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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 640, October 9, 2011 "What is Western Civilization? The undeniable triumph of the individual"
Special to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise
Last week, I'm told, six thousand protesters marched on NYPD headquarters in New York. The pigs led the protesters to the Brooklyn Bridge, blocking off streets, and are seen in several videos escorting the protesters onto the bridge. Then they closed the bridge at both ends and arrested about four hundred protesters. Naturally, I am in favour of protests that bring attention to the fact that the state represents vested economic interests and not the people generally. I am against police brutality and injustice generally. However, in a recent essay about occupy or withdraw, I have suggested that the occupation of Wall Street and of the major cities is not an effective strategy. Given what we know about where power (electricity, e.g.) comes from, and where it flows to; where food is grown and where it is shipped; where water is found and where it is piped; we should possibly evaluate other alternatives. For example, Worth County, Missouri has a population of two thousand, one hundred seventy-one souls, as of the 2010 census. Imagine if six thousand protesters showed up there? The median household income in Worth County is $27,471. The per capita income is $14,367. So, these are not very wealthy people. Presumably, that's why the Wall Street occupation is at Wall Street, to tweak the noses of the upper class who make millions every year using the force and fraud of the central state to their advantage. Is Worth County worth having? I don't know. It might not be especially strategic, which is likely why it is the lowest population county in Missouri. But it is more likely, I suggest, to turn that county black, or stateless, than it is to turn Wall Street black. There are no free places except the ones we create. Yesterday, I visited "Occupy Kansas City" in the Liberty Memorial park area. A tall concrete tower stands over the national world war one museum at one end of the park. At the other end is a junky "sculpture" of old shipping containers stacked to form a pattern on two sides—the letters IOU on one side in white against a variegated background of other colours of container, and the letters USA on the opposite side. According to the very expensive brochures found near the display, there are 105 shipping containers stacked seven high and fifteen wide. Some Kansas City public parks money was apparently involved, and a continuing police presence there suggests the display is an ongoing cost to the taxpayer. What I love best about it is that the display is so ugly, it mars the view from the 16 story Federal Reserve Bank, which was located on a hill overlooking Liberty Memorial park. Obviously, the offices with the best views now have the worst of it. It is on that side of things that the protesters have gathered, sometimes in the shadow of the bank building itself, to protest against the militarist, fascist, imperial state. I spoke with several of these protesters about their reasons for being there. Wendy Hippy
Her family started a business in 2000 in Lee's Summit, Missouri where they bought dilapidated homes, rehabilitated them, and sold them. The business crashed in 2007, and they lost the family home in 2008. They now rent in Independence, Missouri. Wendy is at Occupy KC because she has completed her nationally registered certified medical assistant (NRCMA) training and cannot find work. Her husband drives a tow truck. Their two adult children also live in the home. The older daughter, 26, is a student of cosmetology. The 21 year old son is in Job Corps where he was studying culinary arts, but is now studying welding. Wendy has attended all the general assemblies of the Occupy KC event, including a series on the web and one in-person General Assembly last Tuesday as well as one last night (Friday night) at the occupation site. The group plans, she says, to be there until their demands are met. Jennifer and Brandon
I asked Jennifer when things started going bad. She said they went bad in 2008 when her husband lost his job as an RV tech. People are apparently not buying recreational vehicles, as they cannot afford them or the high prices for fuel. Of course, the wars have generated those high prices for fuel, to the delight of the big oil corporations which have lobbied for more wars. The family also lives with her father at home, in the Sugar Creek area of KC. So, I asked why they were there. Her first answer was "People not corporations." She said, "The one percent make money off the 99%." Bones About It
Toni's first comment to me was "The Federal Reserve is counterfeiting. All this money is counterfeit. They get away with it because the government says they can." She was there to protest about independence, against the wars, in favour of hemp. We discussed how William Randolph Hearst and his wood pulp paper mills benefited from the elimination of hemp paper production in the United States. We spoke about police brutality, FEMA camps, the Federal Reserve, civil rights, the fact that the constitution has become "not worth the hemp it was written on." Her friend Sean's sign said, "Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.—JFK." We talked about peaceful people being put in cages—about 86% of the USA prison population is now reported to be non-violent "criminals" convicted of things like possession of some plants. There were about 50 people at any one time at the occupation, plus others out holding signs near busy streets, plus others coming and going. A crowd of tables was available for making signs, with many signs available to those wanting to join in. There were blankets, tents, and other evidence of overnight stays. Food was available, and many people were coming in with supplies. Chalk the Police
At Occupy KC, many other slogans were chalked. Many peace signs, anarchy symbols, including the new anarchy heart were in abundance. "End the Fed, go for gold or silver" was chalked in several places, along with "have chalk, will hopscotch" and at least one hopscotch board. I saw many slogans calling for the end of the wars, the end of the drug war, the end of red light cameras in KCMO—a petition was being circulated for a ballot initiative on that topic—and other slogans, including "Google voluntaryism" which I thought was fun. I left the IndSovU.com address in one spot near the Fed. Liberty Club
