Occupy Iowa: We aren’t trying to disrupt caucuses
The headquarters for the Occupy Iowa Caucuses movement is a spacious, coffee-shop like warehouse on one of the main streets of downtown Des Moines, where laid-back protesters mingle amid signs reading “Mitt – get bank $ out of elections” and “Give us liberty from corporate greed!”
On Thursday night – after protesters lined up for free food provided with donations to the movement – occupiers gathered for a performance and civil rights panel that attracted perhaps 70 occupiers. (A small occupy tent city has been set up a few blocks away, though protesters spent $1,000 to rent the indoor space for the week.) About five hours earlier, 12 occupiers had been arrested at the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters after they refused to move out from in front of the front door of the building, including a 14-year-old who was released into the custody of her father.
The occupiers don’t see much distinction between the Democratic and Republican parties, though the fact that President Obama is effectively unopposed for reelection gives them little in the way of targets on the Democratic side. Emily Allison of Des Moines, who was among those arrested Thursday, said she felt “betrayed” by Mr. Obama for his unwillingness to veto the National Defense Authorization Act and for not closing the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.
“I thought he would stand up for the people,” she said. Allison, who was charged with criminal trespassing. She described Democrats as the “lesser of two evils” – but added that “after seeing all the money that Obama has accepted from the corporations and the bankers it’s difficult to distinguish the parties as two different things.”
Obama is effectively unopposed for reelection, so the Occupiers are attacking the people uneffectively opposing him. They could still Occupy the White House or crash a few of his 1%er fundraisers, but don’t hold your breath waiting.
Here’s the money quote:
She described Democrats as the “lesser of two evils”
“We’re the lesser of two evils” is a strange slogan for a reelection campaign, but it might actually work.
As for the Occupiers disrupting the caucuses, I’m sure they have no “official” plans to do anything like that. But when you’re dealing with a group with no leaders anything is possible and you have to assume the worst when making preparations.
The funny part is hearing the Occupiers claim their actions are being distorted by the media. I hear the camera adds five pounds but other than that what is being distorted here?:
The Crawdad Hole 
The first place I ever heard of Occupy Wall Street was at Corrente and for a while that was the only place I heard anything about it.
They first made news when 3-4 young women got pepper-sprayed by the cops. I did a post condemning that as excessive use of force.
Then a bunch of them walked out on the Brooklyn Bridge and got arrested. I watched the OWS livestream when it happened. During the next couple weeks afterward I watched and read a lot about OWS, and at least 90% of what I saw and read about OWS was coming from OWS supporters.
They were posting their own YouTube clips. It wasn’t FOX news.
I guess the world must look different when you’re wearing Koolaid goggles. I prefer my lying eyes and ears.
An unnamed version of these yahoos “occupied” caucuses in 2008. The press would not cover them nor do any kind of inquiry to determine where the hell they were from or what right they thought they had to disrupt, corrupt and generally fuck up the voting rights of residents of those states. While I am not a fan of caucuses, I think the legal voters of those states have the right to choose caucuses or primaries if they want to do so. It is one thing to camp and claim squatters rights in a park in major city and be a nuisance, it is quite another to deny people their legal right to vote and participate in the democratic process. They did it in 2008 and they are going to try to do it to anyone who opposes Obama just like they did to Hillary. Obama cannot win an election without dirty authoritarian stunts to eliminate all competition. This is fascist and should be called what it is.
One wonders why Holder and his DOJ voting rights section don’t get right on that—the denial of those voting rights, especially if the “groups” are bussed in from neighboring states.
Oh wait……..
Hell yes.
And Obama et al have another problem. Not only is Democratic party ID shrinking, they have a real problem with the youth vote this time out. http://www.civicyouth.org/new-analysis-of-young-voters-in-battleground-states-show-steep-decline-in-%E2%80%9908-democratic-advantage/ “The analysis by CIRCLE’s team of researchers not only illustrates the Democratic Party’s loss of a significant advantage in youth voter registration over their Republican counterpart, but additionally reveals trends that may signal a widespread decline in youth registration overall – both problematic developments for President Obama’s 2012 re-election effort. Although most states do not retain information about the age and party ID of their electorate over time, both North Carolina and Nevada recently released this comparative data, examined extensively in the report released today by CIRCLE.” They have no choice but to disrupt and dirty trick their way because it looks increasingly impossible to win legitimately by the numbers. It looks like the 2008 Democratic caucuses and primaries are going national and general election.
I am very pleased to see more attention being paid to the 1%ers. This notion that Obama’s campaign is being supported by $3-5 contributors is such hypocrisy. What would be really great to see at this time is a serious expose of Obama’s top 20 “bundlers”…who are they? how much did they bundle? what perks have they received? This keeps popping up, but no one in the media or blogosphere really goes after it. The ties to Wall Street bankers, attorneys and CEOs is astounding….Soros, Immelt, Carden et al.
It all comes back to what I call “viral lying”….be the first to put out a lie and it is almost then impossible to refute unless a serious barrage is mounted against it…relentlessly, and with serious facts from the other point of view. Such was the case with Palin supposedly having something to do with Gifford’s shooting, or that several black congressmen were spit on and called a racial slur….Pelosi recently continued that.
