When it's Time for Occupy to "Kiss the Girlfriend"

The Political Nobility of A Movement's Adolescence

One of the most exceptional, yet predictable, attributes of the 99%'ers who are currently investing their time and effort in the movement is their stringent abhorrence for politics as usual.  They have gained very little from the institution of government, far less than they could have reasonably expected.

Now, we find them absolutely determined to never be "co-opted" into a political campaign, hypnotically exploited by a political party or artificially infatuated by a political candidate.  All this is understandable.  All throughout history, the "waiting line" at a poisoned well is usually rather short.

In fact, it is nothing less than a monumental irony when cosmically detached candidates such as Mitt Romney, Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich attempt a descent from their class atmospherics in attempts to excite and attract voters such as the ones we find in the Occupied Areas.  It is too reminiscent of the old allegory: "...two mules standing in a mud hole, arguing the price of oranges..."

So, we can conclude that, at least for the moment, the Patriots of Occupy are fundamentally separated from American electoral politics.  If they were to see a connection, no matter how flimsy, between their complaints and the possibility of a responsive Congress, the protest's dynamic would change quickly and noticeably.

In the worst case, an explanation of this may lie in a matter of "political literacy."  Given a firmer footing in the rudiments of the US representational system, some might finally detect this remnant strand between the two, that is, between the complaints of the Occupy protests and the Congress which should be responding but isn't.  However, in their view, US representative democracy is a wreckage.  Further, they do not hold such a dark idea in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary, either.

The "facts" of recent history -- at least the visible ones -- support the logic of the Occupy's refreshingly heady nihilism.

A Quick Look at Occupy's Strategic Position

Yes, the brash political cynicism of the heavily soiled Congressional incumbents has managed to strangle any real prospect of a government which responds to the plight of its citizens.  Yes, the glaring evidence of this reinforces itself daily.  Yes, the gravest insults are perpetrated by elected officials who revel in "not being that bad."

So, who can really be surprised with the withering distaste for representational democracy expressed in the words of the protesters when they are interviewed?  The words may be jumbled, but the prevailing thoughts which drive those words are not.  Although perhaps not resolved in the literary sense, the understanding of the Occupy is crystal clear.

Perhaps the most troubling of these thoughts is the realization that decades of voters with a "low interest" in running the democracy have delivered the shambles of that democracy to this low point.

Well, MeanMesa predicts that the "low interest" epoch has ended.  The Occupy protests may be a little chaotic at the moment, but no one can characterize their participants as "low interest."  That's over.

The next question is "What's to be done now?"

These first two months of the Occupation have been a "muscle flexing" period not dissimilar to the bare chested puffing just before a fist fight in the parking lot of a tavern.  Occupy has shown both its energy and its durability.  Now it's time for the fists to begin their work.

 "Kissing the Girlfriend"

When the time comes, there's nothing left to do but kiss her. (photo source)

Occupy's "problem" exists at two tactical levels.  Because the root of the problems which have incited Occupy to its present state reside in the Congress, and because Occupy, although it has already revealed its growing "muscle," remains determined not to be involved with obvious hypocrisy of that Congress (including the irrelevant democratic mythology of how to elect them, how to influence them, etc.), the next step is now defined.

The first level amounts to the Occupy's psychological journey from denial to acceptance.  Occupy must move beyond its well founded distaste of the process and its results to a new place where dominion over that process and its results becomes the next destination.  Dominion?  We're talking votes.

The second level amounts to Occupy's problems with candidates.  There are almost no current candidates for either the US House or the Senate which sincerely represent the ideals of the Occupy.

We can anticipate efforts by "not really that bad" candidates to attempt to exploit the Occupy in campaigns for the next election.  However, "not really that bad" or "just a little better than the opposition" candidates won't cut the mustard.  Occupy will either have to provide its own candidates or accept more the mindless mush we have now -- even on its best days, it remains mindless mush.

