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Occupy Wall Street, Saturday Evening

danps's picture
Submitted by danps on Sun, 09/25/2011 - 1:24pm
Tags: 
Occupy Wall Street
occupywallstreet
ourwallstreet

UPDATE An actual, sensible, and strategic "one demand":

"The central message is that in this country, there needs to be more conversation about wealth and power," said 23-year-old student Patrick Bruner (see here).

Who could be against that? And look what's being done to prevent it! Kudos.

UPDATE For Sunday morning, I'm stickying this, unless somebody else wants to start a new thread. See Yves here and the comments. From the Barcalounger and subject to correction by those on the ground: What I would say, re the arrests, is that if the story is now "police brutality" then we've lost control of the narrative of this event and should go on to another experiment. The real story, of course, should be the self-organizing capacities of the occupiers since, after all, isn't the real question at issue who gets to organize what and why? I'm sure the social capital accumulated in the course of Occupy Wall Street is huge, though of course that's not "the story" and never will be. Put that on the balance sheet, let go of the sunk costs, and move on. Bold, persistent experimentation. --lambert]

UPDATE 10:24PM EST Liberty Plaza lined with candles (via) --lambert

UPDATED at end with ride share info and new links

Looks like there is a huge police presence and lots of arrests.

IWW chair reportedly being held; request for help here.

Female protester getting maced:


Pics here, here, and here. Pic of press conference here.

Live stream here.

Please add links and info in comments. This was very hastily put together and it looks like there's a lot of uncertainty at the site right now.

Ride sharing via Craigslist. If you're looking for a ride from your city, replace "boston" in the link below with your home: http://boston.craigslist.org/search/rid?query=new+york+city&srchType=A. For example, DC: http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/search/rid?query=new+york+city&srchType=A. Hope that helps!

This from lambert in comments:

"It's difficult for the media to build a narrative because this is a leaderless protest," said Patrick Bruner, the bony 23-year-old, dressed in a black t-shirt and black pants, who was orchestrating the public relations effort. Mr. Bruner, a recent graduate with an English degree, lives in Bed-Stuy and has been looking for a job for months–he heard about the protest by word-of-mouth and headed down to Liberty Plaza last week to volunteer. He shaved his punkish haircut this morning after reading a New York Times story that portrayed the protest as a motley crew of anarchists, hippies and delinquents.

Cf. JuliaWilliams comment on this:

The FDR liberal impulse is to jump immediately into pre-formed, almost traditional, policies and to prematurely suck off the energy into electoral politics. As process, we (and they) should work the process and hold off on electoral commitments as long as we can.

There's great value in not having set demands, and this occupation is illustrating it brilliantly. It's a sytemic critique; how does one boil that down to one demand?

From DCblogger in comments, this:

Occupy Wall Street and Sotheby's art handlers have joined forces under the banner of fighting for worker's rights and protesting corporate greed. Yesterday, members of Occupy Wall Street, an ongoing camp-out/protest in New York's financial district, disrupted a Sotheby's art auction to show their solidarity with the union art handlers of Teamsters Local 814 who have been locked out of their jobs since early August.
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Submitted by DCblogger on

from the comments

I was unemployed, broke, selling my own blood to survive when I decided to enlist in the US Army. Soldiers are part of the 99%. Soldiers are pressed into service to avoid poverty, unemployment, and high education costs. The student loan system is destroying hope in education to provide a better life. Soldiers sacrifice their families, their sanity, their limbs, and their lives fighting in dumb wars against enemies that are no threat to the USA. SUPPORT THE TROOPS! USE THEM WISELY! No more dumb wars. People deserve a change to get educated and succeed in a good job without fighting wars against non threatening enemies.

this is why no one will anything about unemployment, without unemployment we would have no army.

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Submitted by DCblogger on

Occupy Wall Street Protest Being Systematically Ignored by Mainstream Media

Death and Taxes has been down to the Occupy Wall Street protest and assemblies a number of times since its inception on September 17th. In that time, most of the reporting has been done by independent media—they can be seen everywhere at the encampment. And when corporate media does decide to get involved, it conveniently reports around the time of an arrest.

And how would corporate media know when the arrests were going to take place?

Submitted by jawbone on

on both stations, two different women (one had been maced by an officer, the other's sister arrested, iirc) used the line of not blaming the beat cops, said they were there to protect everyone, there was some overreaction among both protesters and police. Both said cops had been supportive and they supported them.

Definitely a tactic to not make the police the enemy. They are they are there to call out Wall Street, and as one guy put it, the two parties who have done next to nothing to aid those not in the Top One Percent.

