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Media ownership is too clearly at odds with Occupy aims. Not to mention that sensationalist tendencies don't necessarily dovetail with a proper discussion & analysis of issues.
Didn't see much on what happened yesterday. I've heard nothing, or that it was a flop, or about Cleveland's "plot"... lol.
I met up with a woman in OHartford, two of her kids, and the youngest son's friend. Got to NYC around 10:30. Within a few minutes of stepping off the train, saw armed National Guard soldiers complete with machine guns and NYPD with dogs in Grand Central Terminal.
Wandered over to Bryant Park, where it was the morning staging area in Midtown. About 500 to 1000 are there, many others scattered around. We're hearing about a shutdown of the Hipsterburg Bridge, blockades are at a couple dozen targets around Manhattan. Black bloc is setting up on the Lower East. A Vietnam vet was the first person arrested, Greg from New Haven was the second.
Around 11:30, there's an Immigration Rights group which starts a march around Bryant Park. The march briefly blocked Madison Ave and picketed a couple spots before finally reaching a Wells Fargo branch at 40th and Park. NYPD wound up catching up with the group here. Riot police shown up, and some were warning of kettling. Ended up rushing down 40th towards 3 Ave. Ended up having another blockade and picket outside a restaurant on 42nd known for abusing immigrant workers, which expanded to cover the nearby Citibank next door. Me and the OH folk fled after a while once the police held the south and west, finding wagons and a transport bus on 3 Av between 43rd and 44th.
Got back to Bryant and rested up before the Guitarmy march. Ended up catching up with the march again on 42nd in front of Grand Central, which was being heavily guarded by NYPD. A guy playing sax was playing "Whose Side Are You On" to one officer, everyone's laughing.
Chipotle on 42nd across from Bryant, another picket target.
2 pm, Guitar march. Starts on 5 Av, crosses to Broadway at Madison Square Park. Tom Morello and Ben Harper are among those playing. Catch both of them next to each other on 40th St., and early on 5 Av. By 37th St, the march takes the street. NYPD sets up a block line on 33rd, but many push their way thru or go around. Looked like another one was being attempted at 31st, but was busy rushing down the east sidewalk. It rebanded again in two parts by Madison Square, but broke up again as NYPD was rushing down Broadway. Ended up catching more OH people and Morello in the scramble down Broadway.
Union Square's concerts started at 4. Nobody played longer than 10-15 minutes. Morello went first. Missed Immortal Technique. Das Racist only played two songs. Dan Deacon was on around 5. Drum circle was around Union West and 16th. By this point, most in the city are converging here. Met up with a ton of ONH people.
March down Broadway from Union Square starts at 5:30. It takes a half hour to clear Union Square. The march stretched for 10-12 blocks at its peak. It's been estimated around 30k (maybe 35k) were in this. It lasted over three hours, with numerous delays and stops. Wall St. itself was heavily blocked by hundreds of cops, and the Charging Bull statue and Liberty/Zuccotti Park were heavily watched as well.
By 830, I'm near the front of the line with some OH people and anarchists holding a giant blue tarp sign. Some are pushing the line to go towards Battery Park. NYPD ends up pushing people down Pearl St. By 9, NYPD blocks off nearly all of Lower Manhattan south of Beaver and west of Hanover. I get a message from someone in ODanbury to get back to Grand Central and head home with my crew. Had to wander all the way around to Bowling Green since NYPD closed every street north.
From what I've gathered after, the cops kettled everyone in Battery Park with little chase to escape. Some white shirts did their thing and pummeled on Occupiers. Dozens of arrests. They usually seem to wait at night to go crazy. About a dozen ONH people were stuck in the city until morning.
So today in Worcester there is the Occupy New England regional gathering, and day of action. I'm not sure how exactly today is going to play out, but there's been a lot of hard work put into this effort.
It was my idea a while ago to get as many Occupiers together from around the region in one centralized location. Today is the fruition of this plan. There may be over 100 people taking part in the events, and many of which are coming from outside central Massachusetts. Some are coming from a couple hours away such as New Haven and Portland ME. Some from New Hampshire, Hartford, Boston, Providence. A couple are coming all the way from Philadelphia.
I'm pretty excited about this. Hopefully nobody gets arrested though.
The Occupy National Gathering goes from Saturday to Wednesday in Philly. Guest speakers include Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone, Capt Ray Lewis of Philly PD, and economist Mark Provost (friend of mine who grilled Romney in New Hampshire right after the Iowa win).
I'll be home, spent the cash on Forecastle and Moog stuff.
There are caravans going across the country to Philly. The Northeast leg went through Worcester last night - but for me it was awkward after that huge blowup I had with the rest of OW.
I ended up leaving Worcester for Hartford. For the Caravan, I went from helping Worcester to reaching out to national organizers to get Little Rock, Memphis, and Nashville involved. Tennessee got skipped, but Little Rock had a good action. Happy to have lobbied to get them in the schedule.
