Greta Garbo, They Ain’t

Presidential candidate John Kerry once said that he was not going to explain what he would do to fix Bush’s foreign policy errors because it would give away his secret plans. Voters pretty much laughed it off and voted for the already unpopular president by an acceptable margin. Back then, people cared about transparency.

Today, the Occupy X movement is clinging to the secret sauce that is their mission statement, list of demands or lobotomy scar. This matches up with my tortured liberal porn analogy. Now that we have the old timey sit in, the new world order of communal decisions and a bunch of free food and advertising from nebulous sources, the seduction is over.

Now it’s time for the foreplay. Sure, protesters and media alike are aching for that sudden release of information about what they want, when do they want it or even who the hell they are. If that happens, the thrill will be over and everyone will lose interest and go home. To extend this just long enough, they have to play their first concrete statement like the first line Greta Garbo spoke in the talkies.

It’s pretty obvious nothing will live up to the fantasy of a unified collective of the 99% of the world who lives in either abject poverty or comfortable upper middle class paradise, depending on where you call home. Every single occupier has a different opinion about what the protests mean. They can’t even get this 99% thing straight. 1 percenters include the Hollywood do-nothings who support the cause, (until they have to pay taxes and move to France) the guy who makes in the mid six figures in NYC and has to pay for an expensive apartment and kids in college on 45% of his salary after taxes and the parents of oh so many of these kids who are camping out in brand new gear.

This is the slickest media campaign since a certain election campaign a few years ago. The only things ragged and out-of-place are the occupiers themselves. Is the messenger more important than the message? When there is no message, I’d say the ones supplying the narrative are the only important ones.

Max ‘em out

---

Dismiss all charges or we will clog up courts, lawyers for Occupy Wall Street protesters say

Next up for protesters: Occupy the Courts.

Lawyers representing about 800 Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested in the past month demand that prosecutors drop the charges.

If not, they say they won’t deal and will insist on going to trial – putting pressure on the already overloaded Manhattan criminal courts.

“I’d like to suggest to the DA’s office the appropriate way to deal with these cases is outright dismissal,” said defense lawyer Martin Stolar.

“The leverage is, we take them all to trial.”

Stolar and other members of the civil rights-focused National Lawyers Guild plan to meet today with prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.’s office to lay out their position.

At least some protesters who face charges – including two out-of-towners arrested last week – will demand their day in court.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Zach Welch, 20, of upstate Rochester, after spending 24 hours behind bars for resisting arrest and wearing a mask depicting the 16th century anarchist Guy Fawkes. “I was expressing my rights.”

Vance’s office had no comment on the meeting and said all cases are reviewed individually.

---

No problemo. Here’s what you do:

Pick out your strongest cases. Try to select the leaders. Move their cases to the front. Invoke the People’s right to a speedy trial (they have one too) and get things moving. Maneuver the cases in front of hard-ass judges.

Trials in cases like that last a couple hours. Schedule several on the same day, start the first and trail the rest. Make the defendants AND their lawyers hang around the courthouse all day (maybe for several days in a row) waiting for their turn.

After the first couple convictions result in maximum sentences the plea bargains will sound so much better.

Which would you rather get, time served, $500 fine (forfeit bail) and probation or six months in jail, maximum fine and probation?

The court system depends on plea bargains. That’s why they are a good deal for the guilty. If you intentionally try to jam up the system you’ll get jammed up too.

---

Everything old is new again

---

(h/t Verum Serum)

---

Ann Althouse re: Citizens United

Thisltethwaite continues:

Here’s the point: If you are content to think that corporations are people and money is speech, as the Supreme Court decided in the by a vote of 5-4, in their Citizens United v Federal Election Commission decision, then indeed you are sleepwalking through your citizenship and giving over your faith to false prophets.

I believe, when future accounts of this era are written, historians will judge that the wake up call for many people in America was in early 2010 with that Supreme Court decision. The winter of 2010 is what led to the #OWS demonstrations in the fall of 2011.

Can we as citizens accept this definition of person, and of speech? This is what Dr. West, by his action on the steps of the Supreme Court, is asking us to stop and ponder. Corporation as person? A soulless legal entity as human being? No. We can’t and we must not. As I have written before, God didn’t create corporations.

