Occupy Cool Heads: Gardai and the St Patrick's Festival

Gardai have reportedly written an informal letter to the Occupy Dame Street camp about the forthcoming three day St. Patrick's Festival.

The letter mentions previously expressed Garda and fire safety concerns about the number of wooden pallets.

It goes on to request that the camp be removed to facilitate safety and egress for the large numbers of people expected in the area of the camp at Festival time.

The letter requests a response by March 3rd and makes no mention of reinstating the camp after the festival.

In responses to the Garda letter, the ODS Facebook page featured some comments expressing a belligerent attitude. But these were tempered by other's assurances that the safety issues would be addressed - without saying how or when.

Relations between the Garda and the protesters have in the main been cordial, aided by the respect the Central Bank governor has accorded the Occupy right to protest.

It would serve the Occupy movement well to ensure all these good relations are maintained. A significant deal of public support would vanish if the protesters and Garda became adversaries.

Furthermore, these fire safety issues referred to in the Garda letter were notified to the group some weeks ago - but though discussions have taken place, the issues are still unresolved. That's not to be critical of under resourced protesters - just a statement of fact.

The fire safety issues are serious matters - irrespective of the upcoming festival. The Dame St. camp is a highly concentrated enclosure of mostly flammable material. The camp has a responsibility to it's own members -as well as the public- to resolve these concerns. Garda and fire safety officers are equally burdened with that responsibility.

The question of how readily large festival crowds can exit the Dame St. area in an emergency is the remaining bone of contention. The Garda request for complete removal of the camp seems rather onerous. But Occupy should listen with an open mind to garda specialist knowledge of crowd dynamics. If any accommodations can be found, all involved should adopt them.

Occupiers are entitled to be assured the Garda letter is not a pretext. But if good faith is the order of the day, then Occupy should not be found lacking. The public will reward mature handling of these issues.

Wealthy US Progressives To Pour Millions Into Occupy

A group of US business leaders have raised about $300,000 so far to parcel out in grants to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg aim to sustain the protests and foster political change. Their goal is to raise $1.8 million.

Most of the funds will be donated by the Ben & Jerry's Foundation and steering committee, which also includes Dal Lamagna, founder of the company Tweezerman, entertainment-industry executive Richard Foos and Judy Wicks, founder of the White Dog Café in Philadelphia.

"Many of us have been working for progressive social change," Mr. Cohen, a prominent supporter of liberal causes, said Monday. "There's been a critical ingredient missing."

Excerpted and edited from WSJ

How High Finance Is Scamming Us All

Governments and people didn't end up drowing in debt by accident.

It's all a part of the plan by high finance to extract all our income over and above our basic subsistence to stay alive and keep paying. Former Wall Street analyst Michael Hudson exposes the scam in ten minutes of must-watch laser clarity:



Michael Hudson is research professor of economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. He is a former Wall Street analyst and consultant who acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide including Iceland, Latvia and China on finance and tax law.

Time To Deal With Infiltrators Damaging Occupy

Occupy has people working from inside to divide, destroy and manipulate it. Infiltration is the norm in political movements and it is occurring throughout the Occupy. The first step is recognizing it.

Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese were among the original organizers of  Occupy Washington, DC  and are currently among the organizers of the  National Occupation of Washington, DC .

Their ad hoc survey of 20 occupy camps in the US reveals a tide of inflitration bids which damaged the functioning of the groups.

Some of these issues found in the US have also plagued Irish occupys :

- Disruptions of the General Assemblies;
- Takeovers of website and/or social media;
- Attempts to sow division in the group;
- Violent tactics and conflict with police;
- Party political groups attempting hijack;

It's time to deal with this nonsense for once and for all. Individual occupiers who have no agenda other than Occupy - must act together with determination to see off these cabals.

Infiltration to Disrupt, Divide and Misdirect Is Widespread in Occupy

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers February 25, 2012

Our west coast trip ended at the Occupy Olympia Solidarity Social Forum. We were able to survey 41 people representing 15 different occupations primarily on the west coast but including Missoula, MT and New Orleans, LA.  Participants were questioned about 10 different behaviors.

