Quote Of The Day

Image credit: Occupy Together

Robert Reich hit it on the head yesterday:

A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted.

Occupiers Occupied: The Hijacking of the First Amendment

What does that mean? Note this bit from this article yesterday at examiner.com about Homeland Security's conference call regarding the police actions against the Occupy movements:

According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules.

'Occupy' crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials

So, owning all the sources of information, and blanketing us with nonsense is free speech, but making one's voice heard over that din is not.

As many people suspected yesterday, the raids in several cities were coordinated. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan let the cat out of the bag yesterday in an interview with BBC. It was confirmed by the report I quoted above, among other places.

This is how both our local and federal governments have decided to handle the Occupy movements - as a disturbance and a nuisance. As long as they actually are small enough to be a nuisance, that will work.

In the long run, though, I think the situation will make their numbers grow.