Tag: Occupy Wall St.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

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OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

Microphones, speakers and bull horns have been banned from use because they lack the permit required by NYC, so when Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz spoke at Liberty Square on Sunday he used the “Peoples’ Microphone”. He was joined by New York Times book reviewer a and economics columnist, Jeff Madrick and looked like he was having a really good time:

It was rather amazing how this just emerged in the middle of Zuccotti park AKA LIBERTY SQUARE. The “people’s mic” check occurred, and suddenly we were listening to two important economists of our time speak to the protestors.

Great point about bullhorns…

Stiglitz is one of the most frequently cited economists in the world. It was great to hear the two of them speak, informally, in this magical setting. All types of people were listening, many folks were recording sound and visuals. The rain had stopped and a question and answer session had followed.

We Are All Human Microphones Now

by Richard Kim

Anyone who’s been down to Occupy Wall Street and stayed for a General Assembly will instantly recognize the call and response that begins, and frequently interrupts, each meeting.

“Mic check?” someone implores.

“MIC CHECK!” the crowd shouts back, more or less in unison.

You see, New York City requires a permit for “amplified sound” in public, something that the pointedly unpermitted Occupy Wall Street lacks. This means that microphones and speakers are banned from Liberty Plaza, and the NYPD has also been interpreting the law to include battery-powered bullhorns. Violators can be sentenced for up to thirty days in prison. Further complicating the matter is the fact that Liberty Plaza is not actually a public park. It’s privately owned by Brookfield Office Properties, landlords to Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, and in addition to amplified sound, they’ve also sought to ban sleeping bags, tents and other equipment from what they call “Zuccotti Park.”

Suffice to say, despite all the attention given to how Twitter, Facebook and livestream video have helped spread the word, the heart of the occupation is most definitely unplugged. But the protesters aren’t deterred one bit; they’ve adopted an ingeniously simple, people-powered method of sound amplification. After the mic check, the meeting proceeds:

with every few words / WITH EVERY FEW WORDS!



repeated and amplified out loud / REPEATED AND AMPLIFIED OUT LOUD!

After his rousing speech Prof Stiglitz appeared on Lawrence O’Donnell’s The Last Word where he discussed discussed the movement and gives some advice to the GOP:

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

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OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

For those who still don’t understand what motivates this protest that has spread across the US and gained the world’s attention even before the so-called progressives finally stopped negating it, here is the statement of grievances from the  Occupy Wall Street NYC General Assembly:

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on september 29, 2011

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

The entire list is below the fold.

And a special h/t to RiaD for her article with the links and videos to many of the web sites and facebook page for Occupy Wall Street.

From OccupyWallStreet:

JP Morgan Chase recently donated $4.6 Million to the NYPD, coincidence?

New York City Police Foundation – New York

JPMorgan Chase recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation. The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the New York City Police Department to strengthen security in the Big Apple. The money will pay for 1,000 new patrol car laptops, as well as security monitoring software in the NYPD’s main data center.

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly sent CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon a note expressing “profound gratitude” for the company’s donation.

“These officers put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe,” Dimon said. “We’re incredibly proud to help them build this program and let them know how much we value their hard work.”

And Matt Yglesias is an idiot who thinks that “this looks like a well-timed investment as direct action protests against banks gain steam”:

To my way of thinking, this is a healthy dynamic. I’m not a radical anti-capitalist. But something you saw during the Cold War was that the possibility of radical anti-capitalists taking over helped create incentives for the business class to ensure that the “free world” organized market economies in a way that was broadly beneficial.

From Stephen Eldridge in comments:

Seems to be the better dynamic would be to tax these people more and give the money to the police that way.

Occupy Boston protesters plan rush hour rally

By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff

Demonstrators who have descended on Boston’s Financial District — one of several such demonstrations erupting across the country — plan a round of protests tomorrow that could snarl traffic in the city.

