Man On Fire: 10/18/11

18 Oct 2011

NY cops probed over assaults on OWS protestors

New York police officers are being investigated over allegations they have used excessive force against Occupy Wall Street protesters.

A video, taped last Friday, has given grounds for one of the inquiries. An officer, thought to be a deputy inspector, was filmed apparently grabbing an activist from behind and punching him in the face so hard that he fell to the ground.

An independent agency that deals with complaints against New York police says it is also looking into an officer using pepper spray on a peaceful female protester.

The anti-corporate campaign has been going on for more than a month now, and despite the police handling and the continuing arrests, the numbers of demonstrators are growing. Source

Oil behind US nose poking in Uganda - Pepe Escobar

Washington is to send a hundred special operations troops to Uganda to help local forces fight the Lord's Resistance Army, widely considered a terrorist organization. The Ugandan government has been fighting this guerilla group for over two decades. But Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar says America has far-reaching plans for the region, that have little to do with protecting civilians.

Original Source

The Awakening in America

A radical situation is a collective awakening. . . . In such situations people become much more open to new perspectives, readier to question previous assumptions, quicker to see through the usual cons. . . . People learn more about society in a week than in years of academic “social studies” or leftist “consciousness raising.” . . . Everything seems possible — and much more is possible. People can hardly believe what they used to put up with in “the old days.” . . . Passive consumption is replaced by active communication. Strangers strike up lively discussions on street corners. Debates continue round the clock, new arrivals constantly replacing those who depart for other activities or to try to catch a few hours of sleep, though they are usually too excited to sleep very long. While some people succumb to demagogues, others start making their own proposals and taking their own initiatives. Bystanders get drawn into the vortex, and go through astonishingly rapid changes. . . . Radical situations are the rare moments when qualitative change really becomes possible. Far from being abnormal, they reveal how abnormally repressed we usually are; they make our “normal” life seem like sleepwalking.

—Ken Knabb, The Joy of Revolution

The “Occupy” movement that has swept across the country over the last four weeks is already the most significant radical breakthrough in America since the 1960s. And it is just beginning. Source