Occupy is not interested in "just a little, tiny bit more" democracy fighting its way through the corporate suffocation in the Congress.  Occupy has in mind LOTS MORE democracy bubbling up to the surface in those decrepit halls.  Further, Occupy is not going to be satisfied or even mildly placated by a gradual, "orderly" transition to this new promising state, either.

"Gradual and Orderly" will mean that the same anti-democratic miscreants who control everything now will end up still controlling everything then.

So, Occupy, get past your vomitous dislike of the prospect of being political as soon as possible.  The answers to your complaints lie in exactly this arena.  This doesn't mean "play ball."  This means "take over."


And, "taking over" doesn't mean simply sifting through the old, worn out, gutless wonders who will automatically be appearing on the primary ballots.  "Taking over" means putting your candidates on those ballots.

Then electing them.

 
Where are Occupy's New Candidates?

They are standing among the crowd at your general assemblies.  Their names will emerge when someone asks your general assemblies if anyone has an idea for a candidate.  The Patriots you seek are not that far away from where you are right now!


The countering voices will be heard right away.


They will say that you need millions of dollars to run a candidate.  You don't.  You have people power.


They will say that candidates have to come from somewhere in the existing system.  They don't.  Your opinion of the existing system is essentially -- and profoundly -- accurate.


They will say that candidates have to be "connected."  Your candidates will be.  Your candidates will be connected to you.


They will say that your candidates don't have enough experience.  Experience at what?  Being sincere, patriotic Americans?  Or, experience at disguising skanky political money?

You get the idea.  

Start thinking big.  

Start looking for your candidates.  

Start planning to elect them.

The 2012 election where all this will be settled is 12 months away.





 

Making Black Friday a Little Blacker

Black Friday, An UnAmerican Tradition

A quick explanation from the friendly Wiki:  (Read the article here. )

Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, many retailers open very early, often at 4 a.m., or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season, similar to Boxing Day sales in many Commonwealth countries. Black Friday is not actually a holiday, but many employers give their employees the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers. 

It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005,although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.

The day's name originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. Use of the term started before 1966 and began to see broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that "Black Friday" indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are "in the black."

So, having firmly dislodged the idea that the day's name arose from the famous Friday when the Black Plague began its scourge of Europe, exactly what, pray tell, could be "Un-American" about all the retailers in the country peddling enough Chinese imports to finally be "turning a profit?" 

Of course, it's the "Chinese" part.  The latest version of the Black Plague is an economic one.  It is the scheme to curtail any gains in middle class income levels, prepare cheap "knock offs" of what had previously been American made goods and then sell all this stuff on credit to the jobless middle class public.

The facts of the scam are crystal clear.  The junk can be produced at slave labor wages in China, designed to look remotely similar to the incredibly better quality domestic products it's replacing on store shelves and then sold for a few pennies less.  The "shoppers" will be listening to some think tank denizen explaining the benefits of the "new global economy" while they drive home, deeper and deeper in debt.

What Can Be Done?

The answer proposed by MeanMesa in this posting is simple.

Buy Nothing.

At least, don't buy anything new.  It's time for parents to have a bold, loving, heart-to-heart talk with the kids.  Explain the Occupy Wall Street movement to them.  More importantly, explain to them the importance of supporting the patriots in that cold weather place who are fighting for their futures as middle class teen agers, middle class students, middle class workers, middle class citizens and middle class adults.

Explain to them that this Christmas is going to be a little different from past Christmases.  Explain to them that it's time to understand what is happening in the country and the part they can play in it.  To kick things off, an American made American flag on the Christmas tree might be a good start.  

Hold a Christmas Ornament Breaking Party.  Take a close look at all the stuff your family has been hanging on the tree for the last few years.  Does it really mean anything to you?  Or, is it just another pound of baubles and other junk that rolled out of a slave labor factory in some unfortunate country overseas?

Ask yourselves and your family, "Is this stuff really something that we want to hang on our Christmas tree?"