The protesters, who decry what they see as the economic hardships of ordinary Americans, said they will rally during the morning rush hour near their base, across from South Station and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

The group, called Occupy Boston , is inspired by Occupy Wall Street, a demonstration entering its third week in Manhattan’s Financial District that led to the arrest of 700 people Saturday on charges of blocking the Brooklyn Bridge. The effort has spread to dozens of communities nationwide, with tens of thousands of people participating.

In Boston, the protests had been building for several days, and on Friday swelled to about 1,000 in Dewey Square. Police arrested 24 people on trespassing charges when they refused to leave the Bank of America building nearby.

‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests spreading to Canada

As police clamped down on anti-Wall Street protesters over the weekend, Toronto activists said they are planning similar demonstrations against corporate greed later this month.

Organizers from a group called Occupy Toronto plan to descend on the city’s financial district on Oct. 15 at 10 a.m. The event is inspired by Occupy Wall Street, a group of demonstrators which has camped out near New York’s Financial District for two weeks.

Similar protests are being planned that day for Calgary, Montreal, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Ottawa, Vancouver and Victoria, according to the website Occupy Together, which bills itself as an unofficial hub for similar demonstrations worldwide.

Occupy Toronto had its first meeting on Sept. 29, according to its website. As of Sunday afternoon, more than 3,000 people had “liked” their Facebook group and more than 800 people had confirmed attendance at the Oct. 15 occupation.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

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OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

UPDATE: Cops Accused Of Trapping Wall Street Protesters On Brooklyn Bridge For Mass Arrests

NickS reports:

   Please make clear that the police setup the demonstrators. From talking to people before the match started, it was not my sense that a large number of people intended to be arrested. (thought we were all prepared with the NLG phone number, etc). When we got to the bridge, the police made no effort to keep people off the roadway even though they helped control traffic as we crossed the street.

Van Jones Praises Occupy Wall Street, Says Progressives Launching ‘October Offensive’ To Rival Tea Party

Former White House adviser Van Jones says that progressives are going to launch an “October offensive” to rival the Tea Party, in the spirit of the Arab Spring protests across the Middle East.

“Everybody should hold onto their seats. October is going to be the turning point when it comes to the progressive fight back. You can see it coming,” Jones said this week on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

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OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

Wall Street protesters march on police

More than 1,000 people marched past City Hall and arrived at a plaza outside police headquarters in the late afternoon. Some held banners criticizing police, while others chanted: “We are the 99 percent” and “The banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”

Workers from the financial district on their way home watched as the marchers passed, with some saying it was not obvious what outcome organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement wanted.

Police observed the march and kept protesters on the sidewalk, but no clashes were reported. Police said no arrests were made before the protest dispersed peaceably by 8 p.m. after the march.

AFL-CIO’s Trumka Hails Occupy Wall Street

by John Nichols

Declaring that “Wall Street’s out of control,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has embraced street protests such as the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations-and others like them that are planned for cities across the country.

Asked about the ongoing mass protest in New York’s financial district, which has begun to gain support from major unions, Trumka said Friday morning: “I think it’s a tactic and a valid tactic to call attention to a problem. Wall Street is out of control. We have three imbalances in this country-the imbalance between imports and exports, the imbalance between employer power and working power, and the imbalance between the real economy and the financial economy. We need to bring back balance to the financial economy, and calling attention to it and peacefully protesting is a very legitimate way of doing it.”

Hailing the power of street protests to shift the dialogue, Trumka said, “I think being in the streets and calling attention to issues is sometimes the only recourse you have because, God only knows, you can go to the Hill, and you can talk to a lot of people and see nothing ever happen…”

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

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OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

New York Unions are at last coming out to support Occupy Wall St:

Despite the common cause, the city’s established left did not initially embrace the protest, which began Sept. 17 and has been made up mostly of young people angry about the widening income chasm in the country, the growing influence of money on politics and police brutality, among other issues.

But as the action nears the start of its third week, unions and community groups are eager to jump on board. They are motivated perhaps by a sense of solidarity and a desire to tap into its growing success, but undoubtedly by something else too-embarrassment that a group of young people using Twitter and Facebook have been able to draw attention to progressive causes in a way they haven’t been able to in years.

