PHOTOS, PAGE 1

                                                               The truth is something we shall seldom know, but never stop seeking.

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

All across the nation, mayors and other city officials are starting to crackdown on the Occupy movement. This is a crucial moment for the effort as colder weather comes to most places and homeless people and other street wanderers join the encampments. The police and mayors can sound perfectly reasonable in saying that the Occupy efforts represent a threat to public safety and health and that they have gone on long enough. The mayors are also complaining that the parks are becoming centers for trouble, drug abuse and other crimes. There is a big problem with this, however.

Every city has problems all the time. Police and ambulances are sent into every neighbor, some more than others. Public urination? That happens everywhere in cities, especially late at night when the bars let out and people filled with beer relieve themselves as they waddle homeward. Are the Occupied parks any worse than the rest of any given city? Are they increasing these problems or just locating them in a more centralized way? No one asks this question.

ANY FORM OF PROTEST causes problems, delays in  traffic, difficulty for people getting to work and so forth. As a result, any protest can be declared illegal and shutdown. If they could have, the authorities in Egypt and elsewhere would have done the same thing (they tried it several times).

We have a long tradition in this country of saying one thing and doing another where protest is concerned. We say we believe in free speech and the right to “petition for the redress of grievances”, but in truth police forces are ready, willing and able to shutdown any protest that causes the least bit of trouble. In Washington, DC, the police have even taken to arresting protesters before demonstrations and then keeping them in jail long enough that they cannot participate. This is unconstitutional and a violation of basic rights, but no one, except occasionally the courts, cares about it.

Where does one person’s free speech end and another person’s right to go about their business unimpeded begin? For a democracy to work, there must be tolerance and flexibility. Otherwise, the police can just move in on any protest, as they would in a dictatorship, and shut it all down. They do this in China. They do this in North Korea. They do it all over the world where governments act as if their powers are much more important than the needs and desires of the people.

I went to the Occupy DC protests Sunday (11.13.11) and it was a model of peacefulness. I could easily see how the encampment could cause problems and how it could be used by some to commit crimes. The same question arises: would those same people be committing crimes elsewhere in the city wihout the encampment? Is it the fault of the Occupy movement if problems develop, despite their attempts to prevent violence?

The Occupy movement deserves a special level of respect for a number of reasons. One, we are in the middle of a long recession that is hurting millions. Two, the protesters have deliberately tried to avoid confrontation and are taking up space that does not involve blocking traffic or other movement.

There seems to be a general plan, even if not coordinated, to shutdown the Occupy movement by declaring the encampments illegal and taking them down, one by one. If this happens, first, it will take a lot of strength away from the effort. Second, it is likely that Occupy will come back, perhaps in the early spring, stronger and bigger than before and, in that case, it will really cause problems for cities.

One of the complaints against Occupy is that it is costing cities money for police and other efforts. This is ridiculous. Democracy is expensive and sometimes difficult and that is what we have in this country. It is expensive to hold presidential elections, billions of dollars, in fact, but we go right on doing every four years, don’t we? If the people currently in positions of authority don’t like spending money, they should use their influence to create mechanisms for people to search for solutions in other ways, like holding huge conferences around the nation where problems can be discussed, address and solutions proposed. Is that so hard?

The standard process of elections and occasional ballot measures is not satisfying the public, whether it is on the far right with the tea party efforts, in the middle with disaffected voters and with the Occupy movement. Something has to change. That is the message. If the police continue to crackdown, they run the risk of turning this movement into a massive national campaign the likes of which we have never seen in the United States. The movement toward that campaign as already begun, of course, but strong arm tactics, along with pepper spray and tear gas, could make it explode.