If you can afford a green tree, junk the old plastic one (hmmm...why not take it to the thrift store?) and buy a live American tree, grown here and sold here by your neighbors.  If the family finances won't bear a live tree, let your family's spirit decorate the one you have instead of just making another mindless trip to WalMart.

Do you buy your family's electricity from private, corporate supplier?  Cut the number of lights in your decorations in half.  

Kids hate clothes for Christmas anyway, so why not take them to the thrift store -- Chinese is okay if it's used.  New presents are fine if they are made in the United States.  If the kids ask why they didn't get something, simply tell them that it's not made here and some of your neighbors need jobs.

Delivering Santa's List? (photo source)

Turn off the television -- especially the commercials designed to sell even more junk to your kids -- and make decorations with crayons and poster board at the kitchen table while you're listening to Christmas carols on the stereo.  

Explain to them that very bad people have tricked Mom and Dad into buying -- on credit -- all the junk the kids see on television.  Explain that the money the family saves can be used just the way that Jesus said in Matthew. 

This means give cash -- start a savings account at a credit union for the young ones.  And, tell them why.  For relatives, maybe the best present is a cashiers check to help pay for something special to eat or a dentist or medical bills or utility bills -- or rent.  

It IS the thought that counts, and it's time that we started thinking.

MeanMesa Authorizes Citizens Arrest Warrant for 18 Mayors

Citizens Arrest?  Mayors?

Yes.  Over the last weekend (November 10 - 15, 2011) the commercial media has presented visible evidence that mayors of 18 US cities have willfully and knowingly conspired with unknown parties to deny Occupy protesters the rights of citizens protected by the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression.

Ratified 12/15/1791. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In case the "redress" part is puzzling anyone, 

Redress
redress v. 1. To set right, remedy or rectify. 2. To make amends for. n. 1. Satisfaction for wrong done; reparation. 2. Correction.

Of course, there is little to be gained by actually detaining the criminal mayors.  And, there are specific limitations on the act of making a citizens arrest.  (Read the whole article here.)

The citizen’s arrest has an aura of mystique and urban legend. The phrase may conjure up images of cowboys in the Wild West taking the law into their own hands. In fact, most people today, lawyers included, don’t have the first clue about the law surrounding the citizen’s arrest.

The law of citizen’s arrest defines the enforcement of criminal law by citizens not acting in an official law enforcement capacity. The citizen’s arrest has always been a pragmatic necessity; law enforcement agents cannot be everywhere all the time and society relies on the aid of private citizens for crime prevention. The law of citizen’s arrest provides those individuals who take it upon themselves to issue a  citizen’s arrest with protection from civil and criminal prosecution– but there are limitations to this protection.

In the United States, the law of citizen’s arrest varies, sometimes significantly, from state to state as it is governed by state law. While nearly all jurisdictions have adopted a statutory provision for the law, a few states (such as Florida and New Mexico) continue to rely on common law.

In all states, save North Carolina, a private citizen has the right to arrest someone who has committed a felony in his presence. In some states, the citizen only needs a reasonable belief that a felony has been committed to conduct a citizen’s arrest. Additionally, in some states, when the citizen witnesses a misdemeanor that constitutes a breach of the peace, he can also make an arrest. 

A number of states have carved out additional scenarios in which a citizen’s arrest is allowable, including shoplifting, trespassing, and disorderly conduct.

Just as the circumstances under which a citizen’s arrest is permitted varies from state to state, so does the proper procedure for carrying out such an arrest. Generally, the arresting citizen must notify the suspect that he is being arrested and the reason for the arrest. The arresting citizen must also use only a reasonable amount of force to apprehend the suspect.

However, after watching credible visual evidence of this week end's police actions, executed on the direct orders of the mayors to violate Constitutional rights of peaceful, unarmed citizens exercising their lawful rights of assembly for the purpose of the redress of grievances, failure to take quick remedial action would be inexcusable.

