NotesThe Democrats are challenging that win-win story of American capitalism. Their contention is that the U.S. economy is failing the middle class. They argue that those at the top need to contribute “a little more” to help rebuild the American middle. Even more threateningly, they point out, as in their critique of Bain Capital, that some of the business strategies that have enriched the elite have actually hollowed out the middle.Unfurl
NotesAccording to law enforcement sources and police reports obtained by the Tribune, the arrests were the result of a monthlong investigation into a group suspected of making Molotov cocktails — crude bombs usually created by filling glass bottles with gasoline.
But the National Lawyers Guild criticized the police raid, saying the nine NATO protesters only had beer-making equipment in their possession.Unfurl
NotesOccupy Wall Street went up to protest at Lincoln Center last night during a performance of Philip Glass' opera Satyagraha. New Yorker music critic Alex Ross was there and captured the protest on video, which included Glass himself reading the closing lines from the opera, amplified to the crowd by the people's mic. It is an amazing scene.FeedUnfurl
NotesLet me float that the encampments are fundamentally about using government power against itself. By staking out a little ground and saying, "No, the government does not rule this space," it gets the mayors and police chiefs worked up. They deploy their increasingly militarized police officers to say, "Yes, the government does rule that space." Then, the protesters link arms and chant, and the riot cops come in with pepper spray and batons. FeedUnfurl
NotesORLANDO, Fla. -- The Republican Governors Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build. But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up: How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street?Unfurl
NotesMoney talks, but not loud enough for the 99%. By circulating dollar bills stamped with fact-based infographics, Occupy George informs the public of America's daunting economic disparity one bill at a time. Because money knowledge is power.Unfurl
Notes“I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have,” Mayor Bloomberg said.Unfurl
NotesWhen a series of crackdowns on the Occupy camps suddenly occurred in, more or less, the same week, many observers wondered if perhaps the attacks had been coordinated at a national level. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan confirmed that suspicion during an appearance on the BBC - excerpted on The Takeaway radio program - when she casually mentioned taking part in a conference call with the leaders of 18 US cities right before the raids.Unfurl
NotesOver the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict “Occupy” protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night’s move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.Unfurl
NotesSo, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not. Unfurl
NotesIt was a sorry sight. Only 1,273 books - a third of the stock - were returned to them, they said, and around a third of those were damaged beyond repair. Only about 800 are still usable. About 2,900 books are still unaccounted for.”FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesIf we know anything about the recent income and accumulated assets of the now notorious 1%, it is that much of this wealth, by any rational standard, is undeserved. This applies especially to the Wall Street bankers who looted the global economy with sleazy tactics and, sadly, also with impunity.
That is why, if I was the editor in charge of any news organisation, I would flatly ban the use of the word "earned", when "profited" or "made" (as in money) would be much more accurate, or at least neutral. I would not try to say who "deserved" profits; only that profits were made.Unfurl
NotesWhat happened at UC Davis was the inevitable result of our failure to make sure our government stayed in the business of defending our principles. When we stopped insisting on that relationship with our government, they became something separate from us.Unfurl
Notes To some, pepper spray is a mild, temporary irritant and its use has been justified as cities and universities have sought to regain control of their streets, parks and campuses. After the video at Davis went viral, Megyn Kelly on Fox News dismissed pepper spray as “a food product, essentially.”
