Quote:

---

Occupy May Day is underway.

Occupy San Francisco got an early start on May Day, kicking off its organized protest at 8 p.m. local time on April 30.

San Francisco, once a stronghold of the dispossessed, has become a playground for the rich and a living hell for those of us who can't keep up or have no interest in capitalist relations," Bay Area protest organizers said in a statement.

Early Tuesday morning, protesters -- including Occupiers, labor unions, and community and religious organizations -- were picketing against unfair labor practices at Los Angeles International Airport, according to Occupywallst.org. LAX issued a traffic advisory, and the airport's web site said two blocks of nearby Century Boulevard were shut down in anticipation of a march by at least 1,200 union members at 3 p.m. ET.

May Day protests were also underway in Greece and Turkey. Two thousand people gathered in Syntagma Square in Athens, and another 7,000 protesters gathered outside a factory where employees haven't been paid in six months, according to their union.

Thousands of protesters in Istanbul's central Taksim Square were met with police presence.

Occupy Boardroom: Shareholders revolt

A march was planned in London, ending at Trafalgar Square, and road closures were also in the works. Three men were arrested in Exchange Square outside Liverpool Street.

In New York, Occupy Wall Street has been planning protests at bridges and tunnels, with picket lines slated to kick off at 8 a.m. at the Chase Building, the New York Times building, Sotheby's and the Manhattan's main U.S. Post Office.

"The popular media narrative is that Occupy is dead, but what we're here to show is that that's far from the truth," said Occupy Wall Street spokesman Mark Bray to CNN. "The issues that we're talking about are too important to go away."

Bray said that Occupy has united with workers' unions and immigrant rights groups, "to show that the 99% is what really drives this country."

May Day has historically been a day of protests, with workers currently marching in Moscow and Havana, and protests underway in Madrid.

This year, the Occupy movement has organized protests in 125 U.S. cities, according to Occupywallst.org. The theme is a general work strike to create "a day without the 99%:" no work, no shopping, no banking.

Planned events include New York's "Occupy Guitarmy," in which Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello will lead musicians from midtown's Bryant Park to downtown's Union Square. In Los Angeles, protesters are planning a "4 Winds" march to descend on the city from all directions.

Protesters in Oakland, Calif., had originally planned an attempt to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge in support of a local labor union. That plan was called off on Sunday, but organizers in the San Francisco Bay Area have scheduled picket lines and many other demonstrations.

It's unclear how many people will turn out for the various events planned across the country. Organizers of the original Occupy event in September called for 20,000 people to descend on Wall Street. http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/01/news/economy/occupy-may-day/index.htm?
hpt=hp_t2

---

Quote:

---

Authorities are warning that there's a possibility peaceful demonstrations will be disrupted by people wanting to incite mayhem.

Although protest organizers emphasized their peaceful intentions, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn's office issued a statement last week warning of signs "other people" may show up "with the intention of using the public demonstrations as an opportunity to commit violence, damage property and disrupt peaceful free-speech activity."

McGinn's statement cited posters and graffiti "alluding to violence" as well as websites describing how protesters could hide weapons beneath signs and banners. The statement also mentioned an incendiary device that had been thrown at a Columbia City bank Thursday evening and a December Port of Seattle protest where some people threw projectiles at police.

"All I can say is Occupy Seattle has not endorsed any kind of violence," said Mark Taylor-Canfield, an Occupy Seattle spokesman. "The idea of this is to stand in solidarity with workers all around the world."

Juan Jose Bocanegra, a leader of the immigrant-rights march, said the annual May Day event has gone ahead peaceably for a dozen years.

"We're going to do our best to keep ourselves vigilant and try to move the march along and keep everybody safe," said Bocanegra, statewide coordinator for El Comité Pro Reforma Migratoria Y Justicia Social, the group organizing the march.

Bocanegra criticized the city for raising the "red flag" of possible violence and added that he's more worried about attacks by right-wing provocateurs. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018110592_mayday01m.h
tml?prmid=4939, there are those, as well as police infiltrators, to worry about as well. Tough to have peaceful protests when there are organized groups who want to screw things up.

Unfortunately the Anarchists are becoming more of an organized group on their own, so they'll show up.
Just google "Anarchist" or "Anarchist May Day" and you will see they are organized, have their own websites and gatherings...there will be more of that before this is all over, and I know some of you will connect them with us--go right ahead, it changes nothing.