And God didn’t create The Washington Post, which is a corporation. Could Congress criminalize WaPo’s reporting about political candidates in the 2-month period preceding an election? It would protect us from distorted ravings like yours, Ms. Thisltethwaite. What do you say? You must say yes! I mean, if you care about coherence. And I know you don’t.

---

Every major media outlet in the country is either a corporation or is owned by a corporation. What would undoing corporate personhood do to freedom of speech and of the press?

If corporate personhood did not exist, how would you sue a corporation? What would that do to the doctrine of limited liability? Imagine losing everything you own because you owned a single share of a corporation that lost a lawsuit.

If you’re really interested in this issue, here is a good treatise on the topic.

Some legal concepts are too complex for a T-shirt or bumper sticker.

“I’ll believe a corporation is a person when Texas executes one.”

---

Signal Boost: Help #AmberCole

Lola has been waging a one-woman campaign on twitter to help 14 year old Amber.
Here is Lola’s post on How You Can Help #AmberCole and Fight Child Pornography

(I am disabling comments since this is simply a reminder post. Please post your comments/suggestions/advice on Lola’s blog to keep it centralized. Thanks!)

These are the droids you’re looking for – or maybe not

---

David Axelrod: Herman Cain not a serious contender

Despite the attention suddenly being heaped on the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, Axelrod said Cain was not going to be a top-tier contender in the 2012 election.

“I think, when you look at the resources and when you look at the standing, that Perry and Romney are likely to be duking it out at some point here,” said Axlerod.

Cain’s candidacy has surged in the past month. In September, he won a Florida GOP straw poll. Last Thursday, a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Cain leading the pack with 27 percent support, compared with only 23 percent for Mitt Romney.

But Axlerod implied that Romney was the candidate the White House is taking most seriously — steering the conversation back to the former Massachusetts governor’s weaknesses.

“He has a history going back 20 years when he was a moderate to liberal Republican in Massachusetts: pro choice, pro-gay rights, pro-environmental protection, obviously pro-health reform,” said Axlerod. “He was anti-Ronald Reagan, said he was an independent during the Reagan years, and now he’s done a 180 on all those things.”

---

Man, if that isn’t a mixed message. “We think RINO Mitt Romney will be the nominee.”

BTW – Four years ago Axelrove would have screamed racism if someone had suggested that the only black guy on the ballot wasn’t a serious contender.

---

Fast & Furious media coverage

We interrupt your OWSpectacle for some news coverage. Hillary is 44 makes a great point that we should not let the OWS distract us from the real scandals. So here’s an update on one of our favorite action-packed thrillers:

Bob Schieffer interviewed Darrell Issa and (Sharyl Attkisson* also got to ask a question) yesterday on Face The Nation. Then he interviewed Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) to give the Dems a chance to blow smoke.
I can’t embed the video (I tried) but here is a link. Transcript here.

Issa recaps the issue of the missing gun number 1 (3rd gun), and shows some completely blacked out papers he got from the FBI to show how he’s being stonewalled and why he’s now has subpoenas for the original documents. The whole interview is worth watching, but also notice the last question:

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Are you saying then that the attorney general knew a whole lot more about this than he testified to when he came before the Congress?

REPRESENTATIVE DARRELL ISSA: He clearly knew more than he– than he said when he said he only first heard of this program a few weeks before. I take him at the word, but only if we can have the kind of dialogue that allows us to ask, if you will, the twenty questions. And it should be done at judiciary. It should be done by Chairman Smith because, in fact, it’s the counterpart to Senator Grassley in the Senate. And Senator Grassley has never been able to get a hearing which is inexplicable that Senator Leahy would not be just as interested as– as we are.

Schieffer cuts it off there, inexplicably avoiding any follow-up question about Senator Leahey inexplicable lack of interest in FF. He then devotes the next part to letting Congressman Cummings have his say. Cumming basically says that Issa is making accusations without having the information (I thought Issa’s complaint was that he wasn’t being given the information he was asking for in the first place?). Cummings also defends Holder and throws the Phoenix ATF office under the bus.

BOB SCHIEFFER: And we still don’t know who exactly was responsible for this program to move these guns into Mexico. Isn’t it about time we found that out?

