By Michael Gillespie, Contributing Editor

“Don’t do what we did!” exclaimed Mark Rudd before an audience of about 75 activists who gathered at Occupy Iowa headquarters in Des Moines on March 7.

Rudd, a leader of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the 1960s, together with others founded the violent SDS off-shoot, the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) that engaged in a campaign of bombings of government buildings during the 1970s.  Today, Rudd’s activism in behalf of progressive social change draws on the lessons of his radical and revolutionary past while emphasizing the importance of nonviolence and political organizing.

Rudd’s presentation in Des Moines featured, first, a viewing of The Weather Underground, a 2002 documentary film depicting the rise and fall of the WUO.   The film, which includes archive footage as well as interviews with various former WUO members taped much later after the group disintegrated, places a narrative about the militant communist organization within the larger context of the Vietnam War and the social and political turmoil of the era.  Directed by Sam Green and Bill Siegel, The Weather Underground won the audience choice award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival and went on to be nominated for an Academy Award in 2004.  Following the film, Rudd spoke eloquently and at length, his comments rich with self-deprecating humor, irony, and insight, responding to questions from an appreciative audience during an extended Q&A that lasted for well over an hour.

The Independent Monitor asked Rudd how his experience might benefit and inform the activism of Occupy Iowa.

Rudd explained that SDS organizers, many of them ‘Red Diaper Babies,’ attempted to create an antiwar movement in the 1960s based on political organizing.

“This is actually a different method than Occupy used.  Occupy used a method called exemplary direct action, and Occupy’s success was enormous.  My heart goes out to you.  Occupy accomplished what decades of organizing in the union movement [has not] … You got across the narrative, the story of the 99 percent and the 1 percent, the basic, fundamental economic and political injustice at the heart of this society.  The unions have been trying to do that for decades, and you did that in a matter of a few weeks.  It was phenomenal,” declared Rudd.

“What you did was the same thing we did in 1968 at Columbia, which was you demonstrated moral commitment.  The difference was, it took us years to get there, organizing,” said Rudd.

“Since 2003 I’ve been traveling around with this movie and talking to activists and organizers about how movements are built,” said Rudd.

Rudd said one of the big mistakes he and others made was that, “We forgot completely about organizing.  …  We stole [the SDS] and we took it in a crappy direction. … “We transformed SDS from being a radical reform and resistance organization to being revolutionary.  We wanted to go all the way.  It wasn’t enough to just be antiwar, to just end the war in Vietnam.  So, we attacked the antiwar movement because it wasn’t radical enough, it wasn’t militant enough, and it didn’t critique the entire system, the entire system being imperialism,” said Rudd.

“We quoted Che Guevara.  We loved Che Guevara!  ‘The duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution’, meaning: You don’t talk about it; you do it, just like Che Guevara did it, but we hadn’t noticed that he was already dead [general laughter] in 1967.  This was 1969.  His strategy was terrible.  It was called the ‘foco’ theory.  I was a Guevarista; I was of the cult of Che.  ‘Pick up the gun!  The time of the revolution has come,’” said Rudd.

“I was elected national secretary of the SDS in June of 1969.  Within six months, my leadership clique had decided to kill off the largest radical student organization in the United States, 100,000 members in 400 chapters.  We did it in ’69, which was the height of the war.  We did it because we knew that it was not revolutionary enough, and that the only way, that the only thing that needed to be done now, was not to organize on college campuses but to pick up the gun.  That is … the arrogance that led us to kill SDS, which I incidentally consider to be an historical crime that I committed because of my ideas about revolution,” said Rudd.

Rudd described “a trajectory:  good organizing, followed by bad organizing, followed by the [Weather] Underground [Organization], which was horrible, no organizing,” and explained that he wrote his autobiography, titled Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen, in order to “present this story so that people can get the distinction between how mass movements are built, which is a process called organizing – relationship building, coalition building, education, a lot of work! – versus self-expression, which is what we moved into.”

The Independent Monitor then asked Rudd to talk about how and why, after the accidental explosion that killed three WUO members on March 6, 1970 in a townhouse in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, the group adopted a strategy of bombing buildings after hours and on weekends to avoid injury or death.

“There was a moment that led up to the townhouse [explosion] in which we actually fell into a classic definition of terrorism, which is attacking innocent people,” said Rudd.

The people in the townhouse, explained Rudd, were building a bomb which they planned to plant at Fort Dix to explode at a non-commissioned officers dance, a bomb that might have killed soldiers and their wives, girlfriends, or others who attended the dance.

“Thank God the accident happened and we only killed three of our own!  Because the effects on the whole antiwar movement would have been horrendous,” declared Rudd, who recalled that a few months later an antiwar group in Madison, Wisconsin planted a bomb in Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a bomb accidentally killed an antiwar grad student who was working late in the building.

“They called in a warning.  They were following our example.  But somehow the police didn’t know there was a student working late that night, and he got killed. …  The Madison movement was hit really badly.  They simply died for a number of years.  We were lucky; those people following our lead were not lucky.  I feel, in retrospect … I lost my fire, my will, my courage; it was my failing in 1970.  I think what happened was we were unwilling to break with the entire strategy of bombings.  And Underground and revolution was wrong!  We should have been organizing on the college campuses, and we shouldn’t have tainted the essentially nonviolent antiwar movement with this violence that we were promoting,” declared Rudd with evident emotion.

“To this day – I don’t like to blow my own horn – but I am probably the only one in this film who is as critical of this strategy, and I think the other people are very ambivalent and confused.  Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, who are wonderful people who are like brother and sister to me, but I feel that they make the same mistake that a lot of people make when looking at this, which is that you confuse good intentions with results.  It’s very easy for us to take a subjective point of view of all of this and say, ‘Well, you meant well.  Your ideas about imperialism were right.  You were reacting to the violence,” said Rudd.