May Day is a long-standing international tradition, not begun by Occupy and encompassing many groups from teachers to nurses to dock workers. The current assault on labor has brought many into the movement who never were before and otherwise wouldn't be. Something has to change...if anyone thinks we WANT to spend the day walking around in the hot sun, trying to keep the Anarchists in control, waiting for police to attack, they are simply ignorant, nothing more. There are many things wrong with this country and at least we are standing up to try and change them, as well as working in local groups like ours to try and work WITH small city councils, etc. to bring about change.

Quote:

---

The double entendre of the day’s name is certainly not lost on the demonstrators. Sure, the calendar reads May 1st, but Occupy protesters are looking to call attention to sinking economic equality across the nation. From coast to coast, protesters are planning demonstrations as part of a “General Strike” to coincide with International Workers Day.

Immigration rights groups, labor unions and the Occupy movement are banding together Tuesday to stir up acts of civil disobedience across the country.

---

Quote:

---

I noticed something in yesterday’s news coverage of the Occupy protests yesterday (May Day): Most of it was about violence, anarchists, destruction, protesters smashing windows, police making arrests… in other words, a slew of negative stories.

I follow a whole lot of news outlets and journalists on Twitter, and nearly every one of them tweeted headlines like those. Several of us were tweeting back, asking where the positive reports about the Occupiers were, because, after all, the M.O. of the original Occupy Wall Street movement was non-violent, even thoughtful and creative, demonstrations against social and economic inequality, corporate influence on government, greed, and the wealth gap between the richest 1% of Americans and 99% of the population who are struggling to make ends meet.

The only news I saw that reflected the mostly peaceful day of protest were from fellow bloggers and activists, and one from the L.A. Times.

When I opened my morning L.A. Times today, in fact, the headlines I saw were “5 in Cleveland charged with planning to blow up bridge on May Day” and Seattle May Day protest marked by vandalism, arrests.

Buried in the Cleveland story was this:

Quote:

---

The suspect, identified as Doug Wright, 26, described himself as an anarchist and complained about Occupy’s unwillingness to take violent action. When one of the demonstration’s organizers said the Occupiers wanted no more than peaceful civil disobedience, one member of the [anarchist] group near Wright walked away in disgust, cursing.

---

So, news media, where were your headlines informing readers that Occupy is a peaceful movement that is so “unwilling to take violent action” that a disgusted anarchist felt compelled to curse? http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2012/05/02/dear-news-media-where-were-
your-headlines-about-occupy-may-day-protests-being-mostly-peaceful/ than that, which reflects my opion pretty well, and my growing hatred of the Black Bloc, I will let you righties continue with your hate fest. Have fun.

Quote:

---

In typical fashion, the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that five self-styled left-wing anarchists arrested late Monday for allegedly trying to blow up a bridge near Cleveland were actually shepherded through every step of the supposed plot by government agents. The FBI later claimed nobody was ever in real danger because the federal government gave the alleged “terrorists” fake bombs.

The five anti-capitalist dupes — most of them in their twenties — ostensibly sought to attack the bridge in an effort to send a message and hurt the “One Percent.” Apparently they were disillusioned with the so-called “Occupy Wall Street” movement for not being violent enough in its effort to kill what little remains of the free-market system.

"They talked about making a statement against corporate America and the government as some of the motivations for their actions," U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach explained when he announced the arrests. “The defendants chose the target. The defendants went to the bridge to do recon. The defendants went to a hotel room to purchase what they thought were C-4 explosives.”

The group was taken into custody on April 30. An indictment unsealed Tuesday charged them with “conspiracy” and “attempted use of explosive materials to damage property affecting interstate commerce.” A U.S. District Court Magistrate decided to jail them without a bond, at least until a hearing next week.

According to prosecutors, the five defendants allegedly planted the fake explosives provided by the FBI on the bridge late Monday. They then left the area and entered the bogus “codes” to detonate the phony “bombs” before being arrested. If convicted of the fake plot, the anarchists could face more than 20 years in prison.

Court documents cited in media reports show that the federal government first came across three of the dupes last year at a protest. The FBI then used a tax-funded “informant” — apparently a convicted felon out on probation — to infiltrate the anarchist clique and allegedly help hatch and plan fake terror attacks.

The affidavit filed in the case claimed that the alleged conspirators considered several targets including a law enforcement “fusion center” and a new casino. At least one suggested attacking neo-Nazis or a Ku Klux Klan meeting. Another potential plot they supposedly discussed involved bringing down large bank signs in Cleveland.