Impressive PR on the part of the protesters. But, it took 80-odd arrests to get this much coverage. And one reporter talked abouy "violence and chaos," words designed to scare off viewers from joining in.

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Submitted by danps on

It's really good to hear what local news is reporting.

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Submitted by DCblogger on

Tea Party Crashes ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protest, Finally Brings Press To Event

Up until now, there has been virtually no press coverage for the event. Just a smattering on some news outlets, with a little more coverage on liberal news outlets such as MSNBC and Current. However in recent days, a group of five Tea Party members have set up a lawn chairs directly across the street from the Wall Street protesters, so that they can protest “this liberal agenda of shutting down capitalism.” Since arriving on the scene, news trucks from around the world have focused their attention on this protest of the protest by these few Tea Party Patriots.

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Submitted by DCblogger on

I will look for confirmation

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Submitted by DCblogger on

Occupy Wall Street News Suppressed

The interesting Occupy Wall Street protests are growing since their inception on the 17th of Sept. The news media has either trivialized it (NY Times) or suppressed coverage (CNN, etc.) on behalf of unstated special interests. One can assume that bankers and the city government of NYC does not want to give anyone any ideas. That said a scan of out-of-state Craigslist postings for ride sharing to NYC for the sole purpose of joining these protests is increasing. Episodes of police brutality on otherwise friendly and non-violent protesters will make matters worse as the NYC city officials grows inpatient with the crowd. The on the ground crowd estimates vary widely but the number of protesters in not insignificant. This could be the final straw that kills big media if they do not step up and cover this story immediately.

There are good home brew videos available that are being taken down for no apparent reason by You Tube.

Submitted by lambert on

See here. Not buying it. My policy is "bold, persistent experimentation."

I see no reason to crystallize the many demands into one demand for the sake of communicating through the media. For one thing, anybody who's waiting for our famously free press to explain things to them accurately should be really low on our list right now. For another, organic, organic, organic. Let the word be spread peer-to-peer and the demand be constructed in a General Assembly.

Submitted by jawbone on

caller who asks why the Wall Street protests are being ignored.

In this thread, second comment (couldn't figure out how to link to comment).

Basically, NPR reporter and National Journal guy both said they'd already done in depth reporting on the fiscal crisis and covering the protesters was unnecessary. Immediate pivot to how protesters are using social media...just like Arab Spring protesters.

Over and out.

Submitted by lambert on

Here:

“It’s difficult for the media to build a narrative because this is a leaderless protest,” said Patrick Bruner, the bony 23-year-old, dressed in a black t-shirt and black pants, who was orchestrating the public relations effort. Mr. Bruner, a recent graduate with an English degree, lives in Bed-Stuy and has been looking for a job for months–he heard about the protest by word-of-mouth and headed down to Liberty Plaza last week to volunteer. He shaved his punkish haircut this morning after reading a New York Times story that portrayed the protest as a motley crew of anarchists, hippies and delinquents.

Like "Clean for Gene!"

Submitted by lambert on

Suite 101:

Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno from The Yes Men have become involved in the demonstrations. Described as 'culture jamming, anti-corporate activists', the couple were the stars of their eponymous 2003 documentary film, The Yes Men. Mr Bonanno staged an 'umbrella flash mob', whereby demonstrators suddenly erected umbrellas, spelling out 'Occupy Wall Street' from the viewpoint of passing traffic.

On September 22nd 2011, they brought a special guest speaker into Liberty Plaza. Otpor! (Resistance!) helped to foster public opinion against Slobodan Miloševic in their native Serbia, then have used their activist expertise to help in other actions across the world. Ivan Marovic from Otpor! was brought to Liberty Plaza by the Yes Men, where he headed a training session.

That's really awesome.

On Otpor, see here. And for another view, see the subject line here.

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Submitted by DCblogger on

OccupyWallStreet Invades Sotheby’s Auction in Solidarity with Locked-Out Art Handlers

Occupy Wall Street and Sotheby’s art handlers have joined forces under the banner of fighting for worker’s rights and protesting corporate greed. Yesterday, members of Occupy Wall Street, an ongoing camp-out/protest in New York’s financial district, disrupted a Sotheby’s art auction to show their solidarity with the union art handlers of Teamsters Local 814 who have been locked out of their jobs since early August.

Submitted by lambert on

Very smart PR on that! Also, unions....

danps's picture
Submitted by danps on

I've updated the post with your link. Thanks!

Submitted by jawbone on

next they'll come for the rain ponchos covering people's personal electronics, cameras, cell phones.