“Tom Hayden, on the other hand, analyzes it very well.  There is a brilliant book that has an essay on this called The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama, and in it Tom says, ‘We were a perfect mirror for a violent society.  The more violence in Vietnam, the more we talked violence.’  Now that’s reactive, and it’s expressive, but it’s not strategic.  Strategy is the question, How do we build a mass movement?  Our goal is always a mass movement.  We have to believe that the large majority of Americans will eventually take some action against this injustice, against militarism, for justice, our fellow citizens, the 99 percent, which is a brilliant metaphor that you’ve developed, we have to believe that those people will be involved.  So, my question to you is, What can we do to help the other 98.99 percent get involved?  What would be a reasonable thing to ask them to do?  What kind of education is necessary?  What kind of coalitions need to be built?

Responding to a question from an Iowa Occupier, regarding Occupy activists who espouse a strategy of violence or “diversity of tactics,” which Rudd characterized as code for violence, the college professor, author, and former SDS and WUO leader said, “My first thought is that those people are police agents.”

Rudd explained that he has met many times “with young people who are Black Bloc, Green Anarchists, or followers of an idiot named John Zerzan, a guy my age who doesn’t believe that mass movements have ever helped anybody in the world.   He’s teaching that.  So, I’ve got to know the kids, but I’m not good at it. … I’ve told them, and they don’t want to hear this because I am crude in the way I say it: The only people who advocate violence are either cops or very stupid.  I didn’t add that I was very stupid.  I was one of these people.  I was so angry I wanted to overthrow the whole system, and I thought that everybody in the world was gonna think like me.  A friend of mine calls it existential politics.  We have to substitute real politics,” said Rudd.

“I like to draw a clear line, and you have done this really, really well here in Iowa, better than in Albuquerque and better than in New York.  You’ve said, ‘Our movement is a nonviolent movement.  Any violence that there is comes from the state, it doesn’t come from us.’  You haven’t given them anything.  You’ve figured this out for yourselves: Anyone advocating violence is working for the other side.  I know, because I worked for the FBI – I did their work for them!  Without knowing it!  Just because I thought my ideas were so smart.  I was no different from these stupid Black Bloc kids.  So, I think we’ve got to draw this clear line,” said Rudd.

“This [Weather Underground] story is a great story of what not to do,” said Rudd.    

Rudd was invited to speak in Iowa by David Goodner, a Des Moines Catholic Worker (DMCW) and community organizer with Iowa Citizens for Community Involvement. DMCW hosted Rudd while he was in Des Moines.

By Michael Gillespie, Contributing Editor

After 10 years of war, a massive bail-out of Wall Street, and the worst recession since the Great Depression, Washington has run out of money.  As the pro-Israel lobby’s frantic efforts to foment war with Iran increase, the Obama administration is finally winding down the ill-conceived, immoral, counter-productive, and unsuccessful but hideously destructive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The U.S. military is reducing troop levels, not hiring new recruits.  Unable to find work, many Americans have thrown themselves into an effort re-invent the corrupt system that is failing them.

In a word, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), which owes so much to the Arab Spring, was – and is – brilliant.  It has reinvigorated a flagging antiwar movement and rekindled interest in progressive ideas and ideals.  On a conceptual level, with its emphasis on nonviolent protest, direct democracy, and direct action in support of economic justice, honest government, accountability, and an end to oppression, exploitation, and war, OWS has shown itself to be everything that official Washington and Wall Street are not.  Though corporate media outlets were slow to recognize the importance, authenticity, and vigor of the new popular movement, once they did the national security apparatus quickly began to coordinate efforts by municipal, county, and state law enforcement agencies around the nation to stifle OWS dissent.

In many cities, including New York, Seattle, and Oakland, unnecessary violence has characterized law enforcement reactions to OWS encampments and activities.  New York Police Department Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, who was filmed pepper spraying, without provocation, a group of women standing in a police pen near Union Square on September 24, seemed to set the nasty tone.

CounterPunch author Pam Martens reported on October 10 that, “If you’re a Wall Street behemoth, there are endless opportunities to privatize profits and socialize losses beyond collecting trillions of dollars in bailouts from taxpayers. One of the ingenious methods that has remained below the public’s radar was started by the Rudy Giuliani administration in New York City in 1998. It’s called the Paid Detail Unit and it allows the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street corporations, including those repeatedly charged with crimes, to order up a flank of New York’s finest with the ease of dialing the deli for a pastrami on rye.

“The corporations pay an average of $37 an hour (no medical, no pension benefit, no overtime pay) for a member of the NYPD, with gun, handcuffs and the ability to arrest. The officer is indemnified by the taxpayer, not the corporation.

“New York City gets a 10 percent administrative fee on top of the $37 per hour paid to the police. The City’s 2011 budget called for $1,184,000 in Paid Detail fees, meaning private corporations were paying wages of $11.8 million to police participating in the Paid Detail Unit. The program has more than doubled in revenue to the city since 2002.”

The taxpayer pays for each officer’s training, his uniform, his gun, and will pick up the legal tab for lawsuits resulting from official acts by police personnel following the illegal instructions of their corporate masters. Lawsuits have already sprung up from the program, according to Martens.  Bologna has been sued by OWS protesters.

Oakland police shot Scott Olsen, 24, in the head with a tear gas canister on October 25.  Olsen, a member of Veterans For Peace, was peacefully protesting when he was shot.  The former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq was hospitalized with a concussion and head trauma.

