I've been trying to understand what has motivated the crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street protests. Its clear what occurred in Tennessee - right wing agitators had been publicly demanding that the government act for weeks. The motivations were entirely partisan, and ultimately declared unconstitutional, as they should have been. But what about Oakland? UC Davis?

Is it really a sanitization concern? You'd think that these OWS people would have that sorted out - you'd think that park cleaning could have been negotiated. I just don't get the necessity of marching in with batons and beating these people down. Why the fuck would you do that?

In some cities like Washington, DC, there has been no beat down. Its really just a non-issue. If its a non-issue in Washington, why isn't it a non-issue in New York?

I partially feel that the motivation in New York is similar to the motivation in Nashville. Its annoying to have people there expressing a point of view that we disagree with. We don't like it. We want them to go away. I want to be able to go sit in that park and have smoke and I can't now because of all of these damn hippies.

In other words, the American people fundamentally do not respect eachother's right to freedom of speech and assembly. The "right" to go into the park and have a smoke is more important than the right to freedom of speech and assembly. We gotta march an army in there to defend that right to sit in the park and have a smoke.

Does that really add up?

This rant and some of the things it links points to another explanation. Our country's domestic law enforcement is more militarized than it used to be. These demonstrations of excessive force are the only way that our local governments know how to deal with things anymore. Our default reaction is to minor annoyances is to bring excessive force to bear on the situation.

This is what the OWS protestors have demonstrated - not just our country's intolerance for the exercise of its own values, but its increasing domestic militarization. We are exactly what they accuse us of being, and the proof is the way that we've reacted to them.

What we have seen in the last two weeks around the country, and now at Davis, is a radical departure from the way police have handled protest in this country for half a century. Two days ago an 84-year-old woman was sprayed with a chemical assault agent in Seattle in the same manner our students at Davis were maced. A Hispanic New York City Councilman was brutally thrown to the ground, arrested, and held cuffed in a police van for two hours for no reason at all, and was never even told why he was arrested. And I am sure you all know about former Marine Lance Cpl. Scott Olsen, who suffered a fractured skull after police hit him with a tear gas canister, then rolled a flash bomb into the group of citizens trying to give him emergency medical care.

Last week, former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper published an essay arguing that the current epidemic of police brutality is a reflection of the militarization (his word, not mine) of our urban police forces, the result of years of the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror. Stamper was chief of police during the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, and is not a voice that can be easily dismissed.

Yesterday, the militarization of policing in the U.S. arrived on my own campus.

These issues go to the core of what democracy means. We have a major economic crisis in this country that was brought on by the greedy and irresponsible behavior of big banks. No banker has been arrested, and certainly none have been pepper sprayed. Arrests and chemical assault is for those trying to defend their homes, their jobs, and their schools.

Bob Ostertag: Militarization Of Campus Police

Stoeckly was pulled over on Broadway and Cedar Street near Zuccotti Park. The cops used the fact that his license plate was crooked, and that he turned on his windshield wipers without his lights as pretense to pull him over.

Police demanded to search the vehicle, and when Stoeckley refuse they arrested him for "Obstructing Governmental Administration." Stoeckley's lawyer, Wiley Stecklow, said he's concerned Stoeckly was arrested "unlawfully," simply for "refusing to consent to a search."

His arresting officer gave him a handwritten slip of paper with contact info for a place called Mike's Towing, saying he could pick up his truck there. But when Stoeckley was released from jail Saturday, Mike's Towing said they had never received the truck, which incidentally also contains all of Stoeckley's possessions.

Rule of law - whatever. Photoshop Meme has started. Apparently it has been located.

NYPD 'Loses' the Occupy Wall Street Wikileaks Truck

This is pretty amazing.

xkcd: Money

This essay is awesome.

We need reform that provides real transparency. Congress should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act like everyone else. We need more detailed financial disclosure reports, and members should submit reports much more often than once a year. All stock transactions above $5,000 should be disclosed within five days.

We need equality under the law. From now on, laws that apply to the private sector must apply to Congress, including whistleblower, conflict-of-interest and insider-trading laws. Trading on nonpublic government information should be illegal both for those who pass on the information and those who trade on it. (This should close the loophole of the blind trusts that aren't really blind because they're managed by family members or friends.)

No more sweetheart land deals with campaign contributors. No gifts of IPO shares. No trading of stocks related to committee assignments. No earmarks where the congressman receives a direct benefit. No accepting campaign contributions while Congress is in session. No lobbyists as family members, and no transitioning into a lobbying career after leaving office. No more revolving door, ever.

My mind is officially blown. I did not think she was capable of saying something so coherent and valuable. I am extremely impressed.

Sarah Palin: How Congress Occupied Wall Street - WSJ.com

I think that there ought to be more outrage about the Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford memo which you can read here and I highly encourage you to do so.

THIS is THE HEART of the problem with Democracy in America - special interests spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on cynical campaigns to discredit people because they can't win on facts. We know that this kind of stuff goes on, but in this case these people more or less spell out what they are doing in black and white. Everyone should read this memo. They need to understand the amount of effort that goes into lying to them and manipulating them.

This morning I imagined remixing this as tongue in cheek television advertisement.

[Suit 1 - standing in front of the Capital building] Are you concerned that the United States might become a more Democratic country, with strong political institutions that faithfully represent the will of the people?