REPRESENTATIVE ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Yeah, we– we– and I– and I think we’re moving more and more towards that. Keep in mind we do know that it was the Phoenix office. We– we know it was hatched there and that’s all the– all the testimony we have heard so far that’s what we’ve heard. And I don’t– and I know that we will get to the– the very bottom of it. But it is a– a bottom-up and not a top-down situation. We know that for a fact.

Uh huh. Just a few bad apples.

*Pulitzer-deserving reporter

Update: thanks to PMM & HelenK, a video of a presscon back in 2009 where Deputy Attorney General David Ogden says that “the President is directing us to fight these cartels” and “Atty General Holder & I” are taking “aggressive steps” and then includes “Project Gunrunner.”

Instigating

---

Wall Street Protesters Say They Increasingly Court Confrontation, Arrests

Organizers of the anti-Wall Street protest acknowledged that after a month of demonstrations there is an increased willingness by members to confront the police during marches — even if it means getting arrested.

Sandra Nurse, a member of Occupy Wall Street’s direct action working group, argued that “the envelope needs to be pushed” by demonstrators, but said the means of doing that are heavily debated.

“There is a very contentious argument within this movement about ‘What is non-violence?’” she said. “And because the concept of non-violence is such a loaded conversation to have and everyone has a different perspective on it, it’s very difficult to mobilize a lot of people to step up and push the envelope.”

Among the 92 arrests made Saturday in connection with the Wall Street protests, several took place after a group of demonstrators tried to topple police barricades at Times Square. The incident resulted in three officers being treated for injuries at Bellevue Hospital before being released. Additionally, 14 protesters were also arrested in Washington Square Park, refusing police orders to leave at midnight, when the park closes.

“They’re going to jump a barricade here or there,” said protester Brendan Burke, who oversees security at Zuccotti Park, “and they’re going to keep this a protest rather than a balloon-carrying sidewalk march.”

---

It won’t matter where the police draw the line, the fleabaggers will cross it.

After all, peaceful protest marches don’t make headlines.

And if you make demands and the demands are met, there’s nothing left to protest, is there?

---

“Demands are disempowering since they require someone else to respond”

---

White House Draws Closer To Occupy Wall Street, Says Obama Is Fighting For The Interests Of The 99%

The White House continued its embrace of the Occupy Wall Street protests on Sunday, using the strongest terms yet to identify President Barack Obama with the growing movement.

---

I didn’t know Glenn Beck wrote for Business Insider.

But wait! There’s more:

Protesters Debate What Demands, if Any, to Make

In a quiet corner across the street from Zuccotti Park, a cluster of 25 solemn-faced protesters struggled one night to give Occupy Wall Street what critics have found to be most lacking.

“We absolutely need demands,” said Shawn Redden, 35, an earnest history teacher in the group. “Like Frederick Douglass said, ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand.’ ”

The influence and staying power of Occupy Wall Street are undeniable: similar movements have sprouted around the world, as the original group enters its fifth week in the financial district. Yet a frequent criticism of the protesters has been the absence of specific policy demands.

Mr. Redden and other demonstrators formed the Demands Working Group about a week and a half ago, hoping to identify specific actions they would formally ask local and federal governments to adopt. But the very nature of Occupy Wall Street has made that task difficult, in New York and elsewhere.

[...]

In New York, the demands committee held a two-hour open forum last Monday, coming up with two major categories: jobs for all and civil rights. The team will continue to meet twice a week to develop a list of specific proposals, which it will then discuss with protesters and eventually take to the General Assembly, a nightly gathering of the hundreds of protesters in the park.

A two-thirds majority would have to approve each proposal, and any passionate opponent could call for the entire vote to be delayed.

The General Assembly has already adopted a “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City,” which includes a list of grievances against corporations and a call for others to join the group in peaceful assembly. To many protesters, that general statement is enough, and the open democracy of Zuccotti Park is the point of the movement.

“Demands are disempowering since they require someone else to respond,” said Gabriel Willow, a protester strolling past a sleeping-bag pod of young adults in the park last Monday. “It’s not like we couldn’t come up with any, but I don’t think people would vote for them.”

---

Okay then. Good luck with that. Hope it works out for you.

(Somebody’s been shooting pot)

---