[lbo-talk] 'What Wall Street protesters are so angry about'

Mark Bennett bennett.mab at gmail.com
Sat Oct 15 23:00:16 PDT 2011


This chilling article from Haper's last year seems even more relevant now. I wonder if some of these new gadgets will be deployed soon. No Birmingham fire hoses or Chicago nightsticks, and their shocking images:

http://itself.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/pain-compliance.pdf

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 9:45 AM, Thomas Volscho <Thomas.Volscho at csi.cuny.edu
> wrote:


> The elite has been preparing for this for a long time. In 2008, a division
> returning from Iraq was training at Ft. Stewart for civil unrest as reported
> by the Army Times. But go back even further to the early 1970s and the rise
> of prisons since Nixon and militarization of police to see that Neoliberal
> USA is a slow process of "locking down" America (see Christian Parenti's
> book of that name). I remember scanning through FBI law enforcement
> bulletin and they have tactical discussions about "dealing with" protests.
> Ward Churchill and Jim Vanderwall have a great chapter in their (1988) book
> on Cointelpro (rumor has it the FBI ordered the first 20 copies from South
> End Press) detailing counter-insurgency tactics (many of which were borrowed
> from Gen Frank Kitson for dealing with IRA). There was a photo of Canada G8
> protests circulating on the net with masked "anarchists" wearing same boots
> as police. Not to mention the recent stories (though unsurprising if you
> read Parent!
> i) about NYPD intelligence divisions. The elite wants this to simply "go
> away" but it is increasingly clear that it won't. There are an array of
> private security firms (former Secret Service, PD, Army Rangers, etc) in the
> wait if state-sanctioned police institutions cannot be repressive enough (or
> if "those" public employees defect). It will not be surprising if gov't
> contracts for private detention centers start rolling out soon. Security
> for the elite and those below them is also a means of accumulating capital
> when other profitable investment opportunities run out (one of the final
> frontiers of accumulation?)
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Marv Gandall
> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 12:17 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] 'What Wall Street protesters are so angry about'
>
>
> On 2011-10-14, at 1:26 AM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
>
> > The most bourgeois of venues sometimes surprise. The charts are pretty
> > great.
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 12:50 AM, Mike Beggs <mikejbeggs at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >>> From 'Business Insider' of all places, a pretty good selection of
> charts...
>
> Why the surprise? The bourgeoisie is as keenly aware as we that there is a
> serious economic crisis and a growing crisis of legitimacy of the system,
> and it discusses these issues forthrightly and in detail in the financial
> press, think tanks, and other forums largely outside the public purview.
>
> As always, it is split between those who think reforms are needed to
> restore order and profitablity and those who think the resolute application
> of austerity and brute force is all that is required. These days, there are
> are probably more of the former than the latter, but to date they have also
> been divided, confused and paralyzed about the nature and degree of reform
> which is necessary and possible. The spreading mass unrest has got to be
> concentrating minds at the top, however.
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