“The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.” – Lord Acton
Jeff Olson, a 40 year old Californian Occupy activist was just acquitted after facing 13 years in prison for scrawling anti-bank chalk messages outside of three San Diego branches of the criminal cartel called Bank of America. The judge in the case barred Olson’s attorney from “mentioning the First Amendment, free speech, free expression, public forum, expressive conduct, or political speech during the trial.” Olson and his lawyer are bewildered by the judge’s mandate. Apparently so was the jury. Future victims may not be so lucky.
Meanwhile, the Canadian state is forbidding people from wearing masks during “unlawful assemblies,” targeting the iconic Guy Fawkes masks of the Occupy movement which primarily opposed financial oligarchy. The offense comes with a ten-year jail sentence.
Perhaps to help enforce this new law, the Canadian government has allowed the FBI to operate within its borders. Meanwhile, new Freedom of Information Act documents reveal that the FBI made plans to assassinate non-violent Occupy movement leaders in Houston, Texas “if deemed necessary.”
To wit, organizing against banks is grounds for state-sanctioned FBI murder, as was advocating for civil rights and opposing the Vietnam war, as the family of Martin Luther King Jr. discovered in a court ruling in 1999 (Coretta Scott King vs. Jowers). Black Panther Fred Hampton also met the same fate at the hands of the FBI. Is financial liberation the new civil rights or anti-war movement? The new big no-no?
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” – Voltaire
From whence does this animosity toward banks come? Does the institution perform a necessary and Pareto-improving service?
The military and police are a massive subsidy to the wealthy, protecting monopolized assets (including vital commodities like food and water) at tax-cattle expense. But the depersonalized surplus value extraction of finance is how they got rich in the first place. Bankers are wily, and have developed many means to dupe the sorry folk who actually work for a living. Just a few are summarized below. ...