Occupy Russia... And Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Holland, England, Poland...

Earlier today we witnessed the largest and most impassioned demonstrations in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Aside from the big one-- over 50,000 people-- in Moscow, there were over a dozen similar protests around the country. Hundreds of people protesting the rigged vote last week were arrested. Apparently they take rigged voting more seriously than people in Florida and Ohio. The Wall Street Journal, which usually sides with the forces of the status quo, was on the scene:

The huge display of popular anger raised the pressure on the Kremlin, which has so far dismissed the postelection discontent as instigated by the U.S. to undermine the Kremlin. But there was no sign that the authorities were willing to even consider opponents' demands for new elections or a full recount of the disputed Dec. 4 parliamentary vote.

Opposition leaders vowed to keep up the pressure with more demonstrations in a bid to disrupt Mr. Putin's chances in March presidential elections, when he was planning to secure a six-year term in office.

...In the Dec. 4 vote, the ruling United Russia party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin saw its support drop sharply, but still retained a majority in parliament. But local and foreign observers reported widespread stuffing of ballot boxes and other abuses, many of which have been spread by reports and recordings on the Internet. U.S. and other Western governments have raised questions about what they say are suspicions of widespread fraud.

The Russian government hopes to appease the demonstrators by offering up the head of the Russian election commission, Vladimir Churkov, as a sacrificial lamb. But it's the lying and cheating and rigging-- not just of the election but of the whole system that has people so surly and ready to force change. And it isn't just in Russia. Friday we saw how the elites are cooking the books-- in Greece and on Wall Street-- to push their agenda down our throats. Everyday it feels more and more like what I imagine 1848 must have been like.

And I think it feels like that to the Pentagon as well. Americans may be complacent and easy to manipulate but the shit is starting to hit the fan across Europe. The Pentagon's top general in Europe seems to be reporting that we're lucky we didn't withdraw our troops from bases scattered all over the continent. Does he think they'll be needed to hold back pissed off angry Italians, Greeks and Germans?

The top military commander in the US has said that he believes the eurozone is at great risk and warned that any breakup of the bloc could have consequences for the Pentagon, even threatening its top weapons programme.

"The eurozone is at great risk," General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an event hosted by the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

Dempsey suggested part of his concern was that the US military could be exposed to any unravelling of the eurozone.

"I mean [exposed] literally, through contracts and programmatics, but also because of the potential for civil unrest and the breakup of the union that has been forged over there," said the general.

The US military has more than 80,000 troops and 20,000 civilian workers in Europe, many based in Germany.

Dempsey pointed to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon's costliest weapons programme, which the US is developing together with partners including Britain and Italy, which could also be at risk.

A crisis in Europe, if it were serious enough, could force allies to re-allocate spending which had been earmarked for the F-35, he said.

That, in turn, could drive up the cost of individual US aircraft at a time when US defence budgets are squeezed.

"It will clearly put them at risk if all the economic predictions about a potential collapse were to occur - inflation, devaluation," said Dempsey.

They wouldn't dare... would they? I guess if the worldwide showdown between the 1% and the 99% really does explode onto the streets, the billions spent on coersion will come into play. Here at home the "liberal" Democratic mayor of Boston-- liberal but-- had the police clear out his city's Occupy camp. And in NYC today, tens of thousands of Americans marched down Park Avenue to the UN to protest the one percent move in this country against basic democracy and their new GOP-passed laws against allowing citizens to vote. An awful lot of one percenters live on Park Avenue between 61st Street and 47th Street. I wonder if they shut drew their drapes. You didn't know about it? Here's the statement from Common Cause that the corporate media forgot to mention:

With voting rights in the U.S. facing the most aggressive attack in at least a century, Common Cause President Bob Edgar will join other civil rights and good government leaders at the head of a "Stand for Freedom" march and rally on Saturday in the heart of New York City.

"Americans like to think of our elections as a model for the rest of the world, but as we approach 2012, some of our leaders are behaving like dictators," Edgar said. "To advance their political careers and those of their allies, they're trying to exclude large groups of their fellow citizens from participating in our democracy. This march aims to call them out."

Beginning at the mid-Manhattan headquarters of Koch Industries, whose owners have helped finance a national campaign to impose needless restrictions on voter registration and voting, the march down East 61st Street, Park Avenue, and East 47th Street will conclude with a rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, in the shadow of the United Nations headquarters.

"Saturday is United Nations Human Rights Day, so it's particularly appropriate that we march to the UN, which stands for the promotion and preservation of democracy around the world, to defend democracy here in America," Edgar said.

Despite an absence of evidence that voter fraud is a significant problem in U.S. elections, the National Conference of State Legislators reports that lawmakers in 34 states introduced bills this year to impose or tighten requirements that prospective voters provide official documents proving their identity. It is estimated that millions of qualified voters, particularly senior citizens, college students, and people of color, lack the driver's licenses and other government-issued IDs these bills demand and so face the loss of their voting rights.