Greetings from New York:

Marilyn and I left Zuccotti Park nine hours before the NYPD invaded, and we will not have a chance to return until tomorrow (Thursday, Nov. 17). But watching the events on live streaming and watching the news reports afterwards got me to thinking that the Occupy Wall Street movement hasn't seen serious really repression yet, certainly not the kind that was visited upon the Civil Rights movement in the southern USA during the 1950s and 1960s.

However -- and this is a big HOWEVER -- if and when OWS ever becomes a serious threat to the economic and political order, those in power will come at us with everything they've got, and I don't mean with only batons, pepper spray, and plastic handcuffs. Instead they will...

• Freeze our bank accounts, seize our property, audit our taxes, and hit us with judgements, fines and civil penalties.

• Harass us with lawsuits, subpoenas, TROs, and injunctions; haul us before grand juries and Congressional committees; get judges to issue gag orders and cite us for contempt.

• Indict and prosecute us under various state and federal criminal laws, including for conspiracy and/or criminal solicitation, since nearly any conduct can be considered a felony even if no actual criminal act ever takes place.

• Confiscate or revoke our passports; put our names on the no-fly list.

• Take away our children on grounds of neglect, abuse, or endangerment, including claiming that we are "indoctrinating" them.

• Get FISA warrants to tap our phones, bug our homes and offices, intercept our mail and e-mail, and place GPS devices in our vehicles.

• Plant spies, informers, and provocateurs among us; spread disinformation; use bribes and intimidation to turn us against each other.

• Subject us to preventive detention, psychiatric civil commitment, or indefinite arrest as material witnesses.

• Bring trumped-up criminal charges for such things as drug trafficking, weapons possession, child pornography, and sexual assault; plant false evidence; use perjured testimony.

• Go after our families, our friends, our coworkers, our employers, even our lawyers.

• And if all these are not enough, use deadly force.

If you don't believe such things can happen in the western democracies, go ask the Black Panthers and other targets of COINTELPRO, and that happened long before the USA Patriot Act.

--- Steve