To the American Civil Liberties Union, its use as a crowd-control device, particularly when those crowds are nonthreatening, is an excessive and unconstitutional use of force and violates the right to peaceably assemble. Unfurl
NotesIn the name of due diligence, TPM called up UC Davis to make sure we identified the same pepper spray police used on protesters last week. It’s the same brand, though the police use a 7 percent formula. It’s not clear whether this formula matches exactly what the police used.Unfurl
Notes Another truth co-exists. At least since the Republican National Convention of 2004, our police have grown accustomed to forcibly penning, arresting, and sometimes spraying and whacking protesters and reporters. On Monday, The New York Times and 12 other organizations sent a letter of protest to the Police Department. “The police actions of last week,” the authors said, “have been more hostile to the press than any other event in recent memory.” Unfurl
NotesWhy New York's Zuccotti Park is filled with people is no mystery. Reporters keep scratching their heads and asking: "Why are you here?" But it's clear they are occupying Wall Street because Wall Street has occupied the country. And that's why in public places across the country workaday Americans are standing up in solidarity. Did you see the sign a woman was carrying at a fraternal march in Iowa the other day? It read: "I can't afford to buy a politician so I bought this sign."Unfurl
NotesBut if Rove thinks Occupy doesn’t present a clear message, why is he spending millions of dollars to attack them? Similarly, CLGC staffers are political professionals with many Wall Street clients, and the memo shows how seriously they consider the threat presented to powerful financial firms by the Occupy protests.FeedUnfurl
NotesThe genius of this approach is how insidious its effects are: because the rights continue to be offered on paper, the citizenry continues to believe it is free. They believe that they are free to do everything they choose to do, because they have been “persuaded” — through fear and intimidation — to passively accept the status quo. As Rosa Luxemburg so perfectly put it: “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” Someone who sits at home and never protests or effectively challenges power factions will not realize that their rights of speech and assembly have been effectively eroded because they never seek to exercise those rights; it’s only when we see steadfast, courageous resistance from the likes of these UC-Davis students is this erosion of rights manifest.Unfurl
Notes<blockquote>“This was a tough scene to walk into. This was 50 people and before you knew it, it probably grew close to 200. When you encircle a group of officers that are just trying to do their jobs, it’s kinda scary,” she said.</blockquote>
Those poor, scared, armored and armed police officers.Unfurl
NotesIn short, they are going to run a smear campaign that would use the same Fox News talking points that haven’t worked so far. They are going to claim that George Soros is funding Occupy Wall Street, and that the movement is being run by the Democratic Party. Most troubling is their plan to carry surveillance on social media. They are going to monitor the social media used by OWS and what they intend to do that the memo didn’t directly state was spam social media with anti-Occupy Wall Street propaganda.Unfurl
Notes The dramatic photo of a young woman getting a blast of pepper spray on her face during a mostly peaceful Occupy protest in Portland is destined to become an enduring image of the national movement.Unfurl
Notesit was as if someone along the way purposefully destroyed all confiscated electronics, a strategic smashing of at least part of the digital record logged by full-on occupiers. “Dude, all the laptops are in a row," he tells us, baffled and raking his shock of brown hair. "They’ve all been smashed with bats.” When asked about the mangled property, LiPani admits that, inevitably, certain items could’ve been damaged in the shuffle: “I’m not surprised,” he says, to hear of damaged laptops. He adds that the DSNY is providing clearance forms to those occupiers concerned their property may’ve been mishandled or misplaced.Unfurl
NotesFavorite: Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis, by terrydatiger Title says all. During peacefully Occupy Movement, police came in to tear down tents and proceeded to arrest students who stood in their way. Once students peacefully demanded the release of the arrested, a polic...EmbedUnfurl
NotesI call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesWASHINGTON -- On Friday, a group of University of California, Davis students, part of the Occupy Wall Street movement on campus, became the latest victims of alleged police brutality to be captured on video. The videos show the students seated on the ground as a UC Davis police officer brandishes a red canister of pepper spray, showing it off for the crowd before dousing the seated students in a heavy, thick mist. Unfurl
NotesIn aggressively clearing them from the park, Bloomberg spared them that fate. Zuccotti Park wasn’t emptied by weather, or the insufficient commitment of protesters. It was cleared by pepper spray and tear gas. It was cleared by police and authority. It was cleared by a billionaire mayor from Wall Street and a request by one of America’s largest commercial real estate developers. It was cleared, in other words, in a way that will temporarily reinvigorate the protesters and give Occupy Wall Street the best possible chance to become whatever it will become next. Unfurl
Notesust how bad is the civil unrest associated with the Occupy protests in some U.S. cities?
This bad: There is an online petition calling on California Gov. Jerry Brown to send the National Guard to protect Occupy Oakland protesters from the city's police department.Unfurl
NotesThe irony is that they are just playing into the hands of those in the 1% who want to see this cultural uprising squashed. They are the Kent to Prof. Terry Hathaway.Unfurl
NotesThey’re fighting you, winning big-time, and you’re the loser. It’s just one generation since conservatives put Reagan in office: In those three short decades the income and wealth of the top 1% has tripled while the income of the bottom 99% of all Americans has stagnated or dropped.