In Seattle, police pepper-sprayed 84-year-old Dorly Rainey, a 19-year-old pregnant woman, and a priest involved in nonviolent protest on November 15.

“Cops shoved their bicycles into the crowd.  . . .  If it had not been for my hero [Iraq Vet Caleb Walez] I would have been down on the ground and trampled,” Rainey told reporters.

In December, the Justice Department found reasonable cause to believe that Seattle PD engages in a pattern or practice of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Oakland PD is currently under investigation for excessive use of force. NYPD is facing persistent calls for investigation of a stop and frisk policy that disproportionately targets Blacks and Latinos, while civil rights groups are calling for an investigation of NYPD’s monitoring of Muslims across the Northeast.

During a mid-November interview, Oakland mayor Jean Quan told the BBC that the crackdown on OWS was a coordinated effort involving the mayors of other major cities.

“I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation where what had started as a political movement and a political encampment ended up being an encampment no longer in control by the people who started them,” said Ms. Quan.

In an article posted on the World Socialist Website, Andre Damon reported on November 17 that a, “spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Mayors told Mother Jones magazine Wednesday that the call Ms. Quan mentioned was one of numerous conference calls—which included mayors and top police brass—that focused on discussing “efforts cities have made to accommodate the demonstrators and maintain public health and safety,” a statement that the real Mother Jones, labor activist and organizer Mary Harris, would have dismissed as ludicrous.

Nationwide, OWS arrests number well over 6,000 according to published reports, but given that the co-ordinated campaign against OWS involves copious amounts of disinformation and propaganda, all corporate media reports about OWS are best viewed with skeptical eye.

Author and journalist Chris Hedges limned the national security state’s strategy to contain, disrupt, and marginalize insurgencies and popular movements such as OWS in a February 13 Truthdig article.

“Physically eradicate the insurgents’ logistical base of operations to disrupt communication and organization. Dry up financial and material support. Create rival organizations … to discredit and purge the rebel leadership. Infiltrate the movement to foster internal divisions and rivalries. … Provoke the movement – or front groups acting in the name of the movement – to carry out actions such as vandalism and physical confrontations with the police that alienate the wider populace from the insurgency. Invent atrocities and repugnant acts supposedly carried out by the movement and plant these stories in the media. Finally, offer up a political alternative,” wrote Hedges.

OWS is a popular nonviolent movement, one which has much, much more in common with the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. than with the violent tactics of Tupamaros of Uruguay, the Irish Republican Army, or the Weather Underground, but some in government are determined to destroy it and are using many of the same tools they would employ were OWS a terrorist insurgency.  That mistake may prove profoundly detrimental to what remains of civil liberties in the USA.

Some municipal law enforcement agencies have avoided violence in dealing with OWS citizen activists.  Iowa, a state with a long history of progressive politics and one that has perhaps the strongest antiwar movement in the nation, responded to OWS in ways that other states and cities might profitably examine.  After Republican governor Terry Branstad refused to extend a permit for an Occupy Des Moines (ODM) encampment on the state Capitol grounds, on October 9, Iowa State Patrol officers arrested more than 30 Occupiers who refused to leave.  Days later, Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie stepped in and offered ODM a city park on the opposite side of the Capitol complex.

“One of the original purposes of parks was for people to gather. We want you to feel like you can gather,” Cownie told ODM Occupiers on October 14. “I want my police force out chasing the bad guys and arresting criminals.”

The mayor’s administration and the Des Moines Police Department (DMPD) worked cooperatively with ODM for months, allowing the encampment to exist, inspecting the park regularly, talking with neighborhood residents, and respecting the rights of the Occupiers.

During November and December, as their plans for direct action during the weeks before the Iowa Caucuses advanced, Des Moines Catholic Workers and other experienced local peace and social justice activists worked with ODM Occupiers to conduct several nonviolence training sessions.

Kathleen McQuillen of the American Friends Service Committee in Des Moines, and Frank Cordaro of the Des Moines Catholic Worker facilitated a three-hour nonviolence training workshop at the Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting House on December 4.

“What we’ve got going for us is that we have collectively said to each other and to the world that, ‘We’re going to be nonviolent.  For this day, for this action, this group is going to be nonviolent.’  That empowers us,” Cordaro told activists during a small group session at Friends House.

“This is entry-level civil disobedience, there’s minimal risk.  I’m not saying that it’s insignificant, but it’s not that serious.  If we were taking on serious risk, we’d do a lot more than three hours training,” said the former priest whose anti-nuclear weapons and antiwar activism in the USA and in Europe spans decades and began long before he left the priesthood in 2003 after 18 years.

From their encampment at Stewart Square Park and rented space in a building in Des Moines’ East Village, ODM Occupiers, along with Catholic Workers, representatives of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, and members of several local churches and peace and justice organizations mounted a vigorous and sustained campaign of nonviolent direct action that involved several marches on and occupations of local banks and protests at both Democratic Party and Republican Party campaign events and candidate campaign headquarters during the run up to the Iowa Caucuses.  The Occupy the Iowa Caucuses coalition developed and maintained communications and cooperation with municipal law enforcement agencies in the Des Moines area, attracted over a hundred OWS movement activists from across the nation, conducted nonviolent direct actions, and staged a Peoples Caucus that attracted hundreds of activists, interested onlookers, and media personnel from around the world.

Between October 9 and January 3, local police forces made more than 100 Occupy-related arrests, and DMPD costs alone in regular and overtime pay for officers monitoring dozens of Occupy actions amounted to more than $75,000. But the Iowa Occupiers training in and commitment to Jesusonian/Gandhian/Kingian nonviolence proved remarkably successful.  No violent confrontations between municipal police officers and occupiers occurred – not even one.  Police officers respected the rights of Occupy activists, and Occupy activists cooperated peacefully with police.

