Posts Tagged ‘Direct Action’

Lee Stranahan

Occupy Leader Says Union ‘Opposition’ to Planned 12/12 West Coast Port Shutdown Is ‘Just A Game’

by Lee Stranahan

In another sign of the #Occupy movement flying off the tracks of relevancy, the movement’s next major campaign – a planned shutdown of shipping ports on the entire west coast – is explicitly opposed by International Longshoreman’s Union, the union that the shutdown is purporting to support. However, statements from an Occupy leader indicate that the Union may be bluffing in order to avoid further legal trouble in an ongoing dispute they have with a Portland grain export facility.

The website WestCoastPortShutdown.org says that the planned direct action on December 12th is being coordinated by at least ten different Occupy movements, including the recently decamped Los Angeles, Oakland and Portland movements as well as scrawny groups like Occupy Oxnard. More specifically, the Port Shutdown is being spearheaded on by Occupy Oakland and activist / artiste Boots Riley.

The site lays out some big goals…

On December 12, the occupy movements in different cities will stage  mass mobilizations to march on the ports, create community pickets, and effectively shutdown the hubs of commerce, in the same fashion that Occupy Oakland shut down the Port of Oakland on November 2nd, the day of our general strike.

And their raison d’être is, as always, ‘solidarity with the 99%.’

We present this call to you because we believe it is time the occupation movement begins to work together to carry through coordinated, pinpointed actions. We want  to disrupt the profits of the 1% and to show solidarity with those in the 99% who are under direct attack by corporate tyranny.

But apparently the anarchy loving Occupy movement didn’t clear all of this with the heads of the unions theey are supposed to be in solidarity with. A Portland Trubune article headlined Unions: We don’t support Occupy port shutdown and subtitled Longshoremen say they will not participate in planned Dec. 12 West Coast protest appears to lay out a case for conflict between Occupy and the ILWU.

“We support the goals of the Occupy protesters but we are not supportive or participating in the shutdown of the West Coast ports,” says Jeff Smith, president of the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union Local 8. The union represents workers who load and unload ships at the port, and also move freight in and out of it.

And the same article later quotes ILWU Local 8 president Smith saying succinctly…

“This is a third-party strike. We have to go to work,” says Smith.

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Lee Stranahan

Meet The Anarchist Leaders Behind The ‘Leaderless’ #Occupy Movement – Part One: Lisa Fithian

by Lee Stranahan

The #OccupyWallStreet movement that been embraced by Democratic politicians, liberal pundits, progressive groups, Big Labor and celebrities was actually created and is being led behind the scenes by far-left anarchists whose goal isn’t reform, but the total annihilation of the American economic and political system.

“Occupy Everything” is the culmination of a decades-long effort by militant radicals to create and fund a mass movement that has broad popular appeal. With the enthusiastic help of the institutional left, that effort finally seems to be working.

Case in point: Lisa Fithian. Fithian is a career “community organizer” and anarchist who specializes in “direct action” protests, and who has close ties to labor unions. She has been on the ground at the #OccupyWallStreet demonstration since its inception.

Local television station NY1 interviewed her as an ordinary “woman on the street,” presenting her as just another well-intentioned New Yorker who’s worried about the big, mean banks.

NY1 did not mention that Fithian lives in Austin, Texas, and failed to inform its audience about Fithian’s true motivations or her lengthy activist resume.

“Wall Street is certainly the heart of why we’re here. It’s the corporations — the big banks in this country have been destroying this country.”

Lisa Fithian says she’s not part of any official group–that this event is the work of many people coming together with the same message.

“Overfees or high mortgages, student loans–the banks are touching every aspect of our lives.”

She says banks and the wealthy have taken money for their own interests and their own survival.

“And the people here are saying enough of that.”

Inspired by events around the world, she drew the analogy to Tahrir Square in Egypt, and says the power of the people is leading to change.

It doesn’t take much digging to discover the real Lisa Fithian. (more…)

Andrew  Marcus

Let’s Talk About The Democrat Party’s ‘Arrestables’

by Andrew Marcus

If Democrats really want to address the issue of “Toxic Politics,” a great place to start would be with what Progressives call the “arrestables.”

What are arrestables and how do they work? What they are is fairly self-explanatory:  arrestables are protesters who are predetermined to be arrested.