...
Yes, folks, America really is under attack daily. We are fighting on the defense in an historic class warfare. Yes, the Rich Class really did start this war. And yes, they really are winning, big-time. And yes, they are addicted to winning at all costs, to get richer and richer just for the sake of getting richer and richer. Unfurl
NotesThe skin is pallid, the cheeks touched with pink. The eyes are holes. And the smile is frozen, set forever, a fixed uncanny moustachioed grin above a devilish goatee beard.Unfurl
NotesThis how to properly engage with police when they do suspicious things. We were riding by on bikes and noticed hes hiding his name and has no badge number. SO we decided to ask him. He did not answer, we asked a ranking officer is that policy? The LT. quickly went about fixing his attitude. This is a common practice among cops at occupy's around the US .That way he/she cannot be named or referenced if he participates in police miss-conduct . Its in most police departments policies that all officers in uniform must show some form of identification. OPD does not wear badges with #'s, how do we hold anyone accountable?EmbedUnfurl
Notes The conversation continues with Detroit philosopher and activist Grace Lee Boggs. Grace has more than 70 years experience as a movement activist and offers this message to the 99%.EmbedUnfurl
NotesJon Stewart started out on tonight's Daily Show by acknowledging that the Occupy Wall Street movement resonates with many people across the country. Except for "one small caveat." Stewart then replayed footage from a previous episode in which he warned the movement against violence, followed by ...Unfurl
Notes<blockquote>TL;DR - I handed out flyers. The bankers panicked and called their private security people, then more private security and finally the cops. That's when they found out that they didn't have a leg to stand on</blockquote>
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NotesThe Portland (Ore.) Police Bureau is posting photos of Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested in that city onto its Facebook page, and this has got some members of the public buzzing.Unfurl
NotesProblem is, there is no “Jeremy.” The quote was from a satirical piece by columnist Mark Schatzker, entitled “Occupy Toronto: The one-week anniversary party.” Above that headline was the word, “Satire.”Unfurl
NotesA favorite conservative pastime since the financial crisis of 2008 struck is to try and deflect blame away from Wall Street and its excesses and onto Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and government housing policy. No matter how many times the theory that the government mortgage giants caused the crisis gets debunked, it keeps on coming back to life.Unfurl
NotesVia Crooks & Liars we learn that Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan is “incensed” about all the pressure being brought to bear on his bank and its shady practices. In other words, what Moynihan is saying is: “The pressure is working. Keep it up.”Unfurl
Show me what a police state looks like! (Graphic! Dial-up warning!) - Democratic Underground
Philip Glass speaks at Occupy Wall Street
Why Occupy? - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic
How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street | The Ticket - Yahoo! News
Occupy George
The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy | Naomi Wolf | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
OccupyYourBrain - Bloomberg the Book Burner - Bloomberg the Book Burner
Occupy language: the struggle over meaning | Dan Gillmor | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
America Occupies Wall Street Because Wall Street Occupies America
Memo Reveals How Seriously Powerful Interests Take OWS | The Nation
The roots of the UC-Davis pepper-spraying - Salon.com
Lt. John Pike Pepper Sprays Sitting Protesters, Boss ‘Very Proud’ of Her Officers - International Business Times
Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - YouTube
Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi | UCDavis Bicycle Barricade
UC Davis Police Pepper-Spray Seated Students In Occupy Dispute (VIDEO) (UPDATES)
Are police becoming militarized? - CNN.com
Occupy's V for Vendetta protest mask is a symbol of festive citizenship | Jonathan Jones | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
fuck yeah dementia!!1!
Cops defend posting Occupy protester photos
Daily Kos: A Voice From the 1%
Oakland Policeman Throws Flash Grenade Into Crowd Trying To Help Injured Protester
Veteran Scott Olsen Could Be The First Person To Die At A Wall Street Protest
Scott Olsen injuries prompt review as Occupy Oakland protests continue | World news | guardian.co.uk