That’s an accomplishment that all Iowans can be proud of.  It’s also a model that other American cities and states might explore and seek to emulate as spring approaches.

The OWS movement is evolving, and a continuing commitment to nonviolence is essential to its success.

Nonviolence, peaceful evolution rather than violent revolution, is what democracy looks like – when Americans work together for the common good during a crisis.

By Michael Gillespie, Contributing Editor

Chanting “Put People First!” and “Where’s Mitt?” about one hundred Occupy the Caucus activists descended on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign headquarters in Des Moines on the afternoon on December 28 and found that campaign officials had temporarily closed the office and locked the doors.

“Let’s check out all the exits and block ’em all,” shouted Frank Cordaro, a former priest, founder of the Des Moines Catholic Worker (DMCW) community, and long time peace and social justice activist.

The group then demanded that Romney release his federal tax returns as other candidates have and return the more than $61,000 they said his campaign has received from Well Fargo Bank and the bank’s employees.

“The corrosive influence of big money in politics has undermined the democratic principles of the Iowa Caucuses.  The whole concept of civil discourse is impossible when the issues and the candidates are hand-picked by the giant, unaccountable corporations that control our economy, our political system, and the mainstream media,” said Stephen Toothman of the Occupy Des Moines media committee.

“Direct action street protests are an effective way to advance Iowa values and supplement conventional forms of political participation, including voting,” said Toothman.

Occupy Des Moines, the DMCW community, and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (IowaCCI), an Iowa social justice organization, were prominent organizers of the Occupy the Caucus campaign, which was designed to open up the public discussion and put the focus on the issues that matter to most Americans, said Cordaro.  Cordaro, Toothman, and others repeatedly stressed that their actions would not interfere with Iowa Caucus voting.

Cordaro took a teaching role in three nonviolence training sessions organized for Occupy the Caucus volunteers during the planning period in the months before the campaign began.

Arianna Norris-Landry, a paralegal, came to Iowa from St. Louis, where she is a member of Occupy St. Louis.

I’m a legal observer and a peace marshal.  I’m never directly involved unless there is violence, said Norris-Landry.

“As a legal observer, I’m here today to see that Occupy stays nonviolent and that the cops stay nonviolent,” said Norris-Landry.

“Everybody here today knows this action is nonviolent.  Some have made up their minds to risk arrest.  They’re not looking to be arrested.  All they’re doing is asking to go inside a candidate’s headquarters and air their grievances.  That’s not illegal, but they’ve been locked out.  This is not a mob with pitchforks or guns.  All these people have is their voices,” said Norris-Landry.

“When you become a candidate, you involve yourself in public discourse, and that means you have to listen as well as talk.  That’s what they taught me in civics class, and in my legal classes that’s what they taught me.  A candidate is supposed to be responsive.  We have a representative government,” said Norris-Landry.  “Why doesn’t [Romney] listen to us?”

Bryan Hynes of Bronx, NY, said he was participating in the Occupy the Caucus campaign to protest the unfair distribution of wealth.

“The inequality is not accidental.  Our government is controlled by financial interests.  The 99 percent are not being represented by the government.  We’re told that if the interests of the rich are put first, we will get some benefit, but our experience, our lived experience, is that this does not happen,” said Hynes.

“I came here to visit my in-laws for Christmas.  I drove half way across the country and I am happy to lend my voice to this campaign,” said Haynes.

Former State Representative Ed Fallon, host of the Fallon Forum which airs on 98.3 WOW-fm and a prominent figure in Iowa peace and social justice circles, said that none of the candidates have seriously addressed the concerns raised by the Occupy Wall Street movement.

“There is no candidate with stronger corporate connections than Mitt Romney, and he needs to be held accountable.  His policies would continue to exacerbate the crisis in our country, and we need to remind people of that,” said Fallon.

John Frankling of Des Moines connected big money in politics and the economic crisis with the military industrial complex.

“We can’t afford to have everybody’s back around the world.  The time of the U.S. policing the world is over.  We’re broke.  It’s done.  If it keeps going on like it has been with our military we’ll end up like Russia,” said Frankling.

“We need to end these wars and all these military bases around the world and focus on what is going on here at home,” said Frankling.

When police arrived to confer with Romney campaign officials, the crowd, which had been chanting, “We are unstoppable; another world is possible!” took up a different chant. “Police need a raise!  Police need a raise!” shouted the activists.

Occupy Des Moines and the Occupy the Caucus campaign, in cooperation with various Iowa police departments, have challenged public perceptions about relations between Occupy movements and police departments across the nation.  In contrast to actions in New York, Chicago, Oakland, and other cities, there has been little or no violence between municipal law enforcement authorities in Iowa and Iowa Occupiers.  Though over 100 arrests have been made related to Occupy actions in the Des Moines area since October, with about half of the arrests occurring during the Occupy the Caucus campaign, and though the DMPD alone has spent more than $75,000 in responding to Occupy Des Moines actions, Occupy representatives and police spokespersons alike have commented publicly on the effectiveness of communications between Occupy and law enforcement agencies.

David Goodner, an organizer with Iowa CCI, was among the Occupy the Caucus activists who met with representatives from several local police departments at a pre-protest meeting to go over the plans for the action at Romney headquarters.

“We have open lines of communication.  They have my cell phone number, and I have their cell phone numbers,” said Des Moines Police Department (DMPD) Sgt. Chris Scott.

