Making the Connections – Why Crackdown on OWS Now?

This article is somewhat speculative, but it makes a lot of sense:

Making the Connections – Why Crackdown on OWS Now?

“If the administration expects the austerity budget to emerge from the super committee to be substantially worse than most of us fear, that would constitute reason enough to attempt to clear the cities of what would be magnets for a protesting, disaffected political base formerly loyal to Obama.”

Obama signalled capitulation in the super committee negotiations when he allowed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to rail against any triggered cut of Pentagon spending. Panetta said the trigger cuts would be “devastating” and that the DoD would be at substantial risk of “not meeting our defense needs.” One of the key characteristics of this President is to use an aggressive military policy stance to blunt criticism from the right that he is insufficiently “strong.” There is, in my opinion, almost no chance that Obama will allow a triggered reduction to include Pentagon spending, because such a reduction would make worthless all his efforts expended to appear “strong.” The sequestering of DoD funds was his only leverage upon the super committee (not that anyone following this President would have expected him to use that leverage). Therefore, I believe Obama will accept any last minute deal no matter how hurtful to the middle class, working class, elderly, and poor. As Edward Herman has said, “The Democrats invariably betray their voting base, but not their investor base.”

That the attacks against several “occupied” cities were coordinated via a conference call among mayors has been documented by the mayor of Oakland in a radio interview.