Mayor Calls OWS Terrorists, Congress Calls On Military To Arrest U.S. Citizens

Terrorist or CEO? (Image by puuikibeach)

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan called OWS protestors economic terrorists for shutting down the Oakland Port on Monday. Such bombast would be laughable if we weren’t currently slaughtering thousands of people throughout the world, assassinating, torturing and incarcerating suspects in secret prisons without trial, all in the name of fighting terrorism.

Her comment is even more threatening in light of recent Congressional legislation that would allow the U.S. military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens anywhere in the world without charge or trial, including on U.S. soil (in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act), for suspicion of being a terrorist. The new rules are part of a new $662 billion military spending bill that has been criticized by several Obama administration officials, human rights groups and even some Tea Party members, according to Democracy Now.

While it is unlikely that any OWS protestors will be sent to Gitmo, the rhetoric is clearly intended to discredit them and turn public sentiment against their cause. It also belies a commonly believed misconception that “Excessive” profits by the wealthy are bad, but the wealthy themselves are good because they create jobs and keep the economy running. Therefore, anything that hinders their ability to run their businesses and make a profit is seen as an attack on the 99% and their ability to go to work and earn an income.

According to this line of reasoning, workers who go on strike are terrorists. Consumers who boycott a business or product are terrorists. Shoplifters are terrorists. Little old ladies who refuse to engage with phone solicitors are terrorists. But employers who maintain unsafe working conditions, illegally dump toxic waste, pollute the air and water, pay starvation wages, or implement dangerous speedups are simply doing business.

Even if we ignore the absurdity of the “terrorist” epithet, the theoretical basis for it is still absurd. How can it be bad for a person to make an “obscene” profit, but okay for him to make a “not-so-obscene” profit when all profits arise by paying workers far less than the value of their labor? Aren’t the workers being exploited in either case? And how can one distinguish between obscene and not-so-obscene profits when all profits contribute to inequities in wealth and social power.

There are other absurdities, too. Workers and activists who try to halt profits for a day are terrorists, but Congressional leaders who want to slash unemployment benefits and require recipients to have a GED or college degree and submit to drug testing are simply encouraging lazy shirkers to stop horsing around and get jobs quicker (never mind that there aren’t anywhere near enough jobs available). Congressional leaders should not be seen as engaging in any sort of economic violence, blackmail or threats when they tie tax cut extensions for the middle class to the fast tracking of a Tar Sands pipeline running from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico and deregulation of mercury emissions from coal power plants, because they are only trying to preserve jobs and we should certainly appreciate that, even if the riders on the bill will kill us through pollution.

Thankfully I have a job as a teacher and therefore protection against the military’s witch hunt for terrorists, except I’m also a member of the NEA, which was declared a terrorist organization back in 2004, by George Bush’s Education Secretary Rod Paige.

Kill the Poor: U.S. Military Spending Doubled Since 2001

A new report released by SIPRI, a Swedish think tank, indicates that U.S. military spending has nearly doubled since 2001, report Judd Legum in Think Progress.  The U.S. spent $698 billion on the military last year, an 81% increase over the last decade. The U.S. currently spends six times more than China, the second largest military spender. Overall, the world spends $1.6 trillion on the military, with the United States spending more than the next 9 nations combined.

To see the original post, click here.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that these numbers are significantly lower than the actual expenditures. He believes that the true cost of just the Iraq war could be over $3 trillion by 2017, or $180 billion a year. Furthermore, the Swedish report does not include new wars, like the one in Libya.

As shocking as this huge waste of money is, what is left out of such an analysis is the true cost in terms of human death, injury, privation and misery. Civilians are bearing the brunt of these wars, not only in terms of casualties, but also in destroyed homes and infrastructures, job loss, environmental devastation, terror and stress. Generations of children have now grown up in Afghanistan and Iraq without knowing peace.

Poor and working class people in America also suffer from this phenomenal waste of resources. While the ruling elite demand that we live within our means by gutting education, and services for the poor, disabled and elderly, they continue to live beyond their means by spending lavishly on warfare and bloodshed to protect their financial interest abroad. There always seems to be money available for the military, but not for health care, resulting in thousands of poor people dying prematurely in the U.S. from treatable diseases and injuries.¹ Despite the end of the world scenarios being spun around the deficit, there are plenty of funds available for a new war in Libya, but we cannot afford investigators to make sure our food and workplaces are safe, resulting in thousands of deaths annually from food-borne illness and workplace accidents.² We have no problem finding money to kill and maim Iraqis with depleted uranium and white phosphorus³, but we cannot find enough to keep our own air clean, resulting in 9,000 premature deaths from air pollution each year in California alone.⁴

1.      A, 2009 study (PDF)  from Harvard Medical School said that lack of health coverage can be tied to about 45,000 deaths a year in the United States.

2.      In 2009, there were 4,340 fatal workplace injuries (compared with 5,214 in 2008).  have averaged 156 fatalities per year or about 3 percent of the revised totals. According to the Centers for Disease Control, food borne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths annually in the U.S. 1,500 of these deaths are caused by Salmonella, Listeria, and Toxoplasma.

3.      The U.S. government has admitted it used white phosphorus against Iraqis during the assault on Fallujah, according to a report by Democracy Now in violation of international law banning the use of chemical weapons.

4.      According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 2 million people world-wide die prematurely each year due to air pollution, while the California Air Resources Board reports that 9,000 die in California each year from air pollution.