After Romney campaign officials demanded that the activists leave the property, DMPD officers spoke with the Occupiers and explained that they would be arrested if they did not leave.  DMPD officers then arrested and took into custody those who chose not to leave voluntarily.

Katie Rockey, 19, of Des Moines, Anthony Willhide, 25, of Plaquemines Parish, LA, Ed Bloomer, 64, of Des Moines, Nathan Harrington, 39, of Des Moines, the Rev. Peter Dougherty, 77, of Lansing, MI, Jalan Crossland, 41, of Ten Sleep, WY, and Jennifer Marsh, 38, of Iowa City were arrested, transported, and cited for misdemeanor trespassing at Romney campaign headquarters.

As police arrested the seven protesters, Sgt. Scott told reporters, “We’ve had an excellent relationship with the Occupy Des Moines folk.  If there’s any concerns they call us, and vice versa.”

While arrests were in progress at Romney headquarters, three activists slipped quietly away and walked about a block to a nearby Wells Fargo Bank.  The three were able to enter the bank before bank officials locked the doors when the main group of the Occupy the Caucus activists, numbering about 75, arrived a few minutes later along with dozens of reporters and broadcast media teams.

Inside the bank, Megan Felt, Rene Espeland, and Kathy Molitor presented bank officers with a letter demanding that Wells Fargo stop contributing thousands of dollars to political campaigns and start paying a fair share of taxes.

As the crowd gathered at the bank, The Independent Monitor approached a couple in a late model SUV as they were conducting a transaction at the bank’s drive-through.  Asked, through the open driver’s side window, “Any thoughts about this protest here at the bank today?”  Brenda Mouw of Des Moines responded saying, “Everybody has a right to free speech, and I think the people have a right to have their voices be heard.  It’s the American way.”

Occupy Des Moines activist Ross Grooters was unable to get into the bank to close his account.  Grooters walked up to the drive-through window, presented his bank card, and attempted to close his account there while mic-checking the crowd.

“The reason I am closing my account,” shouted Grooters, “is that Wells Fargo is corrupting my democracy!”

“They donated more money than the average American makes in a year to just one presidential candidate.  I can no longer do business with a company that makes their voice more important than my voice,” shouted Grooters.

As the crowd outside shouted, “Police need a raise!” and “Banks got bailed out – We got sold out!” inside the bank DMPD officers arrested Felt, 24, of Des Moines, Espeland, 50, of Des Moines; and Molitor, 54, of Cazenovia, WI.

Before they were transported and cited for misdemeanor trespassing, the three were able to speak to reporters.

“Mitt Romney and Wells Fargo are both symbolic of the corporate takeover of our political system and we demand that Romney return $61,500 in campaign contributions he took from Wells Fargo PAC, employees, and family members of employees in the 2012 election cycle to date, and that both Romney and Wells Fargo agree to full tax disclosure because we don’t think either one of them pays their fair share of taxes,” said Felt.

The mood of the direct action events at Romney’s campaign headquarters and at the bank might accurately be described as festive.  DMPD officers were courteous and respectful of the rights of the activists as they enforced the law and made 10 arrests.

As the action at the bank concluded, this reporter chanced to see that as he departed Cordaro paused momentarily to shake hands with a supervising DMPD officer.  Both men were smiling.

If there is a moral lesson in the Occupy the Caucuses campaign and a civics lesson for the nation, perhaps it is this: At the end of the day, a good-faith commitment to nonviolence is well worth the effort all around.

By Michael Gillespie, Contributing Editor

President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign in Iowa went into stealth mode in mid-December, temporarily closing its Des Moines office and removing all the campaign’s exterior signage.  Representatives of a coalition of peace and social justice organizations arrived at the campaign’s Des Moines headquarters on Saturday, December 17 to find the doors locked.  Though the office was scheduled to be open, the campaign’s Iowa staff  fled the site rather than talk with the activist peacemakers who have vowed to widen the public conversation about policies that matter to the American public.

“The elites have access to President Obama.  We came here to talk to the president’s people.  Since he’s locked us out of the process, we will say it outside, to the people here, in a press conference, to anyone willing to listen,” Des Moines Catholic Worker (DMCW) founder Frank Cordaro told a crowd of about 75, including members of the press and broadcast media.

“Our defense budget is approximately equal to that of the entire rest of the world. We could cut our defense budget in half, still have the highest spending in the world, and have more than $300 billion we could spend on the things we need here at home such as health care, education, roads and bridges – improvements to infrastructure,” said Elliott Adams, national president of Veterans For Peace (VFP), as he stood on the sidewalk outside Obama campaign headquarters at 621 E. 2nd Street.

“We have the power to create change.  The Occupy movement is wonderful!  It’s a new beginning, people taking charge of their future.  We need to use our power to create a world of justice, to create a world that is good for people,” Adams told The Independent Monitor.

Rev. Robert Cook of Des Moines spoke about the U.S. military’s impact in Central America.

“I’m out here because I am appalled for many reasons, not the least of which is that they’ve asked for a defense budget of $881 billion.  We have fought wars for decades and they just go on and on and on,” said Cook.

“The worst of it is the collateral damage, the civilians, the women, the children, and the unborn.  I went to El Salvador and saw the damage that was caused by the School of the Americas training in terror and torture.  There were more than 1,000 massacres and the worst was at El Mozote.  I visited El Mozote, where two little girls, 8 and 9 years old, grabbed me by the hand and took me to an excavation where they dug up and gave me this bone from an unborn baby,” said Cook, who produced a small box and displayed a tiny bone.

“So yes, I’m upset, by where our nation has been and where it is going,” said Cook.