In the end, however — with plenty of help from the FBI — the dupes decided to go for a bridge. “Taking out a bridge in the business district would cost the ... corporate big wigs a lot of money,” 20-year-old defendant Brandon Baxter allegedly said in one the recordings cited by prosecutors, claiming that blowing it up would prevent people from going to work. He later had second thoughts about it. http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/11201-fbi-dupes-may-da
y-anarchists-into-bogus-terror-plot]

Quote:

---

Tension building, to divide and lead to violence, are tactics that infiltrators/agitators use to discredit us (police, critics, journalists). The links below give some examples of this (and also of infiltration in general).

Quote:

---

Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.

In glimpses and in glaring detail, the videotape images reveal the robust presence of disguised officers or others working with them at seven public gatherings since August 2004.

The pictures of the undercover officers were culled from an unofficial archive of civilian and police videotapes by Eileen Clancy, a forensic video analyst who is critical of the tactics. She gave the tapes to The New York Times. Based on what the individuals said, the equipment they carried and their almost immediate release after they had been arrested amid protesters or bicycle riders, The Times concluded that at least 10 officers were incognito at the events http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/nyregion/22police.html?_r=1 FBI and NYPD have had help tracking protesters' moves thanks to a conservative computer security expert who gained access to one of the group's internal mailing lists, and then handed over information on the group's plans to authorities and corporations targeted by protesters. http://gawker.com/5850054/meet-the-guy-who-snitched-on-occupy-wall-str
eet-to-the-fbi-and-nypd?tag=occupy-wall-street Caught as Agent Provocateurs/Black Bloc in Montebello

This is real folks- in Canada, our government have been using Black Bloc tactics to discredit protest movements. We need a national inquiry! Video at http://genuinewitty.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/police-caught-as-agent-pr
ovocateursblack-bloc-in-montebello/ tactics and the subversion of Occupy

As reported earlier, social media going by the name of "Occupy Los Angeles Anti Social Media" or, OLAASM and BlackBlocMedia have invaded Occupy LA in order to cause rifts between people and to try to cause the end of the Occupy Los Angeles group.

OLAASM and BlackBlocMedia are apparently part of a larger psy-ops campaign against the Occupy movement that was launched nationally a couple weeks ago. This post is about OLAASM. OLAASM has a twitter, a Facebook, and a tumblr (website). Since last writing, I have found out a lot more. OLAASM is run by several people – among them are angry young, inexperienced newbie protesters. Also among them are also people who act as if they are undercover FBI and agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trying to catch or draw in those angry protesters. By now, quite a few people know who is who.

Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads "a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world." But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers' social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan.
.....
Because OLAASM is anonymous and nefarious and also dishonest, it is what is called “Black Hat” psy-ops. Its aim is to confuse, cause chaos, instill fear in good people, cause productive people to leave OLA, and have OLA overtaken by people professing violence and undercover police. OLAASM is trying to give OLA a bad / worse reputation with the public. It does not take very much of the OLAASM-style evil nonsense before most good people say, "I've had enough."

WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF A PSY-OP LIKE OLAASM?

To end the Occupy LA group by scaring off the members who are experienced, nonviolent, rational, productive, etc., by making them believe “the group” has taken a turn toward the violent, frightening, etc.

To turn the organization violent and non-law-abiding, which renders it ineffective, gets it mired into a “cops vs us” mentality, and gives cause for law enforcement to clamp down hard.

By turning the OLA organization to one that professes to engage in illegal, destructive behavior, the OLA group can be placed on the US Terrorism group list, which makes it illegal to donate to it, to render service to it (including service from lawyers), to belong to it. This also opens up a whole panoply of allowable covert spying techniques on the group, including secret subpoenas on social media and email accounts. http://occupylosangeles.org/?q=node/4285 one, for me, is the most articulate statement on the issue of the Black Bloc and others like them:

Quote:

---

The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement. The presence of Black Bloc anarchists—so named because they dress in black, obscure their faces, move as a unified mass, seek physical confrontations with police and destroy property—is a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state. The Occupy encampments in various cities were shut down precisely because they were nonviolent. They were shut down because the state realized the potential of their broad appeal even to those within the systems of power. They were shut down because they articulated a truth about our economic and political system that cut across political and cultural lines. And they were shut down because they were places mothers and fathers with strollers felt safe.

Black Bloc adherents detest those of us and seek, quite consciously, to take away our tools of empowerment. They confuse acts of petty vandalism and a repellent cynicism with revolution. Any group that seeks to rebuild social structures, especially through nonviolent acts of civil disobedience, rather than physically destroy, becomes, in the eyes of Black Bloc anarchists, the enemy.

