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
NotesâI 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 Bottomâs annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have,â 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 âOccupyâ protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last nightâs 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
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
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. Itâs the same brand, though the police use a 7 percent formula. Itâs not clear whether this formula matches exactly what the police used.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 doesnât 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
Notes<blockquote>âThis 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, itâs kinda scary,â 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 havenât 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 didnât directly state was spam social media with anti-Occupy Wall Street propaganda.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. âDude, all the laptops are in a row," he tells us, baffled and raking his shock of brown hair. "Theyâve all been smashed with bats.â When asked about the mangled property, LiPani admits that, inevitably, certain items couldâve been damaged in the shuffle: âIâm not surprised,â he says, to hear of damaged laptops. He adds that the DSNY is providing clearance forms to those occupiers concerned their property mayâve 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
NotesMany of us have been wondering why the raids on Occupy camps across the country have had such a coordinated feel. If only the official response to real social ills could have been as timely and widespread as the crackdown on peaceful demonstrators expressing their freedom of speech, assembly, and the press covering their protest. An article at Examiner.com was understandably derided as being under-sourced for a charge as serious as a national DHS crackdown on non-violent protests. However, we have now received confirmation via Amy Goodman's interview on the 11/17 episode of Democracy Now! with PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler that this private NGO coordinated high-level conference calls amongst 40 police chiefs, distinct from the mayoral "therapy session" referred to by Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, in order to broadcast advice and documentation about cracking down on the Occupy social movement.Unfurl
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
NotesIn 1997, environmentalists were staging a sit-in against the cutting of old forest in Humboldt county. The police sprayed pepper spray directly into the protesters eyes in similar fashion to what happened in UC yesterday and then used liquified pepper spray and applied it directly to the protesters eyes with q-tips. I'm not kidding. There's video:Unfurl
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
NotesDAVIS (CBS13) â Law enforcement officials defended the tactics used Friday to dismantle an encampment set up by âOccupy Wall Streetâ sympathizers on the UC Davis quad, a raid that drew accusations of excessive force from students after sitting protesters were subjected to pepper spray at point-blank range.FeedUnfurl
NotesMSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" broke the story today of a memo by Washington D.C. lobbyists to the American Bankers Association on how to go about discrediting the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is evidently perceived as a powerful threat to the interests of the financial industry.Unfurl
NotesThis idea crystallized for me yesterday when Jonathan Glick, a long-time digital journalist, tweeted, "I think #OWS was working better as an API than a destination site anyway." If you get the idea, go ahead and skip ahead to the documentation below. If you don't get, let me explain why it might be the most useful way of thinking about #Occupy. FeedUnfurl
Notes NYPD cracking down on Occupy Wall Street protesters near the New York Stock Exchange on the November 17 Day of Action in NYC. Photograph by Jon Tayler (web), Columbia School of Journalism student, reporter, photographer. Via @katz, also as seen on The Awl. Unfurl
NotesI was there to take down the names of people who were arrested⊠As Iâm standing there, some African-American woman goes up to a police officer and says, âI need to get in. My daughterâs there. I want to know if sheâs OK.â And he said, âMove on, lady.â And they kept pushing with their sticks, pushing back. And she was crying. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he throws her to the ground and starts hitting her in the head,â says Smith. âI walk over, and I say, âLook, cuff her if sheâs done something, but you donât need to do that.â And he said, âLady, do you want to get arrested?â And I said, âDo you see my hat? Iâm here as a legal observer.â He said, âYou want to get arrested?â And he pushed me up against the wall.Unfurl
NotesâSomething funny happened on my way to a transportation meeting in Northgate. As I got off the bus at 3rd and Pine I heard helicopters above. Knowing that the problems of New York would certainly precipitate action by Occupy Seattle, I thought I better check it out. Especially since only yesterday the City Government made a grandiose gesture to protect free speech. Well free speech does have its limits as I found out as the cops shoved their bicycles into the crowd and simultaneously pepper sprayed the so captured protesters. If it had not been for my Hero (Iraq Vet Caleb) I would have been down on the ground and trampled. This is what democracy looks like. It certainly left an impression on the people who rode the No. 1 bus home with me. In the womenâs movement there were signs which said: âScrew us and we multiply.ââUnfurl
NotesRemember when people were freaking out over the Patriot Act and Homeland Security and all this other conveniently ready-to-go post-9/11 police state stuff, because it would obviously be just a matter of time before the whole apparatus was turned against non-Muslim Americans when they started getting complain-y about the social injustice and economic injustice and income inequality and endless recession and permanent unemployment? That day is now, and has been for some time. But itâs also now confirmed that itâs now, as some Justice Department official screwed up and admitted that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated the riot-cop raids on a dozen major #Occupy Wall Street demonstration camps nationwide yesterday and today. (Oh, and tonight, too: Seattle is being busted up by the riot cops right now, so be careful out there.) FeedUnfurl
NotesIn aggressively clearing them from the park, Bloomberg spared them that fate. Zuccotti Park wasnât 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 Americaâs 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
NotesKayvan Sabeghi, a veteran of the US Army Rangers, is in the ICU at Oakland's Highland General Hospital after a clash with Oakland PD during the Occupy Oakland protests. Sabeghi claims he was "jumped" by OPD officers who severely beat him and subsequently denied him medical treatment. Unfurl
NotesIf you watch the video, you can hear Campbell repeatedly ask the police if "this is okay?". I think it's safe to assume that Campbell was verifying with the police if it was okay to film them and if he was at a proper distance from the police line. He asks this question multiple times before continuing to film. Hearing nothing back, Campbell films the rest of the police line at a respectable distance until... he gets shot by an asshole police officer. What the hell? You can see the rubber bullet (bean bag? another projectile?) being fired and hitting Campbell in the video.Unfurl
NotesTheyâre fighting you, winning big-time, and youâre the loser. Itâs 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
NotesIn the middle of an Occupy Chicago teach-in this week, traders at the Chicago Board of Trade dumped several sheets of paper on top of the heads of protesters below. Demonstrators were angered to find out they were showered with employment applications for McDonaldâs.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 âJeremy.â The quote was from a satirical piece by columnist Mark Schatzker, entitled âOccupy Toronto: The one-week anniversary party.â Above that headline was the word, âSatire.âUnfurl
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 âincensedâ about all the pressure being brought to bear on his bank and its shady practices. In other words, what Moynihan is saying is: âThe pressure is working. Keep it up.âUnfurl
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
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
Lt. John Pike Pepper Sprays Sitting Protesters, Boss âVery Proudâ of Her Officers - International Business Times
Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis - YouTube
Daily Kos: Confirmed: Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) coordinating Occupy raids
Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi | UCDavis Bicycle Barricade
UC Davis Police Pepper-Spray Seated Students In Occupy Dispute (VIDEO) (UPDATES)
Police Defend Use Of Force On âOccupy UC Davisâ « CBS Sacramento
A Guide to the Occupy Wall Street API, Or Why the Nerdiest Way to Think About OWS Is So Useful - Technology - The Atlantic
Are police becoming militarized? - CNN.com
Cops defend posting Occupy protester photos
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
