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From New York City to Los Angeles, Americans of conscience have embraced remarkable demonstrations of solidarity over the past week, only to encounter equally remarkable examples of state violence and repression.
For better or worse, the past week has offered plenty of reasons for outrage at Washington, as well as opportunities to celebrate—and support, extend, and amplify—resistance to it.
What happened to the Occupy Movement in 2011 set the stage for the suppression of speech and dissent sweeping the country today.
I wrote this post to help readers better understand and recognize fascism in America, and also to help highlight important examples of grassroots dissent.
2024: Occupy Education
The ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza has not only exposed the lawlessness [ [link removed] ] of Washington’s bipartisan empire, its disturbing willingness to invite civilian casualties [ [link removed] ], and the priority it places on the interests of corporate weapons manufacturers [ [link removed] ], but also the solidarity shown by activists from all walks of life who remain undeterred and committed [ [link removed] ] to basic human rights principles that our nation once fought a World War to establish.
It has also brought America’s hypocrisy to the fore, by exposing not only how U.S. weapons sales have enabled genocide, but also how little anyone in government supports free speech, dissent, or democracy.
Help inform your friends!
Columbia University in New York City [ [link removed] ] has emerged as one flashpoint, particularly because school administrators berated by Republican members of Congress in a recent congressional hearing [ [link removed] ] responded to their pressure by imposing authoritarian measures to suppress student speech—and ultimately, cancel in-person classes for the rest of the academic year. When Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson visited Columbia recently, throngs of irate students protested his speech, while Governor Kathy Hochul described [ [link removed] ] Johnson as “politicizing” campus tension and “adding to the division” that continues to escalate.
Students who learned enough from their education to take action on the principles that they learned about in class have been disciplined—and even suspended from the university—prompting students at dozens of other campuses across the country to organize protests, marches, and occupations in their respective areas across the country.
Many of those campuses have experienced tumult and tension as a result. Last Thursday, over 100 students were arrested [ [link removed] ] at Emerson College in Boston, while nearly 100 were detained at the University of Southern California and 34 more (plus a reporter) were arrested at the University of Texas in Austin. Earlier in the week, nearly 150 students, faculty, and others were arrested [ [link removed] ] on the campus of New York University, while a “Free Palestine Camp” at the University of California-Berkley in which hundreds of students have joined has stretched into its sceond week [ [link removed] ]. At UCLA, thousands of students participated in a series of protests despite the intimidation of militarized police and violence by vigilantes [ [link removed] ] seemingly encouraged [ [link removed] ] by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).
Forcing Biden’s hand
Some of the controversies have impacted President Biden directly and prompted responses from the White House.
For example, knowing that Biden’s re-election prospects have dimmed [ [link removed] ] due to his foolish support for Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza, and recalling his reliance on Black voters [ [link removed] ] whose interests Washington has relentlessly undermined for decades, the Biden campaign recently planned [ [link removed] ] for President Biden to deliver the May 19 commencement address at Morehouse College. Morehouse is a historically Black university in Atlanta with a storied legacy. Its alumni include Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
Morehouse Provost Kendrick Brown said [ [link removed] ], “From our perspective, really having a sitting president come to Morehouse offers an incredible opportunity. This is something that is in line with Morehouse’s mission and also with this objective of being a place that allows for engagement of social justice issues and moral concerns.”
Rather than encounter the fawning reception that he expected, however, Biden’s visit has already drawn protests week in advance. 
Political science professor Andrew Douglas said [ [link removed] ], “I’ve spoken with several faculty members who say under no conditions are they going to sit on a stage with Joe Biden.” He went on to say that “I have not had a conversation with a student who’s happy about this,” and that “[Morehouse’s] priority should be…to try and ensure that under no circumstances are the police brought to bear on our students,” since Morehouse “students do not have the same privileges that Ivy League students typically do, and confrontations with the police can turn deadly for our students.” 
Douglas added that “We have a legacy of being at the forefront of justice movements,” which requires speaking truth to power, rather than trying to curry favor with it.
Across Atlanta [ [link removed] ], students who organized a peaceful encampment at Emory University released a statement explaining that their stance against domestic police militarization “is interconnected with global movements against oppressive state practices, most notably the Palestinian struggle for liberation.” Police retaliated by subjecting them to chemical weapons, gun violence, and dozens of arrests [ [link removed] ].
The chair of the university’s philosophy department was among the figures arrested in what another professor (who was also arrested) described as “a war zone [ [link removed] ].” 
One student activist at Emory echoed [ [link removed] ] the concerns of faculty at nearby Morehouse, saying: 
“I’m a senior at Emory University. Today we were trying to build an encampment … We were out here chanting peacefully … All of a sudden a huge patrol of police … basically swarmed the entire crowd.
Students of color were significantly targeted throughout the process. There were Black students that were being tased, there were Black students that were being teargassed. I got teargassed as I was trying to leave the protest.”
It’s worth noting that tear gas has long been banned as an instrument of war [ [link removed] ]. 
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What does it suggest about the United States that authorities here use it so widely against civilians exercising rights guaranteed under the Constitution?
2011: Occupy America 
13 years ago, the world celebrated the Arab spring [ [link removed] ]. Across north Africa and the Middle East, activists from Tunisia to Egypt and beyond came together across social classes and professions to challenge autocracy and corruption. Risking and enduring severe brutality in some cases, they reminded the world what democracy actually looks like [ [link removed] ].
While many Americans paid attention to the events, most tragically misinterpreted them. Rather than take inspiration from the social mobilization confronting corruption, American observers generally took the self-serving approach [ [link removed] ] of giving credit to Facebook and Twitter. Many focused on tech platforms used by vulnerable activists to help connect with each other—and eventually, topple their governments—rather than the movement for democracy itself.
Ironically, those platforms went on to implement unilateral changes [ [link removed] ] that vastly diminished their utility as social organizing tools, in the service of making them more valuable levers for promoting commercial goods and services. That ultimately represents yet another case of capitalism undermining democracy, which I wish were a less consistent theme in the United States.
In any case, some of us did pay attention to the Arab spring and learn the lessons that it offered. 
That fall, hundreds of thousands of us around the country occupied public spaces [ [link removed] ] in an effort to not only reclaim them for our communities, but also discover common cause, learn from each other, and challenge an establishment that remains so ignorant, a full decade later [ [link removed] ], that it repeats its errors without any meaningful reflection.
The Occupy Movement was viciously suppressed [ [link removed] ] through a combination [ [link removed] ] of state violence, surveillance, persecution, and prosecution. It was largely coordinated by federal authorities [ [link removed] ] during an era when Washington was led by a Democratic president, at the same time that a supposedly liberal press consistently downplayed the movement’s concerns, covered up police violence, and mischaracterized participants as self-indulgent, rather than outraged to the point of being willing to risk state violence.
What happened to the Occupy Movement in 2011 set the stage for the suppression of speech and dissent sweeping the country today.
Paid subscribers can access a further section exploring the history of dissent and militarism in the United States. It offers an indication of why authorities have seemed hellbent on suppressing speech, rather than supporting the constitutional rights to which they swear oaths of allegiance...

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