The protestors have transformed the park into a village of sorts, complete with a community kitchen, a library, a concert stage, an arts and crafts center and a media hub. All of that has enabled them not just to sustain the action but to build momentum. And as celebrities like Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Russell Simmons and Cornel West have joined in, the city’s traditional activists have been forced to jump into the fray.

“It’s become too big to ignore,” said one political consultant.

Some of the biggest players in organized labor are actively involved in planning for Wednesday’s demonstration, either directly or through coalitions that they are a part of. The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are all expected to participate. The Working Families Party is helping to organize the protest and MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks to drum up support for the effort.

“We’re getting involved because the crisis was caused by the excesses of Wall Street and the consequences have fallen hardest on workers,” a spokesman for TWU Local 100 said.

Transport Workers Union Votes Unanimously to Support Occupy Wall Street

We spoke to TWU Local 100’s spokesman Jim Gannon, who told us that the executive board voted unanimously last night at their regular monthly business meeting to support Occupy Wall Street. TWU Local 100 has 38,000 members, the vast majority of whom work in New York City transit. (TWU has 200,000 members in 22 states.) Gannon said, “A motion was brought up to endorse the protests’ goals; I don’t know why it took us so long to do it. Right now we’re going to be involved in a march and rally on the 5th of October. We’ll gather at City Hall at 4:30 and march to Zuccotti Park.”

Why did they join? “Well, actually, the protesters, it’s pretty courageous what they’re doing,” he said, “and it’s brought a new public focus in a different way to what we’ve been saying along. While Wall Street and the banks and the corporations are the ones that caused the mess that’s flowed down into the states and cities, it seems there’s no shared sacrifice. It’s the workers having to sacrifice while the wealthy get away scot-free. It’s kind of a natural alliance with the young people and the students — they’re voicing our message, why not join them? On many levels, our workers feel an affinity with the kids. They just seem to be hanging out there getting the crap beaten out of them, and maybe union support will help them out a little bit.”

Union Members, Wall Street Protesters to Converge at Police Plaza

The pepper-spraying incident has galvanized support for the protesters, said Alex Vitale, a Brooklyn College sociologist who will be at the Friday’s rally on Police Plaza.

“It’s turned something that was a fairly small group of people, operating somewhat under the media radar, into something that’s getting significant press coverage and a lot of support,” he said.

Vitale is one of several members of the executive council of CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress – a union of 20,000 faculty and staff – who have signed on to a statement condemning the pepper-spraying of several female protesters last Saturday by Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna. The incident, which was caught on video that subsequently went viral, has prompted an investigation by the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau.

Protest Police Harassment, Brutality & Attacks

When:Fri, September 30, 4pm – 5pm

Where: Liberty Square (map)

Description:

** In order not to conflict with the already called demonstration at One Police Plaza on Friday, this action is now moved to FRIDAY and MARCHES TO ONE POLICE PLAZA

NO TO THE NYPD CRACKDOWN ON WALL ST. PROTESTERS

NO TO STOP-AND-FRISK IN AFRICAN AMERICAN & LATINO NEIGHBORHOODS NO TO SPYING AND HARASSMENT OF MUSLIM COMMUNITIES STOP THE RAIDS & DEPORTATIONS

The NYPD is out of control!

Come out FRIDAY 4:00 at the Occupy Wall Street site, Broadway & Liberty, for a demonstration and MARCH to One Police Plaza

JOIN THE DEMONSTRATION FRIDAY AGAINST POLICE HARASSMENT AND STATE REPRESSION AND FOR JOBS, SCHOOLS AND HEALTHCARE

For more information call the Solidarity Center 212-633-6646 Called by BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE MOVEMENT

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

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OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

Keith Olbermann interviewed Matt Taibbi of Rolling about the movement and the lack of media attention.