Who they are is where it really gets interesting. They are a mix of professional protesters and anarchists, organized largely (but not exclusively) through a working relationship between community organizers like Lisa Fithian of RANT, Susie Benjamin and Jodie Evans of CodePink (major Obama fundraisers), and Bernadine Dohrn of the Weather Underground Terrorist Party (major Obama fundraiser).

How arrestables are used is also fascinating. Progressive protest planners typically hire a band called “Rage Against the Machine” who puts on a hell of an energized show, with popular songs like “Killing in the Name” and “Bullet in the Head.”

From “Killing in the Name”

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
Come on!

Yeah! Come on!

F$%k you, I won’t do what you tell me
F$%k you, I won’t do what you tell me

From “Bullet in the Head”

This time the bullet cold rocked ya
A yellow ribbon instead of a swastika
Nothin’ proper about ya propaganda
Fools follow rules when the set commands ya

After the incredibly amped rebellion-charged show is over, the band and the organizers encourage everyone to take the rage out on to the streets, where they march with or without permit, often (but not always) leading to violent police confrontation and arrest.

Below is an image of Progressive protest organizers going over where the arrestables will be positioned in a post-Rage Against The Machine concert march in Denver during the 2008 DNC convention. More amazing photos from this meeting are available here.

Rage005

That BS at the top about “NON-violent direct action” must not have been on the diagrams they used in 2008 RNC convention in St. Paul  where they rioted in one form or another each day/night they were there. And besides, there is no such creature as a non-violent direct action arrestable. They are a contradiction in terms.

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Andrew  Marcus

VIDEO: Community Organizers Openly Planning To Break The Law While Protesting In Arizona

by Andrew Marcus

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16 seconds into the video below, Marxist “Community Organizer” Carlos Garcia of the Marxist community organization “Puente” openly talks about people planning to get arrested while protesting in Arizona.


Does this sort of thing ever happen at a Tea Party? I can’t think of one Tea Party protest, anywhere, that has involved the premeditated tactic of breaking the law and getting arrested.

Yet it is the Tea Parties that are a smeared by Democrats as a violent threat to national security?

And make no mistake, this is an operation of America’s Progressive Democrat Left.

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Brandon Darby

The Extreme Left: A Ticking Time Bomb

by Brandon Darby

The Mainstream media (MSM) is currently peddling the Obama Administration myth that patriotic Americans, many of whom have served in our military or who otherwise have an American flag hanging proudly in their front yards, pose a grave threat to our nation’s security. We have seen calls for Republican leaders to denounce Tea-Partiers and other activist groups opposed to Obama’s agenda. We are currently seeing our nation’s Department of Justice being hijacked to score political points for the Far-Left.

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Let us remember that it is leftists who support convicted cop-killers, organize to prevent other Americans from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights, consistently threaten violence, and otherwise have a long history of supporting foreign powers who wish our nation and its freedoms harm.

For many years, the anti-American culture of the extreme left has been largely ignored. Like a cancer running through the body politic, the culture of hating America has metasticised. It is now “uncool” to have a flag in the yard, support our troops or believe in American exceptionalism.

To better see how the left works and the threat it poses, let us take a look at the Left and the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC).

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Andrew  Marcus

America’s Progressive-Anarchist Tea Party

by Andrew Marcus

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Bill Clinton was absolutely right when he wrote the following in the New York Times:

Finally, we should never forget what drove the bombers, and how they justified their actions to themselves. They took to the ultimate extreme an idea advocated in the months and years before the bombing by an increasingly vocal minority: the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them.

….

Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. No one is right all the time. But we should remember that there is a big difference between criticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws.

We are again dealing with difficulties in a contentious, partisan time. We are more connected than ever before, more able to spread our ideas and beliefs, our anger and fears. As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.

We couldn’t agree with President Clinton more. We must all be vigilant in our efforts to avoid fostering an environment that offers quarter to extremist and violent elements.

This is as true for the Tea Party as it is for any other political movement – and while we are on the subject of other movements, we trust that President Clinton’s intellectual consistency would necessarily lead him to condemn Lisa Fithian’s United For Justice and Peace the Direct Action Tendency (DAT) anarchy group.

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