"Because this is a frozen zone. It's a police action going on. You could be injured."

His meaning was clear. I let myself be hustled across the street to the press pen.

"What's your name?"

His reply came as fast as he could turn away: "Watch your back."

Googling "frozen zone" yields references to Ground Zero on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, which was securely cordoned off due to terrorism concerns, not simply to keep the press from reporting on the police.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/journalists-detained-while-covering-occupy-wall-street-protests-in-manhattan/2011/11/15/gIQAUvb1ON_story.html

NEW YORK — Journalists at the overnight raid of Occupy Wall Street's New York encampment were kept at a distance from covering it Tuesday, and several were arrested, handcuffed and hauled onto police buses along with hundreds of protesters.

At least half a dozen journalists were among those arrested in and around Zuccotti Park and at other protest sites in downtown Manhattan, according to demonstrators and other journalists who photographed and filmed their peers being taken into custody.

Reporter Karen Matthews and photographer Seth Wenig of The Associated Press in New York were taken into custody along with about eight other people after they followed protesters through an opening in a chain-link fence into a park, according to an AP reporter and other witnesses. Matthew Lysiak of the Daily News of New York was also arrested at the park, according to witnesses and the Daily News.

Julie Walker, a freelance radio journalist, told the AP she was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge while walking several blocks north of Zuccotti Park after covering the raid that evicted protesters from the two-month encampment. She said an officer grabbed her arm twice and arrested her after she asked for the officer's name and badge number.

"I told them I'm a reporter," said Walker, who was working for National Public Radio. "I had my recorder on before he ripped it out of my hand."

[Quality Start Machine]

Justice Kennedy to the white courtesy telephone...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/supreme-court-to-hear-case-challenging-health-law.html

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, President Obama's signature legislative achievement, setting the stage for oral arguments by March and a decision in late June as the 2012 presidential campaign enters its crucial final months.

...

The court scheduled five and a half hours of arguments instead of the usual one, a testament to the importance of the case, and the court's ruling a few months later will present opportunities and challenges for the presidential contenders as well as for candidates in the battle for control of Congress.

...

The justices will hear two hours of argument on whether Congress overstepped its constitutional authority, 90 minutes on whether the mandate may be severed from the balance of the law if Congress did go too far, and an hour each on the Medicaid and Anti-Injunction Act questions.

In all, the Supreme Court agreed to hear three appeals, two from challengers to the law and a third from the Obama administration.

Timing-wise, this could turn into a regular electoral clusterfuck.

And Gilboners will become hard to avoid.

It's already turgid. However, Kennedy won't be the one to watch; it'll be Scalia.  Read his opinion in Gonzales v. Raich regarding the regulation of commerce jurisdiction in purely intrastate affairs.

Are we talking about the same Scalia?

[J. Walter Weatherman]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/journalists-allege-censorship-and-violent-treatment-during-occupy-wall-street-eviction/

A number of journalists have alleged that the NYPD, seemingly on orders, violently tried to keep them from covering the event. No matter what you may have felt about the protesters or the camp itself, there's something very unsettling about the idea that the police didn't want the nation to see what happened last night in that park.

Police set up a barricade and kept journalists at a distance. Press badges apparently meant nothing. A rumor developed that the air space above the park had been suspended to keep news helicopters from getting any footage. This rumor was later confirmed by the CBS news desk.

But all of this is nothing compared to the allegations of violence against journalists simply trying to cover the action. A number of journalists have claimed to have been hassled and attacked by the police. During his fascinating live tweet of the action, the New York Times' Brian Stelter quoted a New York Post reporter as saying he was "roughed up." Several journalists were arrested, including some from the New York Times and NPR. Twitter is full of stories of reporters being hounded, barricaded, and impeded. When one protester was injured and being wheeled away on a stretcher, a large amount of riot police made sure no one in the press could capture the moment.

During the night, as reporters struggled to do their jobs, many created a Twitter hashtag, "#mediablackout," to collect the stories. The Huffington Post has a collection of some of the most damning accounts.

Sorry, New York Post... This is a frozen zone.

[Quality Start Machine]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/journalists-allege-censorship-and-violent-treatment-during-occupy-wall-street-eviction/

A number of journalists have alleged that the NYPD, seemingly on orders, violently tried to keep them from covering the event. No matter what you may have felt about the protesters or the camp itself, there's something very unsettling about the idea that the police didn't want the nation to see what happened last night in that park.

Police set up a barricade and kept journalists at a distance. Press badges apparently meant nothing. A rumor developed that the air space above the park had been suspended to keep news helicopters from getting any footage. This rumor was later confirmed by the CBS news desk.

But all of this is nothing compared to the allegations of violence against journalists simply trying to cover the action. A number of journalists have claimed to have been hassled and attacked by the police. During his fascinating live tweet of the action, the New York Times' Brian Stelter quoted a New York Post reporter as saying he was "roughed up." Several journalists were arrested, including some from the New York Times and NPR. Twitter is full of stories of reporters being hounded, barricaded, and impeded. When one protester was injured and being wheeled away on a stretcher, a large amount of riot police made sure no one in the press could capture the moment.

During the night, as reporters struggled to do their jobs, many created a Twitter hashtag, "#mediablackout," to collect the stories. The Huffington Post has a collection of some of the most damning accounts.

Sorry, New York Post... This is a frozen zone.

A billionaire Republican* Mayor giving the go order on Occupiers' heads getting cracked - Christmas came early for Obama.

*Sure, he only became a Republican for an easy run through the primary in 2001, but that's not how the narrative will play out.

[morpheus]

In case you've forgotten, we are all still proud owners of GM.

And Shittygroup, but that's another story.

[Wheezer]

Googling "frozen zone" yields references to Ground Zero on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, which was securely cordoned off due to terrorism concerns, not simply to keep the press from reporting on the police.

Hasn't Springsteen already covered this ground?

[Quality Start Machine]

Googling "frozen zone" yields references to Ground Zero on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, which was securely cordoned off due to terrorism concerns, not simply to keep the press from reporting on the police.

Hasn't Springsteen already covered this ground?

That is, after all, where they expect it least.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Add a new name to the awesome political ad hall of fame.

This year's nominee for the Dale Peterson award is Mark Block

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhm-22Q0PuM&

That can't be real... can it?

Sorry, it is.

Then again...

No... But seriously:

[Wheezer]

Why this photo was selected by Wired for a story about the SCADA attack at the Curran-Gardner Township Public Water District, I don't know, but it cries out for something. Maybe a few.

[Quality Start Machine]

Justice Kennedy to the white courtesy telephone...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/supreme-court-to-hear-case-challenging-health-law.html

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, President Obama's signature legislative achievement, setting the stage for oral arguments by March and a decision in late June as the 2012 presidential campaign enters its crucial final months.

...

The court scheduled five and a half hours of arguments instead of the usual one, a testament to the importance of the case, and the court's ruling a few months later will present opportunities and challenges for the presidential contenders as well as for candidates in the battle for control of Congress.

...

The justices will hear two hours of argument on whether Congress overstepped its constitutional authority, 90 minutes on whether the mandate may be severed from the balance of the law if Congress did go too far, and an hour each on the Medicaid and Anti-Injunction Act questions.

In all, the Supreme Court agreed to hear three appeals, two from challengers to the law and a third from the Obama administration.

Timing-wise, this could turn into a regular electoral clusterfuck.

And Gilboners will become hard to avoid.

It's already turgid. However, Kennedy won't be the one to watch; it'll be Scalia.  Read his opinion in Gonzales v. Raich regarding the regulation of commerce jurisdiction in purely intrastate affairs.

over dinner, perhaps?