“I was there during that war and after.  Our government was sending $1 million a day to fight that war.  The El Salvadorans would say to me, ‘We like you, we just don’t like what your government is doing,” Cook told The Independent Monitor.

Des Moines social worker Karla Hansen, producer of a documentary about Iran and the U.S. global war on terrorism titled Silent Screams, spoke to the crowd about the danger of an Israeli or U.S. attack on and war against Iran.

“Iran has not attacked another nation in over 250 years.  It is America that projects its interests beyond its own borders.  We are told that Iran can use its nuclear energy for peaceful means, but not for armaments.  Good!  This is exactly what we have been saying for a long time.  Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons.  We believe those who produce and stockpile nuclear weapons are politically backwards.  We believe that in this day and age, nuclear bombardment should have come to an end,” said Hansen, quoting from a letter by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Cordaro, a former priest, spoke about the assassination of Catholic Bishop Oscar Romero, who was killed while celebrating Mass in a hospital chapel in El Salvador on March 24, 1980.  Audio recordings of the event reveal that Romero was shot while elevating the chalice at the end of the Eucharistic rite. When he was shot, his blood spilled over the altar along with the contents of the chalice.

Cordaro produced a small swatch of cloth embedded in a medal.

“I have here a Franciscan coin, and on the back is a swatch of the blood-stained alter cloth.  The sisters who run the cancer hospital where the good bishop lived, celebrated mass, and was gunned down by U.S. weapons, U.S. ammunition, and U.S.-trained killers, cleaned up after the bishop’s body was taken away,” said Cordaro.

“Bishop Romero had the courage to tell President Carter, a Democrat, to stop sending military aid to El Salvador, because it only kills the people.  That kind of policy is the policy that this country has been running on since the 1950s.  Because he said that, within a week Bishop Romero was gunned down while celebrating the Eucharist, the Mass, for his people.  The bishop paid a high price for speaking out against the U.S. empire,” said Cordaro.

Rene Espeland, a DMCW peace and social justice activist, spoke about the plight of veterans.

“We’ve got all of these guys who made it back, but we’ve got more soldiers killing themselves than are killed in combat.  Something is really wrong.  Some VA health care is being privatized, and then it drops out,” said Espeland, referring to reports by government officials who say the number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care.

United States Marine Corps veteran and VFP member Jeff Strottmann of Iowa City spoke to the crowd about Bradley Manning.  Manning, a US Army soldier, was arrested in May 2010 and has been incarcerated for allegedly leaking documents to Wikileaks, documents that exposed war crimes and embarrassed the U.S. government.

“Today is an international day of solidarity with Bradley Manning and the second day of his preliminary hearing for his court martial.  It’s also his 24th birthday.  The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has attempted several times to meet with him but has been refused access,” said Strottmann.

Manning was subjected by the U.S. government to conditions that clearly amount to torture while in custody in the Quantico brig, said Strottmann.

“He’s being held for doing not just what he had a right to do but what he had an obligation to do under international law and the Geneva Conventions.  He should be freed and he should be paid damages for his false arrest,” said Strottmann.

At that point, chants of “Free Bradley Manning” erupted spontaneously from the crowd.

Eric Hedberg of Des Moines spoke to the crowd about his early support for President Obama.

“Just a few years ago I read a some of Obama’s books, including one titled The Audacity of Hope, and I actually did have hope that things could change.  Over the last three years, I’ve seen things change in some ways for the worse.  Though they claim we are out of Iraq, they’ve escalated things in Afghanistan,” said Hedberg.

I’m troubled by the increased use of drones in Afghanistan under the Obama administration and what is called collateral damage, said Hedberg.

“That they would take the signs off the door and the windows and not be here to listen to what we have to say strikes me as ironic,” said Hedberg.

Following the press conference and rally, members of Occupy Des Moines erected tents on the sidewalk and lawn outside the Obama campaign headquarters and, with the help of VFP members, dropped a banner off the roof of the one-story building where the campaign headquarters is located.  Later in the day a group of about 45 Hispanic immigration rights activists joined the Occupy Des Moines action and spoke about the concerns of immigrant groups.

The Occupiers remained on the site until late Monday morning, December 19, when they decided to move their tents back to Stewart Square.

Unable to gain access to Obama campaign staffers, on December 19 about a dozen DMCW, Occupy Des Moines activists, and VFP members including Cordaro, Espeland, Megan Felt, Clarke Davidson, and Ed Bloomer occupied the offices of the Democratic Party of Iowa at 5661 Fleur Drive.

Seated in the office boardroom, Cordaro told reporters that, “We’ve already gotten more of a hearing here, from the state Democratic Party, than we did at the president’s office. We were able to read our message.”

“We’re being treated very nicely,” said Cordaro, adding that it seemed clear that party officials would not allow the occupation to continue.

Democratic Party of Iowa official Norm Sterzenbach called police to the scene and at the time of this report arrests were in progress.

Photo by Michael Gillespie

By Michael Gillespie, Contributing Editor

Occupy Des Moines protesters confronted anti-Muslim activist Tom Trento, founder of The United West, outside a Des Moines church on Friday, Nov. 19 as six Republican presidential candidates pandered to Christian fundamentalists gathered inside at a “Family Thanksgiving Forum” sponsored by the controversial conservative group, The Family Leader.

“It’s the type of bigoted group that some Republicans welcome,” said Des Moines Catholic Worker Frank Cordaro, referring to Trento’s organization, which claims to be “uniting western civilization to defeat Sharia Islam.”  The United West website declares that it one of its immediate goals is, “the mobilization of Americans and Europeans to stand firmly for the defense and protection of the State of Israel.”

