Mr. Peace (killed 31 years ago next month with a handgun) John Lennon sings about his
favorite Bad-Assed City, New York City, and asks the lyrical question:
"Que Pasa New York?"
What's happening, New York, is greed. Plain and simple.
Ya got a billionaire for a mayor who had the charter revised specially for himself so he
could OCCUPY city hall for 12 instead of his legal 8 years,
and who retains the specialist in Police Brutality of a major city police chief, Ray Kelly.
Que Pasa New York, is that the OCCUPY MOVEMENT IS GROWING STRONGER BY THE DAY!
One pacifist.
A victim of Billionaire Wall-Street-Dependent "Mayor" Michael Bloomberg and
Police (Brutality) "Chief" Ray Kelley.
33 peaceful protesters, heroes who were veterans of the Arab Spring centerpiece peaceful overthrow of triple-decade dictator Hosni Mubarak (who ironically succeeded the well-deserving Nobel Peace Prize winner and signatory of a peace TREATY with Israel, Anwar El-Sadat) are dead this week at the hands of the now-brutal Egyptian military. The movement, which is the DNA of the Occupy Wall Street movement, now a nation and world-wide phenomenon, threatening the wealthy elite power brokers of the world who have so concentrated wealth and power in the past decades, has been peaceful but attempts in Egypt, Syria, Oakland and Manhattan to squash it with uniformed violence has been an endemic feature of the non-violent protest. 5,500 have been severely wounded in the past seven days in the Egyptian military’s murderous spree. Although elections are scheduled in the weeks and months to come in Egypt, a President won’t be selected until 2013 at the earliest under the sham plan put forth by the currently ruling military council, which is obviously seeking to cling to power. A TWO YEAR transition to civilian rule and a duly elected government is absurd.
Tahrir Square, Cairo in Egypt today, November 21, 2011
The Arab Spring movement has resulted in the overthrow of Mubarak, Muammar Qadafi, and the revolt threatening the brutal dictatorship in Syria, a peaceful revolution in Tunisia, and now the American Occupy Movement which has gone viral in a world-wide way. Unfortunately here, too, this peaceful group of protesters has been met with police brutality and violence by police ordered to use unnecessary force against unarmed men, women and children (somewhat reminiscent of the National Guard assassinations of four peaceful student protesters at Ohio State University during the Civil Rights/anti-SE Asia aggression Struggle here in the U.S. decades ago). Photos and videos of clubbings, bloodied protesters, tasings, unnecessary pepper-spray, and assaults by American cops are now all to frequent in our newspapers and on TV.
Tahrir Square Back During the Pacifist Overthrow of Dictator Mubarek,
the Progenitor of the Occupy Movement.
Of course the worst of the worst in the U.S. came just last week in the form of a military-style raid conducted by Billionaire greedster (and huge stakeholder in Wall Street) NY City Mayor Michael Bloomberg via his right-wing Police Brutality Specialist Chief Ray Kelley (who has been in office for way too long, nauseatingly since the times of the prosecutor Mayor Giulliani) which forced the peaceful encampment out of Zuccotti Park last week, the epicenter and symbolic capitol of the Occupy Movement. As with all violent responses to loving and peaceful protest, this has simply galvanized the opposition, and the movement has continued to spread in intensity, focus and message.
It happened here just a short while ago! Kent State, MLK, Lennon, RFK, JFK, J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Files,
Enemies Lists, Agnew resigns, Nixon Resigns. OMG!
"What if you knew her and found her dead on the streets?"
Cried Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in their song about Kent State, Ohio!
The military went berserk and shot pacifist college kids! OMG!
Your tax dollars at work, killing and injuring peaceful protesters in Ohio a few years back! OMG!
The victims of the Ohio militia at the time of their peaceful anti-war occupy protest at Kent State
Allison.
William.
Jeffrey.
Sandra.
So young.
So idealistic.
So loving.
So peaceful.
:'(
Top: Your tax dollars at work, an officer clubbing an unarmed protester in Zuccotti Park, NYC, and below
are the fine folks of Oakland and the nation's tax dollars at work as over-protected and armed riot cops
move in on a lone unarmed woman about to club her.
OMG!
A strange irony is that recent major media reporting on the Egyptian heroes who have once again risked life and limb in peaceful opposition to abuses of power in the squares of the cities in Egypt was badly stilted last week couching the protesters as "Islamists," full well knowing that the term, unfortunately at this point in our sick political and social culture is viewed as a derogatory one. Not only did this past Friday’s hard copy of the Wall Street Journal (a reactionary right wing capitalist tool of Rupert Murdoch) and the Faux News Channel report the current protest in this manner, but the headline of Friday’s so-called “Liberal" NY Times read as follows: “Egypt Islamists Demand the End of Military Rule.” Using a descriptive term in post-9/11 America which many very inappropriately view in a negative light in this country and using out of control spin language such as this to describe the renewed opposition to Egyptian abuses such as this “The huge turnout was the first time that Egypt’s Islamists had so openly and aggressively challenged military rule, ending an uneasy truce that had prevailed as long as the military appeared willing to allow the Islamists as much of a say in Egypt’s future as they could win at the ballot box.”
Mr. Lennon taught well then, and its even more applicable now, his prescription for occupying-
Power to the People:
"Get on yer feet
and into the street
singin'
Power to the people...."
OCCUPY
The mainstream media and the Times in particular ought to be ashamed of themselves. In today’s lead story on the deteriorating military reaction to the hero pacifist protestors, the NY Times used totally different nouns and adjectives, no longer describing them as “Islamists” or exclusively members of the Muslim Brotherhood as they did just 72 hours ago. Instead today the terms used were “protesters,” ‘”demonstrators,” and even describing a situation wherein “Coptic Christians once again stood guard as their Muslim compatriots bowed to pray.”
Some Muslim folks engaged in prayer.
Heroes are heroes. And the victims of violent crushing of peaceful protest, whether in Tahrir Square, Tien An Mien Square, or Zuccotti Park is NOT to be tolerated.
Dictator Hosni Mubarek is gone thanks to non-violent heroes in Egypt
but the military is hanging on and usurping power as time goes on.
One percent of this nation’s wealthiest people now own more than those in the bottom 50 percent, in a concentration of wealth, power and greed unseen in the annals of U.S. and world history. As John Lennon said so succinctly, so successfully (in conjunction with an arsenal of leaders which included the Reverends MLK, Jesse Jackson and William Sloane Coffin, and others from the 4 dead at Kent State to Abbie Hoffman and George McGovern) and so powerfully:
A million workers workin’ for nuthin.
You better give ‘em what they really own.
We’re gonna put you down!
When we come into town!
Singing….
Power to the people…
IT CAN ONLY MEAN
GETTING INTO THE STREETS!
Yes, it’s time. Peacefully, please. And with love as the motive.
Please take some time to check out John Lennon's widow's work on the Lennon Peace Prize:
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