As I was waiting for the bus this morning in Philly, I heard a few homeless people discussing "occupy something." They were particularly excited because people are "bringing food from all over." They seemed genuinely enthused and happy to be alive
The NatGat was acting in defiance of Philly's ban of feeding the homeless. I was getting a bunch of e-mails asking to bring food down and help prove a point the ban was ridiculous.
What is Philadelphia going to do about homeless? Just hope they drop dead? That they move to Camden? People who probably need the most help are getting the least, while those who need the least get the most. Twisted society we live in.
The first details came out into the audit on the Federal Reserve system. (For those who don't know, they issue and control the American monetary supply - and have since 1913.) It's just pretty outrageous what they have been up to.
That 800 billion dollar TARP bailout back in 2008 - it turned out to be 20 times larger than that. 16 TRILLION in total. And some of it didn't even go to American owned banks.
Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000) Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000) Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000) Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000) Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000) Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000) Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000) Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000) JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000) Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000) UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000) Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000) Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000) Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000) BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
And well: $16T is larger than the entire American GDP. The national debt since 1789 is below $16T. The annual government budget is about $3.5T, ignoring the budget deficits every year (think Bush tax cuts and unpaid wars).
Do I need to explain anymore? Megabanks and megacorporations are all too important to our government and this nation's resources. The top get all the benefits, and if you're outside the 1% you're pretty much fucked and all on your own.
So this weekend is the one year anniversary of OWS. And already, the NYPD is going crazy. Once darkness falls, the brutality spikes up.
They just arrested Barry from Occupy Worcester. Good guy, pretty smart, not one who usually volunteers for civil disobedience missions though. From another OW guy watching the live stream, NYPD just ran up and picked him out - then tackled him and cuffed him. Their infamous snatch and grab move. Hopefully he's ok. His wife was kettled in the Brooklyn Bridge incident last October, so it's not like this is a first.
OK, so I've looked at two live stream archives of the incident. A white shirt runs into the march on the sidewalk, picks out a kid or two on the far side with a bandana on. A second white shirt does the same on the near side, dragging the kid out into the street and cuffs him there. Then NYPD starts building a circle around the far side and splits the line up. Barry was part of the front that got split, right on the edge of the circle. He ends up getting grabbed while being pushed back and arrested himself along with a half dozen others.
Last Edit: Sept 15, 2012 23:41:22 GMT -5 by LD - Back to Top
Occupy Monsanto tomorrow in North Canton, Oh at 2pm. Come Occupy with me!
Monsanto's Monsters: Saccharine Styrofoam Agent Orange Bovine Growth Hormone and now GMOs that are producing "SuperWeeds", contaminating food and terrorizing farmers.
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.
There was a Monsanto action yesterday in Connecticut, and another one in a couple weeks in Mass. Barry's one of the people organizing the Mass one.
Another guy I know got snatch and grabbed last night by NYPD. Mark from Occupy New Hampshire - Manchester was arrested. He posted on Facebook very late last night:
I was arrested in NYC during an Occupy march this evening. NYPD was randomly grabbing people 3-5 at a time throughout the march. My buddy Carl Gibson got snatched up from his backpack and dragged away as he held out his arms and looked at me plaintively, "Mark!". I reached out and grabbed his hands but was instantly choked and arrested.
There was a Monsanto action yesterday in Connecticut, and another one in a couple weeks in Mass. Barry's one of the people organizing the Mass one.
Another guy I know got snatch and grabbed last night by NYPD. Mark from Occupy New Hampshire - Manchester was arrested. He posted on Facebook very late last night:
I was arrested in NYC during an Occupy march this evening. NYPD was randomly grabbing people 3-5 at a time throughout the march. My buddy Carl Gibson got snatched up from his backpack and dragged away as he held out his arms and looked at me plaintively, "Mark!". I reached out and grabbed his hands but was instantly choked and arrested.
I don't get what forming a human wall around the NYSE will do. A) about 20% of the people that worked there 12 months ago still work there, B) it's working-class people that work there, C) no major investment banks have any real presence there anymore (digital markets) and D) Charlotte is the "secret capital" of American finance.
There are more investment banks who have their home office in Jersey City than in lower Manhattan, fyi.
I didn't choose that, I can't explain the thought process behind human wall. Not that it ever happened anyway. Cops are all over, blocked off Wall St anyway.
Its been basically groups giving a run around in the financial district. Its way less organized than Mayday or the DNC stuff, but maybe due to the fact I've been on the periphery most of the morning.
Wall St and the stock exchange my best guess is symbolism. Yes the system is spread out to places like CLT and JC, but everyone thinks here is the epicenter of corporate and banking evil.
I didn't choose that, I can't explain the thought process behind human wall. Not that it ever happened anyway. Cops are all over, blocked off Wall St anyway.
Its been basically groups giving a run around in the financial district. Its way less organized than Mayday or the DNC stuff, but maybe due to the fact I've been on the periphery most of the morning.
Wall St and the stock exchange my best guess is symbolism. Yes the system is spread out to places like CLT and JC, but everyone thinks here is the epicenter of corporate and banking evil.
That post wasn't directed at you in particular, just the events. And what you described is what I expected. I suspect you have a lot of people not nearly as involved or knowledgeable as LD down there taking part in the latest "cool thing" to do.