The most common behaviors, seen in roughly two-thirds of those surveyed and covering 12 of the 15 occupations, were:

Disruptions of the General Assemblies and attempts to divide the group: Individuals would interrupt General Assemblies with emergency items or sidetrack the agenda with their personal needs or issues. When proposals were presented to the General Assembly on principles for the occupation or plans to prevent division, individuals would question the authority of the writers of the proposal, launch personal attacks or question their abilities.

There were frequent attacks on people who did the most work and were perceived as leaders. The anti-leadership views of many occupiers were used to essentially attack the most effective people.  Sue Basko  wrote about this in Los Angeles in a comment on a Chris Hedges article, writing that there was an "ongoing campaign of harassment and coercion against the Occupy LA participants and volunteers. Each day is a fresh set of victims."

She describes the use of Twitter, list serves and blogs to "defame and harass anyone giving their efforts to help Occupy LA."  This has included attacks on "social media workers, the website team, the lawyers (including me), the medics, the livestreamers, the writers, and on and on." She also writes "there is the very strong belief that some among them are FBI or DHS agents placed there to start the group, egg it on, control it."   Conversations with others in Los Angles confirmed this report. 

Our experience in the area of personal attacks included outlandish lies calling us criminals and thieves and near daily email attacks since early December.  We found that when we respond and correct lies, it does not stop them and have concluded that if someone has the intention to be a character assassin there is nothing you can do to stop them except to expose them. While that does not necessarily stop them, it at least gets those in the occupation who are not gullible to doubt the undocumented personal attacks.

Individuals who took over the website and/or social media and then removed them or hacked them and took control: As noted above, these networks have been used in personal attacks, as well as to send inaccurate messages to the media and other occupiers.

One mistake made is to allow a large number of people to have administrative privileges on the website. Being an administrator allows people to erase critical information as occurred in Phoenix.  In Washington, DC we have been removed as administrators of a Facebook page we created because we allowed people who turned out to be untrustworthy to have administrative privileges.

Division over how money was being spent was an issue reported by 50% of respondents and in 12 out of 15 occupations, individuals persistently questioned transparency and use of funds. In General Assemblies in New York and Philadelphia we saw disruption by people who complained about money issues.

Finally, the issue of escalation of tactics to include property damage and conflict with police:  The euphemism for this is "diversity of tactics."  In fact, there is great diversity within nonviolent tactics. This is really a debate between those who favor strategic nonviolence and those who favor property destruction and police conflict.

Participants were asked about attempts at co-optation by law enforcement, individuals or organizations affiliated with the Democratic Party and about suspected infiltration by right wing groups: 8 of the 15 occupations (41% of respondents) reported Democratic groups attempted to co-opt the occupation, using it to push or prevent a legislative agenda or using the occupation's social media to change the times of protests or meetings. The most common form of infiltration was by law enforcement agencies (49% of respondents; 11 of 15 occupations).

Of course, there is a lot of suspicion, but people are rarely able to prove infiltration. These incidents could be people with real political disagreement within the Occupy, or they could be people who are emotionally disturbed, mentally ill or who bring other personal challenges with them.  Or, it could be an infiltrator manipulating these people, playing on their fears and prejudices.  This is not a simple issue, as we will discuss in Part II, it is best to judge people by their actions and not label them as infiltrators without direct proof.

Some may wonder why Democrats or groups closely affiliated with the Democrats like MoveOn, Campaign for America's Future, Rebuild the Dream or unions like SEIU would want to infiltrate the Occupy (note: individuals who are Democrats, union, MoveOn or members of other groups are not the same as the leadership). Essentially, leaders of these groups see Occupy as the Democrats' potential answer to the Tea Party.

Occupiers do not see themselves that way, but these groups want the Occupy to adopt their strategy of working within the Democratic Party. In one example, Eric Lottke, a senior policy analyst for SEIU who has been involved in Occupy DC,  appeared on a radio show  with two other occupiers from Occupy Washington, DC and Occupy Oakland. Lottke said he was speaking as an occupier from Occupy DC and talked about 'taking back Congress in 2012', the need for an electoral strategy and gave the usual Democrat rhetoric about Obama needing more time. The two other guests said Lottke was completely out of step with most Occupiers who say we should not focus on electoral politics but instead should build an independent movement to challenge the corrupt system.

