Nasty as They Want to Be;
The Crackdown on Occupy

by KEVIN CARSON

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Female demonstrator being attacked by the police.

PREFACE

Michel Foucault has written:

"Tyranny inspires awe and terror precisely because it ALLIES ITSELF WITH DEATH. The spectacle of the scaffold and its terror are its distinguishing marks. Knowing that the tyrant does not shrink from atrocities [as well as extreme forms of torture] strikes fear into the hearts of his subjects." [To get some idea of the kind of torture we are talking about here, please see our article on how the CIA "manages" it, "The Horror of John Dimitri Negroponte and Everything He Represents."]

Foucault was right! - the fear of a midnight knock on the door, the disappearance of a friend or a co-worker who had challenged the government, an unexplained death that one thinks might be an assassination, but can't prove it - all this strikes TERROR and HORROR into people. [Please see our article, "The Death of Gary Webb."]

It compels Christians to "keep their mouths shut" and say nothing about the ignominy of the alliance the church has made with the monsters who stand at the head of the American super-state, and the shame this alliance brings on the name of our precious Savior. [Please see our article, "The Evil in Our Midst;" please also see, "Be Concerned! Be Very Concerned! - Detention Camps Are Coming to a Neighborhood Near You."]

Nonetheless, there is a duty placed on Christians to speak out, and it is in this connection that American Christians would do well to remember the words of Christ when He said,

"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

"But whosoever shall deny me before men, HIM WILL I ALSO DENY BEFORE MY FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN." (Matt. 10:32-33)

You say, What relevance does this have to me? I confess Christ before men! Oh really? Maybe to your fellow Christians in the safety of your own living room, but certainly not in the work place - unless that is, you "confess" the FALSE CHRIST of America's New World Order System!

You'd be in prison serving time (hard labor) at Fort Leavenworth, or you would be "out on your ass" and home-less insofar as your job prospects in the United States are concerned, which is just a hair's breath away from serving time at an American Super-Max as a so-called "terrorist suspect" or as a so-called "traitor."

For example, I'll wager that if you're a soldier in America's new Crusader Army you won't speak out to your fellow soldiers against what that army is up to in its bloody campaign to "bring Christ to the nations;" and that if you are an employee of one of America's greedy, avaricious multinational corporations, I'll bet you keep your mouth shut at the workplace about what your employer is up to in the Third World and how contrary it is insofar as the testimony of Christ is concerned. Otherwise, dear Christian, you wouldn't still be working for that corporation, or serving in America's armed forces. You'd be in prison serving time (hard labor) at Fort Leavenworth, or you would be "out on your ass" and homeless insofar as your job prospects in the United States are concerned, which is just a hair's breath away from serving time at an American SuperMax as a so-called "terrorist suspect" or as a so-called "traitor." THE FACT OF YOUR CONTINUING EMPLOYMENT OR THE FACT THAT YOU ARE STILL A MEMBER OF AMERICA'S ARMED FORCES PROVES THE CHARGE THAT YOU HAVE NOT SPOKEN OUT, AND THAT YOU HAVE RETREATED AS A CRINGING, SNIVELING COWARD INTO THE CORNER SOMEWHERE AND ARE KEEPING YOUR MOUTH SHUT - your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. And, once again, if that's the case, you are truly in danger of Christ's warning in Matthew 10:33:

"... whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 10:33)

This kind of fear, the kind of fear that Foucault was talking about, is an instrument of damnation for those who labor under its shame; but there is a FEAR that is right and good; and that's the fear of God. The Bible says,

"The FEAR of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom ..." (Psalm 111:10)

It is because we in Antipas FEAR God more than we fear men that we are compelled to take the "Gospel of the Kingdom" to the streets. Jesus said to His disciples:

"What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light; and what ye hear in the ear, proclaim upon the house-tops.

"And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:27-28)

God forbid that we should appear at the "Judgment Seat of Christ" saying we were too afraid to stand against the American New World Order System and the alliance that today's church has made with it. [Please see our article, "The Good News of the Coming Kingdom."]

Instead, we long to hear those words,

"Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." (Matthew 25:23) [Please see our article, "Are You Willing to Speak Out."]

-- ANTIPAS

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Disturbing news from Occupy circles about NYPD practices these days — I mean, in addition to all those other NYPD practices we were already disturbed about.

David Graeber

David Graeber, a prominent activist involved with Occupy since its beginning, recounts seeing a woman friend in New York a few weeks ago, her hand in a cast. A cop had grabbed her breast, she said.

When she raised a fuss and screamed about the groping, the cops dragged her out of sight and started working her over. "Stop resisting!" they continued to shout, as they repeatedly slammed her body into the concrete. At some point she told them she was reaching over to get her glasses, which had come off in the scuffle. In the reptilian police mind, this justified pinning her hands behind her back and bending one wrist until it snapped.