Press on….there is lots to be exposed at this point.
“Viral lying” – exactly! Tell a lie over and over and it will soon become practically impossible to refute. Even more so when the Media-PTB is behind!
I’m tired of voting for the evil of two lessers.
LOL! So true.
me too but I will still vote 🙂
I’ll still vote, but there won’t be a candidate on my ballot that I’ll lift a finger to work for. Given how actively I’ve campaigned in the past when I had a full time job and two kids to care for, it’s kind of sad that now that I’m semi-retired, I don’t have any interest in working on anyone’s campaign.
Riverdaughter has come to realize that you and I are the same person, and is deeply concerned about the state of my (your? our?) mental health.
Klown Derangement Syndrome
A woman scorned, and all that…….
I just read through that thread and my head is spinning. I’m not anti-OWS as much as anti-OWS-supporters-who-can’t-explain-one-single-goal. Sorry, can’t jump aboard a rape-pillage-burn movement, and that’s all I see 😦
Reminds me of 2008 when the obots couldn’t explain Obama, then it was, well, “….you’re either with us or the hell with you….you, you racist republican….Banned!”
She’s just searching hard for something to believe in, and she’s upset that people she used to share a common cause with aren’t following her. I sympathize with the emptiness, but not the desperation to find something, anything, to believe in. I suspect that if she had not lost her job, she’d be as skeptical as we are.
Bingo.
Which is why I don’t see any point in having a blogwar with her.
true that…
Double bingo, Ellie. You’re very perceptive.
In the long run, she just doesn’t matter anymore. Really.
That was an amazing sequence of dancing and avoiding the obvious. They’re totally delusional now. Amazing.
My favorite part is where they say why are you focused on “political” vs anything else. Just wow. Um, because a group of people that claim to want to change things or draw attention to things is by definition political, so to discuss that very political action and the first principles behind what they’re trying to do is fundamental. #facepalm
🙂 🙂
Don’t forget the “media poodles” !
http://floppingaces.net/2011/12/29/obamas-media-poodles-reader-post/
You would think EVERY reporter NOT invited to have coffee at the White House would be raising a stink? It’s obviously these people are rewarded for their slobber 😉 And, they’re not even that good at what they do!
WOW! Just felt my first earthquake, in Ohio, no less. Really weird, I don’t know how people live where these things happen all the time. Well, 2011 going out in spectacular fashion.
I still remember my first quake. It was a Saturday night in July 1975. I was sitting in a packed theater watching Jaws. It was a quiet part of the movie when suddenly it felt like a sonic boom except it came from below. That was it – one big ground grumble.
I lived in SJ for nine years as a young adult. I lost count of how many I felt there. I was 10 miles from the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta (World Series) quake. That’s one I won’t forget.
I have family in Oklahoma that are terrified of earthquakes but they shrug off tornadoes.
My theory is if God wants you he’ll come find you wherever you are.
They’ve been doing alot of fraking (sp?) drilling for natural gas that was found around here recently. Since then we’ve had quite a few but this one was stronger than the others. The floor felt like it was on wheels for a second there. This I can definitely live without. 🙂
One of the strangest quakes is the “sway” quake. You suddenly feel like you’re swaying back and forth on a swing – but nothing is moving. The first time I didn’t even realize it was an earthquake.
Congratulations! Nothing like a good earth shaking to ring in the New Year.
Funny, how OWSers still can’t articulate any demands but can only wax poetic about their “non-political” community and “movement,” etc. That kind of talk starts to sound cultish. I lived in the hub of progressive politics (Berkeley) for over a decade and have seen how this works. Basically, it amounts to ineffectual movements, for the most part, that exist mainly to make their participants feel good (i.e. feel morally superior) about themselves and the community they’ve created. OWS is no different.
I say to OWSers, fine luxuriate in your “movement” and “change” fantasies, but you won’t be able to begin to fix the system without concrete demands. Imagine if MLK wanted us all “just to get along” without making concrete demands for equality and taking specific actions to bring that about? Until you make demands, all I hear is cultish chatter. Furthermore, it’s a total cop-out not even to care about connecting the dots between the current crop of political puppets and their puppet masters. Nice way to steer public rage away from the Dem Messiah onto faceless Wall-Street robber barons. Obama has always used this straw-man tactic. Why would it be any different now? This is why many of us sense an astroturf quality to OWS. Without breaking up the tag-team between corrupt pols and their masters, we’re doomed.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, fellow Crawdads!
Honk. For OWS followers, it’s replacement koolaid for Obamania. For the OFA guided “non-organizers”, it’s just business as usual. For Corrente and MMT types, it’s a different kind of cultish chatter, but cultish nonetheless.
If you’re for real, focus like a laser on Wall Street (not on every grievance under the sun), have very specific goals and stick to them (break up TBTF, etc), make Obama’s Wall Street cronyism central to your protest, stop mixing up your Wall Street protest with MMT tinfoilism…the flip side of Ron Paul Glenn Bleck gold bugism, and you deserve to be taken about as seriously.
Honk!
if God wants you he’ll come find you wherever you are.
that’s a big ten 4 good buddy 🙂