Doug Terry

11.13.11

Evening sky, clouds, moon over Maryland countryside, summer, 2010

PROBLEMS FINDING A NOMINEE: REPUBLICANS ARE NOW STUCK WITH THE TEA PARTY EFFORT THEY HELPED TO CREATE

LIST OF THOSE KILLED IN THE HELICOPTER SHOOT DOWN IN AFGHANISTAN

MORE ON THE “DEBT CRISIS” DEBATE: EVERYONE, COOL DOWN, A BIT, PLEASE

SOME OF THE REASONS OBAMA’S DOWNGRADE SPEECH WENT OVER POORLY

WHY THEY ARE RIOTING IN ENGLAND

President Obama’s statement on America’s debt downgrade by S&P

Are the news media having too much influence on government actions? Yes.

"The Department of Homeland Security has identified a potential threat from terrorists who may be considering surgically implanting explosives or explosive components in humans to conduct terrorist attacks," the  advisory to foreign counterparts said, according to the U.S. security  official.

The first reaction to the idea of using implanted bombs might be, “Oh, my god, will they stop at nothing?”, but that would be the wrong conclusion. It shows, instead, how pathetic the terrorists are becoming, how they are unable to come up with other targets than aircraft and better ideas about how to attack.  They seem to be fixated on repeating their “success” of     9-11, 2001.

People often become suicide bombers on the spur of the moment and the process of getting someone to strap on a bomb, prepared to die, is one involving careful management by handlers who want to send them on their way. Getting someone to submit to surgery would be rather difficult, though one can imagine it would not be impossible. In any case, the suggestion that someone might do this is a logical reaction to the TSAs attempts to cover every new attempt with new “security measures”. There is no end to this act and react chain. One key to breaking the chain is to construct a system of security that does not continually rely on protecting from the last attempt or the last threat.

The use of internally placed bombs doesn’t seem like a very likely prospect for future terrorist attacks. In fact, this alert should probably be filed under the heading of information disclosed by government “just in case” something happens, so they wouldn’t look completely ignorant if one such attempt were completed.

The terrorists, further, would be very unlikely to be able to use this sort of attack to reach any of their broader goals. Of course, of great concern is the general evidence that al Quaeda merely wants to attack for the sake of attack, to show that it can do so and remains “strong”. Ultimately, given enough time, that kind of terrorist event is almost impossible to prevent.

7.6.11

RECENT TOPICS, EARLY SUMMER, 2011

RECENT TOPICS, WINTER/SPRING, 2011

OTHER OLDER TOPICS

Eastern Market in winter time, Washington, DC, Capitol Hill

       The buttons at the top left contain commentaries and news items filed during the few months. Likewise, the topic headings below contain links to the same pages, with longer titles. Some pages, like those about Haiti , the airport scanners, and terrorism have dozens of other pages once you go to the lead page.  You’ll see the list at the left on the lead page.

       The topics are filed here with the most recent first. You may click below for other topics and comments. .

                               MORE TOPICS CLICK HERE

The editor and primary reporter for The TerryReport is Doug Terry, a veteran Washington, DC, based reporter and news manager who has reported for more than 80 local network television stations across the US as well as NPR, WFAA-TV, Dallas, Israeli Radio, The North Carolina News Network, The CBC, NBC Radio and many other outlets. His foreign reporting includes experience from more than 15 countries, including extended residence in Paris and Lisbon. His has had book reviews published by the Philadelphia Inquirer and two essays published in book collections of stories from NPR, as well as poetry published in a literary magazine. For more information, CLICK HERE.

The TerryReport has been published on the Internet for more than ten years, starting as net4news.com in the 1990s and becoming newslineusa.com until emerging as The TerryReport around 2001.

Currently, in addition to The TerryReport, he works as a technologist/consultant (mainly on news gathering and distribution technologies) through Alexis Media Systems, as a television producer/writer and fine arts photographer.

He also does volunteer coordination work following natural disasters, such as the one in Haiti in 2010. His plan is to create a more formal organization around disaster assistance with an emphasis on damage assessment and communications needs. He began his disaster assistance efforts following hurricane Hugo in 1989, having previously been involved in news coverage of devastating Category 3 hurricane on the coast of Texas.

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