Additional citizens arrests should be made on police officers who are complicit in the illegal acts of the mayors.  Presumably, these officers, after being placed under citizens arrest, would be grateful for the intervention of citizens to prevent them from committing further Un-Constitutional, criminal acts.

Other Citizens Arrests

While we're at it, two more notable names emerge, also requiring citizens arrest.

Alleged Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Thomas were the dinner guests of the law firm representing the parties desiring to argue the Un-Constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Law before the Supreme Court.  This event occurred on the night before the Supreme Court decided to hear the case.

Both should be placed under citizens arrest.  The morning after these arrests, we will all notice that the air over the United States smells better, that is,

more Constitutional.

(image source)

 What's YOUR future worth?

American Oligarchs and Their Policemen

Take 6 Minutes for a Clear View of Our Future

Watch This Video

Decorated US Marine Sergeant, Shamar Thomas (image source)

 http://rt.com/usa/news/us-sergeant-thomas-people-639/

Memo to Mayors, Police Chiefs and Policemen

in Occupied Cities

Watch the video.  You may not have seen any of this if you habitually watch Fox News or even some of the corporate media. So, watch it.  Now.

A quick check with YouTube at the time of this posting shows 2,700,000 viewers for this video.  

MeanMesa would like to suggest a couple of things for your consideration.

First, there is an unmistakable, inner decency in the eyes of the policemen directly closest to Sergeant Thomas.  You may consider this visage to be counter to the image you were hoping to create in the faces of the policemen you ordered to attack the Occupy protesters, but MeanMesa thinks that perhaps you should get used to it.

Why is this memo directed to you in the first place?  In fact, who, exactly, is the "you" we're talking about here?

"You" are the folks in charge of responding to the Occupy protesters in your city.  "You" are the ones who got the phone calls from the "very best quality, very most upstanding citizens," telling you to do something about the mess that the highly visible Occupy groups have made -- right out on the curb where everyone driving by can see them.

Of course the protesters have impacted your city's urban beauty and order.  This is the goal of their action.  Of course this impact has made some of the local folks cranky.  Of course the "beauty and order" comments are a gas cloud of a far less provocative, far more genteel nature than the ideology involved.

It's time for "you" to accept the fact that some part of the population that elected you is isolated in the endless fear mongering of FOX News -- but not all of them.  It's time for "you" to look at how much FOX News surrounds and isolates "you."  It's time for "you" to take a look at how much FOX News has wormed its way into the decisions that you are making, especially decisions about the "right" way to handle the Occupy protests.

It's time for "you" to think about whether or not what "you've" been doing -- the orders "you've" been giving to the police -- are really a good idea given the reality of "your" local politics.  It's time for "you" to size up just how much of "your" political career and political responsibilities "you" are ready to bet "your" job on what Sean Hannity is saying about "your" local constituents down there in the local  Occupy.

"...they are skin head, Nazi psychos..."  Sean Hannity on FOX.

There may be a time in the future when the votes cast by  those "very best quality, very most upstanding citizens" who called "you" on the phone can overwhelm the votes cast by all the other people living in "your" city, but that time hasn't come yet. 

That time is probably not coming before the next local election, either.  Meanwhile, "you" should count on the Occupy bunch showing up like starving hedgehogs headed for the bramble berries in that next election, not to mention all of "your" constituents who are quietly nodding in agreement with the protests.

The radio knobs are slowly turning away from FOX.  If  "you" doubt that politically, review the nation-wide election results from the mid-term balloting this week.

Things Are Going To Get Worse For "You"

There's a "new sheriff" in town -- most likely, thousands of them.  Worse, every one of them is going to vote in "your" next local election for mayor or police chief.  Worse again, they are all going to be thinking about whether or not they want their mayor or their police chief to be acting this way, giving these orders.

Since "you" have adopted an essentially military policy to suppress the Occupy, a few military similarities are relevant.  Rebels such as those in Aceh Bendi and Eastern Pakistan always wait for good spring weather before continuing.  On the other hand, famous Russian generals such a Zhukov exploited winter's harshness to host their famous counter attacks in WWII.


