More Thoughts Re: UC-Davis Part 1

By now, this video of the UC-Davis cop pepper-spraying non-violent student protesters has become ubiquitous:

 In discussions with others about this incident, at least two people have made the same remark to me about the cop’s flourishing of the pepper-spray, right before he starts using it, for what he clearly feels is his audience:

PERSON A:   I think he was trying to get on record that he had warned the kids what was coming if they didn’t leave.

PERSON B:    You just know that his excuse is going to be that he told the protesters what he was going to do if they didn’t get up and leave, so it’s their fault that he had to pepper-spray them.

Now, I agree with these persons’ assessments of what we see in the video and what it is the cop thought he was doing.  But what I find extremely disturbing about all this is the underlying assumption that goes into the cop’s little performance.  He clearly anticipates – and is probably correct in doing so – that the average American citizen will agree that if the protesters didn’t comply with his order to clear the premises after he threatened them with violence then they deserve to get hit with pepper-spray (or maybe tazed, or perhaps beaten with nightsticks).

But this mindset is insane.  I don’t recall ever voting to give cops the right to abuse people for failure to comply with an order.  Arrest them, sure, slip the little zip-cuffs on them and haul them away to be bound before a magistrate – that is the very essence of peaceful protest, of civil disobedience.  But when did we decide that – before doing that – the police are perfectly justified in physically abusing peaceful protesters?

This seems to me an example of the idea of “liberty” – i.e., you have only the privileges society affords you, which can be taken away from you at any time by the people responsible for enforcing society’s dictates – trumping the idea of “freedom” – i.e., you have an absolute right to exercise certain prerogatives that precedes society’s dictates, and society may not abridge these rights.  (See here for more on the liberty/freedom distinction).

And that is very dangerous, because it can only work to enshrine the status quo.  While enshrining and perpetuating the status quo is the goal of any system, it cannot be the final goal of our society.  If it were, we’d still have segregation.  Hell, if it were, we might still have slavery.

Sometimes events conspire to prove that the status quo is unjust and inequitable and needs to be changed.  And that is when the freedom to challenge the status quo has to trump society’s interest in maintaining “business as usual.”

Hope Springs Eternal

As I mentioned last night, Matt Yglesias already has gone on record expressing the belief that Bloomberg’s decision to shut down the occupation of Zuccotti Park “has ensured continued relevance for the issue.”  And this does seem to be shaping up as the favored consensus among those working in the Left Blogosphere.

Over at No More Mister Nice Blog Steve M. refers to this phenomenon as “The Dubious New Pundit Meme:  Bloomberg Did Occupy Wall Street a Favor.”  He cites Ezra Klein arguing that Bloomberg’s clearing of the park was done “in a way that will temporarily reinvigorate the protesters and give Occupy Wall Street the best possible chance to become whatever it will become next.”  He also cites Derek Thompson of The Atlantic arguing that “[w]ether or not the protesters return to their tents, New York police have given them a chance to lift up, take stock, and pitch their energies in an issue worth occupying . . . .”

Same as It Ever Was: The Feds' Crackdown on Dissent

Something that had been worrying about in the back of my mind for the past coupla weeks was whether the crackdowns we’ve recently been seeing on Occupy protests in cities around the country might have all been part of a single coordinated effort.  My interest was definitely piqued when Oakland Mayor Jean Quan let it slip in a BBC interview that she

was recently on a conference call of 18 cities who had the same situation, where what had started as a political movement and a political encampment ended up being an encampment that was no longer in control of the people who started them.

And now we get this story that suggests not only that the nationwide crackdown on the Occupy movement was coordinated by the various cities involved, but that the federal government was assisting in that crackdown as well:

Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict “Occupy” protesters from city parks and other public spaces.  As was the case in last night’s move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics.  And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.

[snip]

According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules.  Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear.  In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was least likely to be present.

Well.  That sure sounds like what happened in New York two nights ago.

* * *

Sadly, if it turns out the federal government did assist a coordinated effort across the nation to disenfranchise American citizens of their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble and protest their very disenfranchisement . . . well, I won’t be surprised. 

One of the very first things I wrote on this blog was “A Brief History of American Class Warfare.”  There I provided three examples – largely glossed over by our history books and forgotten by most people today – in which The Powers That Be wielded federal power, including the U.S. military, against disenfranchised Americans who were protesting the system that had disenfranchised them.  One such forgotten example was the use of the U.S. military – including tanks – to drive out the Bonus Army that had created a permanent encampment (much like OWS did) on the banks of the Anacostia River in 1932 to agitate for payment of their promised WWI bonuses.

The sad fact is that the United States has a long history of using all its institutional might to preserve whatever existing system has control of it -- the Constitution be damned -- and the idea that the Department of Homeland Security might be involved in crushing peaceful American protesters instead of dangerous foreign terrorists just doesn’t surprise me.  I suspect that most DHS officials don’t even think of this as “mission creep,” but as simply doing the job they were hired to do.

I will be curious, however, to learn precisely what the federal interest was in crushing the Occupy movement.  I’ll be curious as well to see whether my fellow citizens don’t get just a teensy bit alarmed now that their government is actively working to suppress voices that peacefully dissent from continuing “business as usual” here in America.

And I will be very curious to learn whether any right-wing militia whack jobs, the overweight ones running around in the woods of Idaho in camo gear training to fight the inevitable totalitarian police state that they envision the federal government imposing sometime in the near future, will rally in support of the Occupy protesters when they learn the federal government has indeed taken action to shut down dissent, and that part of that action involved a “massive show of police force” -- including even the black helicopters that haunt the militamen's fever dreams, and the imposition of no-fly zones for civilian aircraft.

My guess is that they won’t.  My guess is that the hard-core, survivalist nutjobs of the extreme right-wing in this country are going to look at what their much loathed feds did and say:  “Good on the feds.  Dirty hippies.”

Truly, we are doomed.

Parsing the Order Ending the Occupation of Wall Street

So, we now have the Order of the Supreme Court of New York effectively ending the occupation of Zuccotti Park.  You can read it here.

(Note that the New York judiciary is organized, ah, differently than is the federal judiciary and that of all the other states.  In New York, the Supreme Court is not that highest court in the land.  That would be the NY Ct. of Appeals.  No, the NY Supreme Court is actually the trial court, and hierarchically is therefore the lowest court in the land.  No, I don’t know why they gave it that name either.)

As was easily predicted, the basis for the judge’s determination that OWS does not have a constitutional right to occupy Zuccotti Park is the ability of others to impose “time, place, and manner” restrictions on speech.