Occupy Wall St. may be gaining strength but it’s not without its critics on the left. Many have applauded the movements support of the 99% in the lower rings of the ladder who will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption if the 1% on the top but the group had indeed yet to articulate any specific demands. While it may be performing a crucial roll in helpng to educate the uninformed abouthow they have been victimized by Wall St. and the “To Big To Fail” banks, the deliberate, almost lack of organization, the self-styles leaderless resistance movement and its refusal to articulate demands, could both hamper its growth and slow its being taken as seriously as it would like to be.

Glenn Greenwald also weighed in on the reasons for the scorn for the protest:

It’s unsurprising that establishment media outlets have been condescending, dismissive and scornful of the ongoing protests on Wall Street.  Any entity that declares itself an adversary of prevailing institutional power is going to be viewed with hostility by establishment-serving institutions and their loyalists.  That’s just the nature of protests that take place outside approved channels, an inevitable by-product of disruptive dissent: those who are most vested in safeguarding and legitimizing establishment prerogatives (which, by definition, includes establishment media outlets) are going to be hostile to those challenges.  As the virtually universal disdain in these same circles for WikiLeaks (and, before that, for the Iraq War protests) demonstrated: the more effectively adversarial it is, the more establishment hostility it’s going to provoke.

Nor is it surprising that much of the most vocal criticisms of the Wall Street protests has come from some self-identified progressives, who one might think would be instinctively sympathetic to the substantive message of the protesters.  In an excellent analysis entitled “Why Establishment Media & the Power Elite Loathe Occupy Wall Street,” Kevin Gosztola chronicles how many of the most scornful criticisms have come from Democratic partisans who — like the politicians to whom they devote their fealty — feign populist opposition to Wall Street for political gain.

One of the chief complaints, besides the “leaderless” and lack of a list of specific demands, that has been heard coming from the left is attire, as Kevin Gosztola noted in his FDL article:

Liberals have shown scorn, too, suggesting the occupation is not a “Main Street production” or that the protesters aren’t dressed properly and should wear suits cause the civil rights movement would not have won if they hadn’t worn decent clothing.

Even the liberal Mother Jones was critical:

Liberals have shown scorn, too, suggesting the occupation is not a “Main Street production” or that the protesters aren’t dressed properly and should wear suits cause the civil rights movement would not have won if they hadn’t worn decent clothing.

Both articles, Greenwald’s and Gosztola’s, need to be read in full to understand not just the reasons that the media is ignoring this movement but why and how Occupy Wall St. happened and continues.

Occupy Wall St. Is now spreading across the country:

‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest slowly spreads across the United States

The protest spread to other cities over the weekend.

A small group of “Occupy Los Angeles” demonstrators marched through the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to show their support for the protesters in New York City.

“Corporate interests seem to be controlling both parties,” one protester told LAActivist.com. “The ‘little man,’ the ‘American every man,’ just isn’t getting their voice heard. When you need $35,000 to donate to a campaign to get your voice heard, to have a meeting, that’s not democracy.”

“Occupy Los Angeles” protesters plan to begin a demonstration at City Hall on October 1. The “Occupy Los Angeles” Facebook page had nearly 2,000 likes as of Tuesday afternoon.

Another demonstration popped up in Chicago over the weekend. Around 20 “Occupy Chicago” protesters gathered at Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower, on Friday and then marched to the Federal Reserve Bank. Some protesters have remained camped out in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the organizers said the “occupation” had grown from 4 people to about 50.

Other “occupation” protests are being planned for Detroit, Denver, Cleveland, Boston, Phoenix, Seattle, Kansas City, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. The site occupytogether.org has been set up in hopes of coordinating the protests.

I have a message for the the so-called “Left”:

Get off your butts and get behind this movement because unless you are part of the 1%, they are YOU.

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OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protestors Rejuvenated by Michael Moore Support

A surprised group of dedicated protestors were greeted to a morale boost on Monday evening when the well-known filmmaker and author Michael Moore came out to Lower Manhattan to talk about something he is extremely familiar with, social activism.