Those familiar with police riots versus anti-globalization demonstrations and the more recent Occupy demonstrations, or who follows Radley Balko and CopBlock, are aware that sexual assault is the only thing unusual about this case. As Graeber says, "arbitrary violence is nothing new. The apparently systematic use of sexual assault against women protestors is new." [Please see our article, "The Coming War on Women."]

The Egyptian army arrested, tortured and forced women to take "virginity tests" during protests.

Of course sexual assault itself is hardly new as a weapon of social control, in historical terms. It appears in the arsenals of most authoritarian regimes — large-scale, premeditated use of rape for ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Egyptian troops using "virginity inspections" to humiliate female demonstrators taken into custody, and so on.

But it's new in the recent American context. Graeber notes he heard no complaints of sexual assault by the NYPD before March 17; but there were several on that day (one woman reported being grabbed by five different officers), and they've continued since then. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this is a newly adopted "unofficial policy" of the police rank-and-file — just like covering badge numbers.

What we're witnessing is the reality behind that Officer Friendly mask. This is what happens when the state perceives the general population as a threat, and drops the pretense that The Policeman is Your Friend. [Please see our article, "Who Will Protect Us from the Police."]

THE MYTH

THE REALITY

People in predominantly black and Hispanic inner city neighborhoods — where police hardly bother to hide the fact that they see the local population as an occupied enemy that must be cowed by superior force — have seen this ugly face for decades. [Please see our article, "The Utility of Police Violence against the Poor."]

But in recent months, the radical upsurge in police violence at Occupy demonstrations, combined with ubiquitous cell phone video, have introduced the naked face of power to many in the white middle class public for the first time.

Lt. Pike of the UC Davis police force, methodically directing pepper spray into the upturned faces of peaceful (and predominantly white) college students, was a revelation to many in the burbs. But while it was the first sight for many, it won't be the last. Because this is what the state looks like when it can no longer afford to maintain the facade of democracy. All that nasty stuff that used to happen to "those other people" beyond that Thin Blue Line — "It's Giuliani time!" — is coming soon to "people like us." [Please see our article, "Reducing Average Americans to Serfs in Their Own Country?"]

Pleasantville: where most Christians live or want to live.

The American state has operated in a manner, if not lawful at least "regular," toward most white middle-class folks most of the time, because it could afford to. It showed its nasty side to racial minorities and radicals, because they were less successfully socialized into consensus reality — and nobody "who counted" would listen to them anyway. But most of the public absorbed its conditioning in a more-or-less satisfactory manner. They believed this was a -

"free enterprise society" in which people with great wealth mostly earned it,

giant corporations got that way through superior performance,

the state represented all of us rather than some "ruling class,"

and

if you didn't like the law you should work for change within the system

- all that stuff. Constitutionalism and legality's comparatively no-muss no-fuss — but only so long as the cultural reproduction apparatus successfully manufactures consent. [Please see our article, "American Dystopia - Living in a Trance."]

Now the conditioning's starting to wear off. A dangerously increasing number of people understand that the system's rigged in the interest of the 1%, and folks like us are playing in a crooked game. The state and the corporate ruling class that controls it have been stunned as measures that ten years ago would have gone through without a hitch, like SOPA and ACTA, suffered unexpected losses to networked movements. The system can't work when too many people notice the man behind the curtain. [Please see our article, "Capitalism: Is It Really God-Ordained?"]

The state's functionaries are beginning to realize how high the stakes really are. In response, its shock troops are dropping the Officer Friendly masks. So get ready: The state, before it's over, will be as nasty as it has to be. [Please see our article, "Frightening Precedents for the Coming Crackdown on Those Who Dare to Challenge the Elites."]

Kevin Carson is a research associate at the Center for a Stateless Society. his written work includes Studies in Mutualist Political Economy, Organization Theory: An Individualist Anarchist Perspective, and The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto, all of which are freely available online.

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God bless you all!

S.R. Shearer
Antipas Ministries

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IN ADDITION, WE URGE YOU TO DOWNLOAD THE NEW ANTIPAS PAPERS, PRINT THEM OUT YOURSELF, AND STUDY THEM CAREFULLY; SHARE THEM WITH YOUR FRIENDS.

YOU MAY DOWNLOAD THEM FREE!

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FINALLY, WE URGE YOU TO DOWNLOAD AND PRINT OUT THE FLYER WE SENT TO YOU RECENTLY.

YOU MAY DOWNLOAD THE FLYER HERE

Then make copies and take these copies out to the campuses where you live; pass them out; OR if that seems too "daring" for you right now, post them on telephone poles, the sides of buildings, on campus bulletin boards; post them in union halls, in the neighborhoods of the poor and downtrodden, near employment offices, wherever you can.

Once again, we URGE you to read (or re-read):

Nasty as They Want to Be; The Crackdown on Occupy