[Suit 2 - with OWS protestors far in the distance] Do you have important initiatives in Washington that could be undermined if they become the target of popular protests?

[Suit 3 - older man, in a wood paneled office] Here at Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford, we're here to help.

[Suit 2 - handing money and a bong to a hippie and directing him to join the OWS protestors] We can help you develop negative narratives that will undermine the credibility of people who express political opinions that you disagree with.

[Suit 1 - handing money to a radio talk show host before he goes on the air] Large companies are not always the best spokespersons for their own causes. We can leverage our vast coalition of both traditional and non-traditional allies to make it clear that standing in opposition to your initiatives will carry severe political costs.

[Suit 3] Manipulating the democratic process is an important part of doing business in America today, and nobody does it better than Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford. So give us a call, our agents provocateurs are standing by.

If you want the keys to understanding the political reality in America read the following. This is probably the clearest thing I've ever posted to MemeStreams. If you've ever read anything I that I've posted to MemeStreams, you should read this.

The middle class faces a harder economic situation than they did 30 years ago. This is the consequence of US federal and state economic policies.

Read Elizabeth Warren:
The Over-Consumption Myth
The Vanishing Middle Class
The Middle Class on the Precipice
Whats hurting the Middle Class

The same financial regulatory framework that is crushing the middle class created the conditions that caused the housing crisis.

Read Barry Ritholtz:
The Big Lie
The Big Lie Part II
Big Lie Part II Supporting Economic Data

These financial regulations are being created because of the way that well funded private interests can manipulate both Congress and the people into believing in things that aren't true. Elizabeth Warren and Barry Ritholtz both touch on this aspect of the things they are writing about.

Here is a very clear example of hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on whispering campaigns aimed at discrediting people who have the wrong views:
Lobbying firm's memo spells out plan to undermine Occupy Wall Street

Larry Lessig writes extensively about the corruption of Congress. I agree with a lot of his observations regarding the problem. I don't think his proposed solutions will work, but his observations about the problem and his work toward an answer are nevertheless important:
Democracy after Citizens United (Click Through to "There is no Pro")

The bottom line is that it is important to understand that wealthy interests have manipulated both the Congress and the people who vote for it into believing things that are not true, and that Congress has therefore created a financial regulatory framework that benefits those wealthy interests in the short term, to the detriment of the welfare of the American people in the long term and in fact to the detriment of the stability of the global economic system in the long term. These wealthy interests continue to be successful at controlling the political system in spite of the obvious damage they have done, because they have been so successful at convincing people to believe their lies. Our economy will not function properly again until those lies are dispelled and discredited.

In a victory for fair use, the publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Stephens Media, filed papers yesterday conceding that posting a short excerpt of a news article in an online forum is not copyright infringement. The concession will result in entry of a judgment of non-infringement in a long-running copyright troll case that sparked the dismissal of dozens of baseless lawsuits filed by Righthaven LLC.

This is an important victory for bloggers.

Righthaven Case Ends in Victory for Fair Use | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names are threatening to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over a bill that would make Web companies liable for pirated content that appears on their sites.

Last month, Yahoo quietly quit the powerful business trade group, which supports the legislation. Google and the Consumer Electronics Association, which represents 2,200 firms, are warning they may do the same.

Web giants at odds with Chamber of Commerce over piracy bill - The Washington Post

Hillary Clinton's letter tacitly endorsing SOPA was sent in response to a request (linked here) by the Congressman from Hollywood, Howard Berman. In that letter Berman writes:

I believe that if we can provide an open and transparent judicial process, consistent with due process, that responds to online theft swiftly, surgically, and fairly, we set a positive precedent for others to follow.

Lets look at the "open and transparent judicial process" in SOPA, shall we?

Except in the case of an effective counter notification pursuant to paragraph (5), a payment network provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after delivery of a notification under paragraph (4), that are designed to prevent, prohibit, or suspend its service from completing payment transactions involving customers located within the United States and the Internet site, or portion thereof, that is specified in the notification under paragraph (4).

So, IP owner sends notification to payment provider with allegation, and payment provider has five days to stop processing payments for the site in question.

There is no due process here. There is no neutral decision maker. The victim has very little time to respond to the allegation before the payment provider is required to shut them off. When Berman talks about due process he is paying lip service to something which does not exist!

Howard Berman's SOPA dishonesty. [PDF]

Hillary Clinton's decision to come out in support of SOPA was an extremely stupid decision that will haunt her and the US State Department for as long as the current administration remains in power.

In a letter to Rep Howard Bernman, a co-sponsor of the bill, Secretary Hillary Clinton tacitly endorsed the proposed legislation, stating, "There is no contradiction between intellectual property rights protection and enforcement and ensuring freedom of expression on the internet". Prominent supporters of the bill are now distributing the letter as a sign the State Department is behind their bill.

No, there is no contradiction between intellectual property rights protection and enforcement and ensuring freedom of expression on the Internet. However, there IS a massive contradiction between having a process where anyone can take any website down with 5 days notice and no oversight from a neutral decision maker, and ensuring freedom of expression on the Internet. The US State Department ought to be intelligent enough to differentiate these things, but they aren't, and that is a problem that isn't going to go away when SOPA dies its well deserved death.

US State Department not for internet freedom - Opinion - Al Jazeera English