With respect to the Occupy protesters, winter will be kind to "you."  Spring, on the other hand, won't be.  It's not surprising that "you" have decided that reactionary suppressions will be best conducted under the frigid cover of dwindling protest populations.


MeanMesa is sure that "you" are presently inebriated by the historical possibilities of simply "waiting them out."  In a dream, all this will devolve to a toothless anecdote if "you" just "hold the thin blue line" for a few more months.


Now we can return to Sergeant Thomas.


By spring time 40,000 more "Sergeant Thomas" types will have returned from the Bush Oil War in Iraq to a jobless homecoming.  An unusual "blending" is fated to occur by sheer proximity between the returning soldiers and marines and the Occupy folks.  Sergeant Thomas will be on the front lines everywhere.


Worse, when the warm spring rains begin to fall, the millions of Americans without jobs, with evacuated pension and 401K accounts and with underwater mortgages will still be there, this time even more invigorated by the hubris of "your" local supporters and their anti-democracy, federal leadership.


The memory of "your" anti-Constitutional winter suppression at the hands of fully festooned riot police facing unarmed American civilians will still be fresh.  Some of the Occupy "criminals" who were denied their right of free assembly will still be limping and wearing bandages from "your" violent, winter "restoring order festival."

Returning to the military similarities, all the world is, at the time of this post, waiting for the inevitable fractures among the murderers masquerading as "security forces" in Syria.  "You" are likely to have this same problem.  "You" and "your backers" haven't been treating policemen any better than anyone else through this winter of attacks on unions, reductions in benefits and, of course, the insults.

So, MeanMesa can offer the following advice to "you" mayors, police chiefs, and city councilmen with such a remarkable appetite for "order at any cost." Eat well.  Get plenty of sleep.  Think about looking for a job.

Spring is coming.

A Memo to the "Occupation"

A Few Ideas to "Chew" On

First, know that MeanMesa loves you.  Every single one of you.  The UFO folks, the pure food folks, the clean water folks, the anarchists and the politicians. The hulu hoopers, the drummers, the stoned and the determined.  Every single one of you.

The commercial "mouth junk" is having gastric problems trying to decide just how to handle you all.  It should be clear by this time that most of these talking heads are already planning for your demise.  They want, very, very much, to turn out to be the ones who were able to "see through" what you're all doing.

Of course, these "heads" are consumed with the prospect of having "been right all along" and the corresponding ratings jumps they dream of getting for being the most historically perceptive, politically savvy, but ultimately, the most "accurately cynical."

Some of you may have held momentary fantasies about the commercial media dedicating a lot of attention to what you're doing, but you will be well served to remember that the prize they seek rests among their viewers and has absolutely nothing to do with your wonderfully dynamic dreams.  For further clarity, we can divide them into two groups.

The first bunch will be the "comfortably numb," fireside sweater and even speech contingent who have been dutifully spewing out "grandfatherly analysis" which usually begins with a comparison between you and some other movement in the past.  They will scoff and chuckle with a few well seasoned reflections on other things before they begin their relentless efforts to validate their false dichotomies as a prelude to the predictably artificial hypocrisy hunting.

First Bunch:  PBS NewsHour, NBC, ABC etc.

The second bunch will careen immediately into name calling, skipping the tedium of making such comparisons at all.  Their "mouth junk" will have you unwashed, sexual profligate, ne'er do well, drug criminals with ties to both the Soviet Union and al Qeada.  The irony is that their listeners had already completely arrived at such conclusions before they received the first words of the broadcast.

Second Bunch: Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Riley, Levin and the other FOX denizens.

Both "bunches" are presently infatuated with repeating over and over that "no one can be sure" what you want to accomplish, but that you are, most likely, something to be feared.  This post will deal with this side of things next.

The Ghost of the Occupation's Past

Some of you may think that the zany, out of control diversity you are presently manifesting will turn out to be a weakness, a vulnerability.  You may consider this aspect of where you are now to represent a significant weakness on your journey to becoming a well understood, media enhanced popular movement.