Van Jones of Rebuild the Dream  similarly was appearing in the media as if he were an occupy spokesperson claiming there will be  2000 "99% candidates"   in 2012; again trying to push Occupy into Democratic electoral politics.

These are just two examples of many Democratic Party operatives trying to send Occupy into Democratic Party politics despite the movement consistently describing itself as independent and non-electoral.

In Washington, DC we have seen some occupiers attacking the National Occupation of Washington, DC ( www.NOWDC.org ) scheduled for this April, while other occupiers have shown enthusiasm for it.  Solidarity with NOW DC has been shown by 19 General Assemblies of occupations from around the country.  InterOccupy classifies it as a national Occupy event. The attackers have been criticizing NOW DC by attacking the authors of this article. This attack is occurring at the same time that Democratic Party aligned groups have announced their own project which occurs at the same time as NOW DC, the "99%'s Spring." Thus far the dividers have succeeded in preventing solidarity from the two DC occupations with the rest of the Occupy Movement. Is the timing a coincidence?

No doubt the information in this article is incomplete.  We have only been able to survey and talk with people at about 20 occupies.  We would very much like to hear from others around the country about experiences at their occupation as understanding these tactics is the first step to confronting and addressing them.

Original Article in Full >

The Level Pitch and The Trouble With Harry

TV show host and columnist, Brendan O'Connor has just lanced the pretense that tough times make the rich suffer right alongside the poor. In a commentary in the Irish Independent, he wonders if there two level playing fields after all?

One pitch for them.
And a much lower one for the rest of us.

Harry Crosbie has submitted a proposal to turn the 303-year-old Market House in Gorey, Co Wexford, into a concert venue known as Vicar Street South.... Now, on one hand, that's all good news, and they couldn't have picked a better man than Harry to be involved.

But... how come Harry is still off opening new venues as if he hadn't a care in the world? How come, indeed, Harry still has a holiday home in Wexford?

And doesn't Harry have another fine holiday home in the south of France too? And a grand big house in Dublin?

If you or I owed a fraction of what Harry owed, we wouldn't have a house. But Harry still seems to get to live the life of Reilly between his three homes and he gets to go on blithely pursuing new projects...

I stress I have nothing against Harry here and I suppose we need guys to rebuild the country and whatnot. But I just don't understand it all, do you? Maybe while Nama is having its big PR fightback it could explain all this to us -- why we're all wiped out but guys like Harry, despite taking stupendous risks and losing, seem to be able to get on with it...... Read Article >

Pres. Higgins Just Triggered Referendum On EU Austerity

Occupy Ireland - 26 Feb, 2012
President Michael D. Higgins has, in effect scuppered the Irish government's hope of bypassing a referendum on the so-called 'Austerity Treay'  -an EU fiscal compact.

The Irish Times is reporting cabinet level "alarm" over remarks last week by President Higgins that he is already considering whether "there is an issue of constitutional significance raised” were a referendum not to be held.

Government ministers bemoan the fact that Higgins is speculating like this in advance of a decision by the Irish Attorney General about whether a referendem is legally required. It's a niggling objection: Higgins is fully entitled to ponder his options were the AG to give the government an excuse to bypass a referendum.

But the real source of the government's discomfort is that the comments by Pres. Higgins just fired a warning shot across their bows. Given the president's well known opinion that EU structures often brush aside the will of the voting public, it's now clear he will act to scrutinize any government Bill establishing the 'Austerity Teaty.'

A clear majority --72% of respondents-- wanted a referendum in a recent poll by SBPost REDC. That's the voice of the people. It's a voice Higgins hears - even if bankers, EU bureaucrats and governments do not.

The Irish government dreads being forced by it's own Supreme Court to hold a referendum. Higgins has unleashed the spectre of that very outcome and has likely triggered a referendum either way - the easy way or the hard way.

The next question is: if turkeys had such a vote - would they vote for Christmas?

The Irish government's scared to find out.

But it now looks increasingly likely that the scary stuff is going to happen to them anyway.