John Zerzan, one of the principal ideologues of the Black Bloc movement in the United States, defended “Industrial Society and Its Future,” the rambling manifesto by Theodore Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber. Solidarity becomes the hijacking or destruction of competing movements, which is exactly what the Black Bloc contingents are attempting to do with the Occupy movement.

“The Black Bloc can say they are attacking cops, but what they are really doing is destroying the Occupy movement,” the writer and environmental activist Derrick Jensen told me when I reached him by phone in California. “If their real target actually was the cops and not the Occupy movement, the Black Bloc would make their actions completely separate from Occupy, instead of effectively using these others as a human shield. Their attacks on cops are simply a means to an end, which is to destroy a movement that doesn’t fit their ideological standard.”

“Their thinking is not only nonstrategic, but actively opposed to strategy,” said Jensen, author of several books, including “The Culture of Make Believe.” “They are unwilling to think critically about whether one is acting appropriately in the moment. I have no problem with someone violating boundaries [when] that violation is the smart, appropriate thing to do. I have a huge problem with people violating boundaries for the sake of violating boundaries. It is a lot easier to pick up a rock and throw it through the nearest window than it is to organize.

Random acts of violence, looting and vandalism are justified, in the jargon of the movement, as components of “feral” or “spontaneous insurrection.” These acts, the movement argues, can never be organized. Organization, in the thinking of the movement, implies hierarchy, which must always be opposed. There can be no restraints on “feral” or “spontaneous” acts of insurrection. Whoever gets hurt gets hurt. Whatever gets destroyed gets destroyed.

There is a word for this—“criminal.”

The Black Bloc movement is infected with a deeply disturbing hypermasculinity. This hypermasculinity, I expect, is its primary appeal. It taps into the lust that lurks within us to destroy, not only things but human beings. It offers the godlike power that comes with mob violence. Marching as a uniformed mass, all dressed in black to become part of an anonymous bloc, faces covered, temporarily overcomes alienation, feelings of inadequacy, powerlessness and loneliness. It imparts to those in the mob a sense of comradeship. It permits an inchoate rage to be unleashed on any target. Pity, compassion and tenderness are banished for the intoxication of power. It is the same sickness that fuels the swarms of police who pepper-spray and beat peaceful demonstrators. It is the sickness of soldiers in war. It turns human beings into beasts.

The corporate state understands and welcomes the language of force. It can use the Black Bloc’s confrontational tactics and destruction of property to justify draconian forms of control and frighten the wider population away from supporting the Occupy movement. Once the Occupy movement is painted as a flag-burning, rock-throwing, angry mob we are finished. If we become isolated we can be crushed. The arrests last weekend in Oakland of more than 400 protesters, some of whom had thrown rocks, carried homemade shields and rolled barricades, are an indication of the scale of escalating repression and a failure to remain a unified, nonviolent opposition. Police pumped tear gas, flash-bang grenades and “less lethal” rounds into the crowds. Once protesters were in jail they were denied crucial medications, kept in overcrowded cells and pushed around.

This is a struggle to win the hearts and minds of the wider public and those within the structures of power (including the police) who are possessed of a conscience. It is not a war.

The Black Bloc’s thought-terminating cliché of “diversity of tactics” in the end opens the way for hundreds or thousands of peaceful marchers to be discredited by a handful of hooligans. The state could not be happier. It is a safe bet that among Black Bloc groups in cities such as Oakland are agents provocateurs spurring them on to more mayhem. But with or without police infiltration the Black Bloc is serving the interests of the 1 percent. These anarchists represent no one but themselves. Those in Oakland, although most are white and many are not from the city, arrogantly dismiss Oakland’s African-American leaders, who, along with other local community organizers, should be determining the forms of resistance.

The explosive rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement came when a few women, trapped behind orange mesh netting, were pepper-sprayed by NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna. The violence and cruelty of the state were exposed. And the Occupy movement, through its steadfast refusal to respond to police provocation, resonated across the country. Losing this moral authority, this ability to show through nonviolent protest the corruption and decadence of the corporate state, would be crippling to the movement. It would reduce us to the moral degradation of our oppressors. And that is what our oppressors want.

The Black Bloc movement bears the rigidity and dogmatism of all absolutism sects. Its adherents alone possess the truth. They alone understand. They alone arrogate the right, because they are enlightened and we are not, to dismiss and ignore competing points of view as infantile and irrelevant. They hear only their own voices. They heed only their own thoughts. They believe only their own clichés. And this makes them not only deeply intolerant but stupid. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/06-3]