You know, like the tea bags.

Well, you are 180 degrees off target.  The tea bags have been exposed along with the gears and levers of the "grassroots" movement which created them.  Their world got viciously "warmed up" with literally hours of incendiary FOX broadcast time not because it was interesting, but because Rupert Murdoch decided that it would.

Whatever inertia this created was immediately "monetized" by Dick Armey's public relations arm, causing the dismembered juggernaut to lurch forward for a while.  The disgruntled FOX fans misspelled their signs and rode to over reported appearances in hired busses where they burped and farted on queue for the cameras.

The tea bags are now a violent, embarrassing piece of history.  The 2010 election products are horrifying the country as their disembodied past favorites lodged in the House of Representatives continue to rampage destruction.

Some of the "occupation folks," following along with those attempting to describe them for cash and profit, may have this same concern.  Forget it.  So long as your uncontrollable, energy rich chaos continues, you will never face the fate of the mystically feral tea bag "innocents" if there ever were any.

No one in the moneyed class wants to help you, and yet none of them can formulate a scheme to exploit you.  All they want is to silence you, to ridicule you, to outlast you.  Your formidable defense against all these insults resides in your wonderful confusion.

At this moment the "suits" are waiting for a safer opportunity to orthagonalize you.  If they can reduce all this uncontrollable diversity to talking points, ostensibly revealing your every quirk, sponsor, inspiration and claim, they will have assuaged the fear and excitement by creating a way to remove your teeth.

Those who oppose you eat a diet of cynicism.  If you "take the bait" by normalizing and enforcing all your varied positions into something specific, the world will enjoy a comfortable revelation that, in the end, nothing is real, everything is just more of the same and that the "occupation," like everything else in their dismal world, has feet of clay.

It doesn't.

So, remain individuals.  Those who watch may come to understand slowly, but they will come to understand.  It may take some time for them to realize that they actually do have an appetite for ideas beyond the media's pablum of conceptual efficiency.

The Ghost of the Occupation's Future

MeanMesa predicts that you will meet this flimsy waif sooner than you think.  A robust, literary plot might be attractive, but both you and the ghosts are operating on a calendar which ends this phase in November of 2012.  

And, we're not talking Aztecs here.

You are going to become political.  Further, it simply won't do to have this metamorphosis as a result of being dragged into it, kicking and screaming.  Regardless of what the breathless terror mongers on FOX may say, you cannot overthrow the government.  All the things you want the most will arise from the Congress.

But they can only arise from a very different, new Congress.  That rancid place is precisely where the old things that you hate the most came from, too.

At this moment, there are Democrats who, viewing the mass of people in your occupation, see only campaign workers who can be coerced into another round of backing the lessor of two evils.  There will be no shortage of Max Baucus's and Mary Landrieu's licking their chops at the prospect of a cut rate campaign carried on the backs of you and your friends.

The Republicans are simply reaching for their sleeping pills in hopes of avoiding the nightmare.

Facing facts, your occupation will have to conclude that there are probably not candidates who can be trusted to live up to the pledges of allegiance to your ideas that they will be anxious and eager to murmur.  You will need new candidates, and those people are standing among you right now.

Expect a litany of impossibilities. Insurmountable political machines.  Immense Citizen United money. But through all of this, anticipate and recruit a collection of new politicians who cannot be "orthagonalized" any more successfully than you can be at this present moment.  Some of those you pick will turn out to be "purchasable;" others will turn out to be simply crazy.  However, among them will be the new versions of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren with fresh faces.

Jim Morrison's old rock and roll admonition means everything:  "They've got the guns, but we've got the numbers."

You've got the numbers, and MeanMesa predicts that you will have even more -- many, many more -- in the days and weeks ahead.  Stay free and open, and most important of all, stay wonderfully energetic and chaotic.  Don't worry about message.  You're doing fine!

Hold your sabre loosely.