Moore came around 7 p.m. to New York’s Zuccotti Park where the “Occupy Wall Street” protestors have set the stage for their protest against corporate greed and its social and economic impact on the United States.

Moore told protestors, “Change has to start somewhere. Why not here?”

He added, “A lot of people, they end up… doing well and they forget about who they are and where they come from.”

Moore came at a good time, as protestors were in their 10th day of the movement and fatigue from staying outdoors was likely seeping in, especially following a weekend march where over 80 people were arrested around New York’s famous Union Square.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Keith Olbermann reports on Occupy Wall St. and the “clear case of police brutality”. Going into its eleventh day, the protest has finally started to get attention from the media, sadly, not because of the mission of the protest to bring attention on the abuses of Wall St and the banks but because of the over-reacton of the NYC Police Department to an essentially peaceful demonstration and obvious police brutality.

The movement has received attention in the world press such as the Guardian UK and Al Jazeera. Also filmmaker and activist Michael Moore has taken up the cause, visiting the site and Noam Chomsky announced his solidarity adding to the encouragement of the protesters to continue bring their message about corporate greed and social inequality. It was also revealed that the white shirted police officer who maliciously maced the young women on Saturday has been accused of civil rights violations at the time of the 2004 Republican national convention protests.

In case anyone has missed the reason of Occupy Wall St. here it is:

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.

The occupation will continue and if you can’t be there, please, donate.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

A Message From Occupied Wall Street (Day Eight)

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If you wait long enough, they will come but not necessarily to join you.

Glenn Greenwald Tweets the media hypocrisy

The corrupting effects of journalistic “objectivity” and Occupy Wall Street: http://is.gd/QuxYmY Paging @jayrosen_nyu

America’s future rallies near Wall Street- Lend them an ear!

t’s hard to walk in lower Manhattan without noticing a dense police presence. At first a passerby is likely to think that the NYPD is there to protect the 9-11 Memorial, but soon they’ll realize that it’s something else. There’s a protest happening nearby.

A few blocks away  there are about 1000 young people assembled- they’re playing instruments, dancing happily and carrying signs that say things like The American Dream is a Pyramid Scheme, Stop Wall Street Greed, Americans Against Bankster Parasites and so on…

“We’re peacefully protesting economic injustice,” says seventeen year old Lucas Vazquez, “We don’t believe that politicians from either party are going to make things better for us.”

The “we” he’s referring to is a movement that goes by names like “General Assembly” and  “Occupy Wall Street”.  Vazquez says its aim is to create a participatory democracy.

Should Blacks Answer Obama’s Call To March By Joining ‘Occupy Wall Street’?

N A ROUSING SPEECH delivered at the 41st Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference, President Obama urged African Americans to keep the faith as African Americans struggle against a 17 percent unemployment rate and 40 percent poverty rate for their children.

snip

Obama said he was “going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now… [but] I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on.”

As it happens the most potent protest to occur in recent decades is occurring at this moment in New York where ‘Occupy Wall Street’ is calling attention to the U.S.’s “corporate greed and corrupt politics.” Eighty protesters were arrested Saturday.

‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protesters Regroup at Liberty Plaza With Pizza, Tales of Battle

The Observer arrived at Liberty Plaza-the site of the camps, kitchen and “media tent” holding up the backend of the “Occupy Wall Street” protest that has been going for six days-just after 3:30 p.m.

Today’s march, which started on Wall St. and headed up to Washington Square Park and then to Union Square-was winding its way back, having lost a few dozen good men to police custody, a.k.a. an out-of-service MTA bus. A protester, Josh Lewis, is tweeting from zipties on the bus, which he reports made its way eventually to 1 Police Plaza.

If you can’t be there in person: DONATE

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The silence of the traditional media on the Wall St. protest that has been going on for a week is deafening. As Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore point out of this were the Tea Party, it would be all over TV and the papers. Last, Mr. Moore expresses his outrage of over the murder of Troy Davis by the State of Georgia and his support of the Innocence Project and Get Out the Vote in Georgia.

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