OWS Movement Violence and Obama

[Avalux]

Last night turned violent in Oakland and there's rumors that the violence was started by a fringe group - my gut tells me these provocateurs are law enforcement plants and infiltrates from the Right.

Thus far, the OWS Movement has enjoyed majority public support and is continuing to make headway in our political discourse. Will the violence erode that support and turn the public against it? That's what the powers that be and the GOP are betting on and that's why they're behind the violent acts. They plan to crush the Movement with this strategy and at the same time, blame Obama for it.

Consider this from yesterday:

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) came out swinging at President Barack Obama in a Wednesday speech, charging the president with dividing the nation and fueling notions of class warfare as he barnstorms the country selling the public on his jobs plan.

"Instead of appealing to the hope and optimism that were hallmarks of his first campaign, he has launched his second campaign by preying on the emotions of fear, envy and resentment," Ryan said during remarks at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

"This has the potential to be just as damaging as his misguided policies," he said. "Sowing social unrest and class resentment makes America weaker, not stronger. Pitting one group against another only distracts us from the true sources of inequity in this country -- corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/paul-ryan-obama-preying-on-fear-envy-resentment_n_1033115.html

Don't think for a minute that last night's violence and Ryan's speech are separate from each other. The PTB and the GOP are positioning themsemves to take down Obama and the OWS movement by turning the public against both of them.

Obama has been very cautious about supporting the OWS Movement, despite my hopes and those of so many others that he'd embrace it. Now I understand why.

[MADem]

1. What about those Whole Foods-trashin' anarchists? Shouldn't be impossible to figure out who they

were...

[Juneboarder]

2. Funny ...

All the msm is up in arms over the "riots" and "violence from Occupy Oakland", yet no mention to the tens of thousands marching yesterday in Oakland alone. What about the rest of the country? I know most other occupations marched in solidarity with Occupy Oakland, yet all we here about is a bonfire that started the violence.

For phux sake.

Nothing to look at here folks; move along .. move along ..

[flamingdem]

4. Sorry but DUH. The violence gave them an excuse to smear OWS, that sells news nt

[Juneboarder]

9. Umm, yea duh...

that is only obvious. The fun starts when everything from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. start pouring into peoples' desktops and really make msm look like they're there for the 1%. Just like the fascist thugs in the streets (woops!, I mean police).

[flamingdem]

10. I think that the violence undermined the movement

You can't broaden a movement if it's seen as fringe or dangerous.

[Juneboarder]

14. Agreed... if that violence came from Occupy Oakland.

I'm reading a lot of conflicting reports from tweeters versus MSM. MSM says the "rioters" (note their choice of wording) started it all; yet I heard and saw much of the contrary on Twitter this morning when reading through all of the people I follow up there.

There are definite infiltrators. There were cops with tape over their names and their badge numbers hidden. They went in with the intent of trouble; Occupy Oakland had no weapons and was not prepared for the trouble the police were anticipating.

It will take time for the truth to work its way through the filters, but the truth prevails especially when you have a whole lot of people documenting things on the scene.

[Aerows]

15. The only people undermining the movement

were people that were acting as agent provocateurs. Don't be fooled, since no one else is.

[flamingdem]

3. On msnbc: Quinnipac poll says public turning against OWS due to violent, fringe images

So easy to use those images to discredit the movement.

Way to go black bloc a**holes

[Aerows]

13. Agent Provocateurs

They messed up. There are too many of us that know EXACTLY their tactics, and will make it as public as possible.

They were dumb, like the "hide your kids, hide your wife" dumb.

[county worker]

5. One way to tell about the violence is to see if anyone is arrested for it.

Police or the right wing would not arrest their own would they?

[flamingdem]

16. Supposedly 100 were arrested last night? nt

[izquierdista]

6. So far, the vast majority of the violence has been FROM authorities.

Which Obama's an ethical Justice Department could halt in an instant if they enforced 18 U.S.C. § 242.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. 40k close down the port, peacefully

But media will concentrate on sixty arrests.

Not only that, they got the story wrong.

[flamingdem]

11. Exactly. The violence gave them an excuse not to talk about the strike nt

[coalition_unwilling]

8. Occupy Oakland last night was reporting that certain undercover

Oakland Police Department officers had infiltrated the larger crowd. Apparently, Occupy Oakland has the goods on at least a couple of them, i.e., footage of self-same officer in uniform earlier and in plain clothes last night.

From my point of view, the Oakland (and Tulsa) Police Departments are the best recruiting tool we could have conjured up, if only because the visual contrast between Imperial Storm Troopers and seated non-violent Occupiers is so stark.

If the American public turns against the Occupy movement, it will be turning against its own class interests. That has happened in the past, so I'm not dismissing the possibility entirely, but I have hopes that the Occupy Movement has reached a certain critical mass and that any still sitting on the fence and thus susceptible to suasion were not going to be very effective allies in any case.

As for that toady and lickspittle Obama, I expect to see him deploying the military not to enforce the Occupy Movement's consittutional rights against the jackbootery of local law enforcement, but to actually try to suppress the Occupy movement using U.S. armed forces.

[robdogbucky]

18. Well, coalition, he has to do something

Ryan called him out on the Occupy movement yesterday, claiming O was instigating a class war by encouraging the Occupiers by his doing nothing.

We already know if it may impact the re-election campaign, it gets top priority.

Hence, look for an Obama approved crackdown nationwide to serve further appeasment/re-election purposes.

I thought it was damn suspicious that yesterday, even though there were about 100,000 peacefully gathered in Oaktown, even to the point of peacefully interrupting the Port's business, that the news coverage always led with the sensationalist coverage of vandalism to banks and that nothing happened until the cover of darkness down there at the Plaza.


Color me tinfoily over this one.

[tcaudilllg]

19. America won't turn against Occupy

But we should make people aware that the enemies of Occupy are gaming for a civil war!

[Aerows]

12. Duh they were agent provocateurs

They were even wearing masks to disguise themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow

That should tell you all that you need to know, just by watching it.

[flamingdem]

17. Did people identify them who were part of OWS?

It would help to hear how they were seen and identified by organizers

[Aerows]

20. Are you serious?

Did you watch the video I linked?

Did you watch the video of the supposed "protesters"?

You are asking for verification of their identities as AP's, yet you have declared them positively as OWS protesters?

Uh, I'm not sure if you caught the irony there, but I thought I would point it out.