“We just called him out for being a bigot,” said Cordaro, after Trento and his video camera crew sought to interview Occupy Des Moines activists.

Occupier Ross Grooters said Trento attempted to split Occupy activists off from the group and goad them to “spread a message of hate against Jewish and Islamic people, which is not what Occupy is about.”

“Trento was trying to get statements that he could use for his propaganda.  We surrounded him and told him that we don’t support bigotry.  We shouted him down and shamed him,” said Cordaro.

Some 2,000 conservative Christian evangelicals from across Iowa and beyond came to the event organized by Bob Vander Plaats, President of The Family Leader, to see Fox News pollster Frank Luntz moderate a discussion among Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum.  The candidates declared their views on religious issues including abortion and gay marriage while repeatedly attacking liberals and President Barack Obama in the sanctuary of the evangelical First Federated Church in Des Moines.

Gingrich told the crowd inside the church that his message to the Occupy movement is, “Go get a job right after you take a bath.”

“It’s pretty clear that we are having an effect.  When Newt Gingrich is speaking to his supporters about Occupy and the Occupy movement, that’s a win for us,” said Grooters.

Late in the day, Occupy Des Moines activists rallied again and marched from Nollen Plaza to the Hy-Vee Hall, site of one of the Iowa Democratic Party’s largest fundraisers of the year, the Jefferson Jackson dinner, to protest the appearance of keynote speaker Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

“Rahm Emanuel, in my mind, isn’t too much different from the GOP right now,” said Grooters.

“He is the definition of a corporatist Democrat.  He too takes money from big banks and big corporations, and he, too, is essentially bought,” said Grooters.

An Occupy Des Moines flyer handed out at the rally reminded readers that, “as an investment banker, Emanuel made ‘more than $18 million in just two and a half years, turning many of his contacts in his substantial political Rolodex into paying clients and directing his negotiating prowess and trademark intensity to mergers and acquisitions.’

“‘After Mr. Emanuel left banking to run for Congress, members of the securities and investment industry became his biggest backers, donating more than $1.5 million to his campaigns dating back to 2002.’”  The handout cited the New York Times, 12/3/08.

It also noted that as Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Emanuel consistently opposed effective health care reform and the single-payer option.

In 2006, as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, then-Rep. Emanuel worked to prevent the nomination and election of progressive Democratic candidates, effectively scuttling the progressive agenda.

Outside of Hy-Vee Hall a group of about 50 Occupiers chanted, “Banks got bailed out!  We got sold out!” and castigated Mayor Rahm Emanuel for having Occupy Chicago protesters jailed.  Several speakers demanded that Emanuel stand up for human rights and support First Amendment speech.

Bill Stansbery of Ames, a member of Veterans for Peace, was among a group of anti-war Occupiers protesting at Hy-Vee Hall.  Stansbery held up a placard bearing the message, “Slash Money for Military!”

“It’s obvious that we are spending too much money on the military and too much money on war.  We could use the money for other things here at home,” said Stansbery.

We need to get the big money, including the defense corporations, out of politics, said Stansbery.

Occupy Des Moines press committee spokesperson Stephen Toothman, wore a lapel tag with the message, “Ask An Occupier.”  Toothman said the group’s actions at the Republican Family Thanksgiving Forum and the Democratic Jefferson Jackson Dinner are part of its ongoing campaign of nonviolent educational protests and occupations in advance of the Iowa Caucuses.

By Michael Gillespie

About five hundred Iowans turned out in solidarity with and in enthusiastic support of Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City and nationwide by occupying a park near the state capitol building in Des Moines on Sunday, October 9.

The group dubbed Occupy Iowa (and Occupy Des Moines) by its participants represents a wide variety of concerns, and many of the activists addressed more than one issue.

David Drake, a Des Moines psychologist, a member of the Des Moines Human Rights Commission, and a long-time anti-war activist, wore his white lab coat to the protest.  Drake noted that many of the issues that most concern Iowans are related.

“As a physician, I’m most concerned about health care.  I see health care as a right not as a privilege, and I support a single-payer health care plan. I work with lots of people who’ve had foreclosures, who’ve lost their jobs, who lose their insurance.  I’m very concerned about that,” said Drake.

“I’m impressed with the interconnections of all these issues with on-going wars, with the billions, even a trillion dollars that we’re spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places.  It’s just astounding to me,” said Drake.

The huge amounts of money our government is wasting on horrific wars abroad could be better spent here at home to address the pressing needs of Americans who are in need and in distress, said Drake.

Kate Dirks, a student at Iowa State University in Ames, held a hand-lettered sign declaring on one side “Fox ‘News’ Will Lie About This” and “I Am A Human Being Not A Student Loan Number” on the other.

“There is a lot of diversity in the messages, but the overarching theme that everyone can agree on is that we want the government to be about the people again, whether that be concerns about war or about finance or business, or about student loans,” said Dirks.

Phil Carlson, a Des Moines social studies teacher, came to the protest wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan, “Give Peace A Chance!”

Carlson, too, spoke of a direct connection between the nation’s economic problems and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The wars that have been dragging our country down for so long are certainly a factor that needs to be addressed in terms of the economic impact,” said Carlson.

We need to bring the troops home and much of the money our government spends on defense would be better spent elsewhere, said Carlson.

“We need a public works program like FDR’s for infrastructure and other things our country sorely needs,” said Carlson.

Cora Metrick-Chen, a former member of a Des Moines student organization, Students Beyond War, is now a University of Iowa student.  Metrick-Chen, who returned from Iowa City for the event, and Adam G. Krause, an Ashford University student, facilitated Occupy Iowa’s first general assembly.