And I understand the idea behind wanting people to see the symbol of greed, but that means the actual greedy scum that should be impacted by these protests aren't, but normal people are. A year ago I said my biggest issue with Occupy was a lack of singular leadership, and that factions coming together for big events wouldn't last.
Sadly, while I like some of the ideals behind the movement, I haven't seen much growth in this regard.
LD, I admire your commitment to this cause, and wish more people would a) take it seriously, b) listen to the platform with an open mind, but most of all I wish that the movement would do itself a favor and connect. I dunno, I realize there's a website and all, but countries in the Middle East were able to stage country-wide protests and uprisings with the gov't intentionally collapsing social media platforms for the nation, OWS can't organize protests to mark their one-year anniversary? It just doesn't seem very organized to me, I guess.
Sadly, while I like some of the ideals behind the movement, I haven't seen much growth in this regard.
LD, you've dedicated the last year of your life to this cause. I haven't followed it closely enough to discern what measurable results this has had. So tell me: besides people getting arrested (which can have negative fiscal repercussions solely to themselves, not to the establishment against which they protest) and the media coverage of Occupy events, how has this movement altered the country's political landscape?
The only things I can see are:
1. Increased mainstream cognizance of the terms "1%" and "99%" 2. Increased collective hatred toward concentrated wealth-holders 3. Perpetuated a "all banks & corporations are bad" mentality
But how have those things POSITIVELY IMPROVED the political landscape? From your perspective, as someone who's been entrenched in the movement, how has ANY of this has been worthwhile? Have any corporate policies changed? Have unions successfully negotiated better contracts for their members? Has this been a game-changer for the labor movement in any way at all?
A year later, how has this movement effected positive change? I'm genuinely interested, because from my perspective, I'm simply not seeing it. ???
I'll answer that when I get more time. And remember.
But, I'm leaving New York now for Connecticut. Today was an experience. And I didn't get caught up in anything. Though it was getting real bad with NYPD brutalizing people. Just picking people off all weekend, throwing them around, and arresting them.
Edit: journalists, photographers, and live streamers were targets most of the day. Several were arrested, plus a legal observer for the Natl Lawyers Guild. The NYPD is so outlandish in their behavior that they resort to this to cover their tracks. A photographer for Ch. 11 was picked up, as was a reporter for the HuffPo. Those where the ones I remember seeing on Twitter.
Fuck Bloomberg, fuck Ray Kelly, and fuck these scumbags protecting the criminals. Chase alone paid off the NYPD 4.6 million last year, a bribe if you will.
Last Edit: Sept 17, 2012 18:11:47 GMT -5 by LD - Back to Top
Post by arlenefavreau1 on Sept 17, 2012 20:23:03 GMT -5
I dont understand why the occupy movement blames the banking industry. We all know it was our own govt whom relaxed all the laws which enabled the banks to do what they did. If our govt allowed us to grow and smoke kind green there would be an emediate response which would hurt the dispenseries and the street dealers because alot of this population would grow there own. would the occupy movement be as angry with all of those responsable for putting all those people out of work?
I dont understand why the occupy movement blames the banking industry. We all know it was our own govt whom relaxed all the laws which enabled the banks to do what they did. If our govt allowed us to grow and smoke kind green there would be an emediate response which would hurt the dispenseries and the street dealers because alot of this population would grow there own. would the occupy movement be as angry with all of those responsable for putting all those people out of work?
I dont understand why the occupy movement blames the banking industry. We all know it was our own govt whom relaxed all the laws which enabled the banks to do what they did. If our govt allowed us to grow and smoke kind green there would be an emediate response which would hurt the dispenseries and the street dealers because alot of this population would grow there own. would the occupy movement be as angry with all of those responsable for putting all those people out of work?
Well, the first two sentences made sense, which is a marked improvement over most of Arlene's posts.
It kind of makes sense, I guess, but I think anyone with any sense knows it's both Wall St. campaign support, etc. and the Government that are responsible for deregulation. Not to mention the revolving door of Wall St. executives that end up working at the SEC, which is such a obvious conflict of interest it's almost comical.
^^^^ And this is simplifying the relationship between the two in a large way but I guess Arlene's worry about the corn industry is a good comparison because, quack it, why not?
Arlene, are you still a dude using your wife's account?
Last Edit: Sept 17, 2012 21:53:22 GMT -5 by Deleted - Back to Top
I dont understand why the occupy movement blames the banking industry. We all know it was our own govt whom relaxed all the laws which enabled the banks to do what they did. If our govt allowed us to grow and smoke kind green there would be an emediate response which would hurt the dispenseries and the street dealers because alot of this population would grow there own. would the occupy movement be as angry with all of those responsable for putting all those people out of work?
Post by arlenefavreau1 on Sept 18, 2012 20:21:17 GMT -5
Our govt relaxed laws making the banking industry able to sell a dream and collect big . Our govt also allows the NYC police dept to stop and frisk even though its a clear violation of our rights. That very same govt traded drugs for guns in the eightys. So my point is blaming the banking industry for taking advantage of the people is wrong the movement should be taking issue with the govt.