It looks like the KC area is beginning to organise for freedom. Perhaps other communities will do likewise. First Arrest
As a result of this incident, and other incidents at the camp, Occupy KC developed and adopted new security measures, including walkie-talkie radios for security patrol members, communication procedures, conflict resolution procedures, and other procedures. These were outlined by activist Shaun Lee on Thursday night, with widespread enthusiasm from the gathering. The AFL-CIO Seeks to Silence Radicals
In the conversation, we talked about the police. I advanced the hypothesis that many people, seeing the police brutality at the 1968 Democrat national convention, at the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, and everywhere in between, believe that the police work more for the people with money and less for those without. In defence of this position, I pointed to the $4.6 million donated to the NYPD by JP Morgan Chase, apparently and by reports I've seen, for the express purpose of using the funds to crack down on the protests. In his response, the fire fighter, an AFL-CIO man, pointed out that you can call around the Kansas City metro area and find that there are many more police, and also fire, personnel assigned in the poorer districts of town. I could insert here a long diversion about zoning, how it forms ghettos, and how KC has very little in really big ghetto areas compared to much larger cities I've visited. But I won't digress. What I will say is that it serves the purposes of those in power to have more overseers wherever there are more slaves. And if you don't think the police are overseers, their tasers whips, their truncheons meant to beat people into line, then you have no clue that you are living on a plantation, that you are a slave, Neo. This same man, Daugherty, went on at great length about how Tracy Ward and Shaun Lee are anti-union and must be banned from future gatherings. He indicated that he wanted to make that explicit request of the general assembly, because of his concerns about anti-union sentiments. Obviously, the first step toward tyranny is to ban free expression. A tyranny of a majority is no better than any other tyranny. Another person expressed much the same sentiment regarding a discussion of self-defence. There were two men arguing by one of the picnic tables at Occupy KC. One of them expressed the view that defending himself against anyone was his right, even if he were attacked by a police officer. The other called that violence and insisted that the general assembly would ban anyone holding such views. I went up and said that I supported the right of self-defence, and that I would stand with him if he were attacked by police. If you are interested in Occupy KC continuing to have the support of activist Shaun Lee, I would strongly urge you to contact her about ways you can financially support her efforts to be there and keep the conversation going toward freedom. NYPD Gets $4.6 million from JP Morgan Chase to Suppress Occupy Wall Street There was a financial contribution from JP Morgan Chase to the NYPD of about $4.6 million this past week. The police patrolmen's union of the NYPD did not object to the contribution, nor did they go on strike about it, presumably because they favour the corrupt relationship between the big banks and the police. So, who was JP Morgan? This excerpt from Wikipedia says much about his character: "In the early days of the American Civil War Morgan financed a scheme, known as the 'Hall Carbine Affair,' that purchased 5,000 dangerously defective Hall's Carbines being liquidated by the U.S. Government at a cost of $3.50 each. The rifles were later resold to the government as new carbines lacking the safety flaw at a cost of $22. The audacity of the scheme included not only the $92,426 loss by the government and the selling of weapons known to maim their operators to an army in need of firearms, but the guns were also sold prior to ownership, thus the guns were paid for with money from their sale back to the government. Some authors have suggested that Morgan was somehow unaware that the guns were being resold, however scholarly opinion regards this as 'implausible.'" Occupy KC, Austin—flier
In order to remedy these problems, we have to first determine why these things are happening. How could the Federal Government just hand the people who perpetrated this economic collapse unbelievable amounts of free cash at everybody else's expense? They can do so because they are able to get our money at the barrel of a gun! The mass extortion that is taxation alongside the State-sanctioned monopoly on the issuance of credit enjoyed by the U.S. central bank (the Federal Reserve) are the root causes of this phenomena. The big banks and corporations are the biggest recipients of welfare from the State, at the people's expense! Corporations, by their very definition, depend upon the existence of the State, and are a logical ( and historically inevitable ) extension of that institution. It is not a new problem. Corporation charters that we know about go back to AD 529. We cannot expect to be able to convince the people who run the State to remove the social cancer of corporations any more than we can expect to convince a bird to cut off it's own wings. We must strike at the root, act as directly as peacefully possible and remove the cancers of taxation and central banking from our society. The means by which we do so is by growing a culture based on respect for individual autonomy and voluntary action, and through the economic methods of agorism! Many people are working together to form communities of interest through mutual aid, including mutual aid response teams. Others are working together with horizontal business structures, such as coops or cooperatives. The people who run the State do not work for us, they never will, nor should we ever expect them to. You and I can only look to ourselves to provide our own personal progress, and to generate the progress of society as a whole! ——— Without further comment on the following, here is an official release from Occupy Wall Street.
Was that worth reading?
TLE AFFILIATE
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