Krause was one of more than 30 protesters who were arrested by Iowa State Patrol officers who ejected the protesters from the park on the Capitol grounds after they refused to leave on October 9 at 11pm.  Also among those arrested were Des Moines Catholic Worker and community organizer David Goodner, and Des Moines WOW-FM radio program host and former state representative Ed Fallon.

“Getting arrested only encourages me,” said Fallon.

Following the arrests on October 9, Governor Terry Branstad’s administration relented in the face of popular support for Occupy Iowa and granted the group a three-day permit to camp on the Capitol grounds.  When the permit expired, Branstad declined requests to renew it.

On October 14, as the Occupy Iowa protesters discussed whether to risk arrest again, Des Moines mayor Frank Cownie visited the Occupy Iowa general assembly and offered the group a permit to camp in a city park on the opposite side of the Capitol grounds.

Unlike many anti-war protests and direct actions in Des Moines and across Iowa during the past decade, local print and broadcast media outlets are providing coverage of Occupy Iowa activities, perhaps because public support for the protests is discernibly greater than in the past.

“One of the original purposes of parks was for people to gather. We want you to feel like you can gather,” Cownie told the Occupy Iowa general assembly hours after Branstad refused to extend the group’s permit.

“I want my police force out chasing the bad guys and arresting criminals,” said Cownie, according to an October 14 report by Regina Zilbermints for the Des Moines Register’s web site edition.

Cownie directed the city’s parks department to issue a seven-day permit for camping in Stewart Square, a city-block-sized municipal park just east of the capitol. Officials said the short time-frame was only because they hadn’t had time to discuss the matter with the local neighborhood association, according to news reports

Cownie said he didn’t anticipate any problems and noted that it was likely the group would be permitted to remain in the park.

Occupy Iowa’s tent city is growing, and the group has organized and carried out several marches and protests across the city.  The group’s general assembly has spoken with area residents, established rapport with many, and has shared donated food with those in need.

Dan Hughes, a Des Moines Catholic Worker who actively supports Occupy Iowa, told The Independent Monitor that Occupiers have set up about 35 sleeping tents and several additional larger tents for a kitchen, communications, a lounge, and storage for cold weather gear.

Hughes estimated that about 40 people stay overnight in the Stewart Square tent city on an average night, but he noted that the group’s marches have attracted 50 to 150 or more participants, including many who do not stay overnight in the Occupy Des Moines tent city.

Occupy Iowa has organized marches to and protests at Wells Fargo’s headquarters in the city’s financial district, Obama campaign headquarters in Des Moines, the Polk County Court House where many of those arrested on October 9 pled not guilty to trespassing charges and requested jury trials, and the Republican Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Fall Banquet at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.  More marches and protests are planned.

“True decentralized social movements are made up of many sectors of society, including labor unions, community organizations, church groups, students, workers, young, old, black, white, etc. Each component piece contributes what they can to the overall whole, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” said Goodner, who spent three weeks in December 2009 in illegally Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement.

“I live and work at the Des Moines Catholic Worker house and I’m also a paid community organizer and staff with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI),” said Goodner.

“Both the Catholic Worker house and CCI have been pretty upfront about what our role is. The Catholic Worker is disposing of trash, compost, recycling, and washing camp dishes every day. We also have at least one member staying overnight every night. These are roles that are helping with the day to day functioning of the camp, and we want to continue to use our resources to help support this movement.

“The same goes for CCI. We’ve been fighting big banks and Wall Street corporations for 36 years, and doubly so since 2008. Our members, 3,300 in 99 counties, 60% in rural areas, 75% over the age of 65, have been participating in Occupy Iowa events across the state, and we’ve been encouraging them to participate in this movement. We have no agenda, no motive, other than to see this movement succeed. We don’t want to steer it or control it. Our members have been participating and we’ve been providing ideas about logistics, strategy, and tactics. We have a lot of direct action experience. Some of those ideas have risen to the top and been implemented. Some of them haven’t. But our only goal is to support this thing and promote it, and we have.  Our members have provided a lot of boots-on-the-ground support, and we’ve had some ideas that have moved things along too,” said Goodner.

Goodner says he believes in Occupy Iowa participants’ efforts to “stay positive, develop personal relationships, build community, and keep our eyes on the prize: taking on corporate power and winning a more just and democratic society. That’s what we’re all here for.”

Across the state, in several cities and towns including Ames, Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, and Iowa City, other Occupy movement groups have met, engaged in protest action, and in some cases established occupations.  The Occupy movement is gathering adherents and growing in Iowa.

The Des Moines Register reported on October 22 that local and national representatives of the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA), a faith-based social action network, “were on hand tonight to survey the Occupy Des Moines campsite in preparation for adding their own tent in support of this local incarnation of the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

The Iowa chapter of the MFSA has decided to raise its own tent in Stewart Square.

“I’m energized by this,” said Chet Guinn, a long-time Iowa anti-war, peace and social justice activist and one of about 230 MFSA members statewide.

Eloise Cranke, an MFSA state coordinator, said that the organization will add its tent and signage within the next few days.

“Also on hand was Rev. Steve Clunn, a national coalition coordinator based in Washington, D.C., who already was in Des Moines this weekend for another speaking engagement. He said that MFSA nationally — with 30 active chapters and three more forming within the 104-year-old organization — is ‘starting to get involved more’ in the Occupy Wall Street movement,” according to the October 22 Des Moines Register report by Kyle Munson.

Many see the OWS Occupy movement as a growing international phenomenon, a global intifada.

“It’s pretty sweet,” said Hughes.

Article and photo by Michael Gillespie, Contributing Editor