C'mon, an umbrella? Really?? That'll stand up in court???

Oh, right. It's not getting it to stick in court; it's to get rid of the equipment for the immediate near time frame....

Weather report: Rain on and off, some heavy, entire week through Friday. Saturday finally supposed to be clear with high in mid-60's.

Submitted by jawbone on

order, something about "authority," one for assaulting a police officer. More charges, iirc.

However, failure to obey could certainly be used against someone trying to protect (expensive) media equipment by sheilding it with his or her body. Once an order is given, most police brook no questions, requests for explanations, etc. That is insubordination.

Probably won't hold up in court, but, again, that's not the immediate goal.

Submitted by lambert on

Here:

On Thursday night, with police massing after a surprise march and several arrests, Liberty Plaza had a visitor: Ivan Marovic of the Serbian resistance movement Otpor!, which helped bring down Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Joined by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno from The Yes Men, he made a speech expressing his solidarity with the occupiers and reminded them that the world is, indeed, watching. Afterward, while talking with some of the occupation’s organizers, he suggested how to take a different approach in encounters with the police.

“Show that you don’t find them personally responsible for what they’re doing, and that you understand the position that the government puts them in,” he said. “Almost feel sorry for them.” That kind of sympathy has been sometimes heard on the plaza and during marches, especially when protesters claim to be fighting for the police themselves and their families. But Marovic also stressed that this takes more than just an attitude—it takes organization. “There needs to be an internal capacity inside the movement that will diffuse these hostile confrontations.”

The strength of a civil resistance movement is not, after all, in the loudness of its chants. The NYPD has the manpower and firepower to deal with a few hundred angry protesters, or a few thousand. But a small number of people can make an outsized impact if they reverse the equation, if they render the weapons of the police inert. This is, for instance, how James Lawson and a small cadre of students were able to desegregate Nashville lunch counters thanks to careful training and a staunch refusal to compromise with what they knew was wrong.

Ding ding ding ding!

Submitted by jcasey on

No sign of T-partiers on Livestream feed, nor have there been any comments about them in the accompanying chat room. I have been watching for the last couple of hours.

It's really quite moving. There are evidently conflicting rumors going around the Square. The cops are either "coming in heavy" later tonight when fewer people are watching, or they aren't gong to do anything tonight. (Well, yes. It will be one way or the other.)

In my mind I can just see the Mayor saying, "This can't go on any longer. It's been a fracking week already!" One of his advisors replies, "But Sir, while it may be true most Americans don't even know anything's up, these hippies do have an international audience at the moment, on the Internet. Let's just wait until everyone gets bored and goes home."

Submitted by lambert on

http://twitter.com/USDayofRage/status/117781063136317440

Submitted by lambert on

Their coverage here. I think the focus on cops vs. kids is understandable, but mistaken. For one thing, the possibilities of solidarity and fraternization are real and should not be underestimated. "All walks of life" can include the military (Egypt) and the police (Madison, WI). See Marovic's comment here.For another, and definitely From the Barcalounge: the very last thing we want to do is reinforce the elite narrative of violence. I don't think the occupiers have sufficient "good will" on the balance sheet for that, yet.

Submitted by jawbone on

challenges to Israeli ambassador at a speaking event guilty of censoring free speech.

What does our having a Bill of Rights mean nowadays? Except for Tea Party types and the NRA, those rights are not actively protected it seems.

LATimes article via Sean Paul at The Agonist.

Gotta say that if the Egyptian government had handled things as the US does, via local police in massive numbers in relation to the demonstrators, stupid enforcement of regs and laws, Mubarrack might still be in office.

Submitted by jawbone on

announced the US had developed Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) weapons, which could also be used for crowd control.

A viisiting professor was observing G20 protests in Pittsburgh in 2009 and was in an area where Pittsburgh police used an LRAD. She felt nauseous, dizzy, and fluid flowing from her ear; she is suing for permanent hearing loss.

I hope NYPD don't have this weapon --er, crowd control device-- or won't use it if they do. They did use their favorite orange plastic fencing for netting and corraling protesters.

AFP article posted by Tina at The Agonist.

Submitted by jawbone on

Noted fewer arrests today, showed yesterday's video of the young women being pepper sprayed inside the netting, and noted that the young woman holding her hands out was shouting, "Stay peaceful." Stand up reporter said square was filled with chants, posters as protesters "raged" about "every outrage in the country." Puhleeeeze!

Brief soundbite of protester (electrician, iirc) decrying looting and fraud on Wall Street. Then brief video of crowd closest to speaker's stand repeating words of speaker so rest of crowd could hear -- no explanation of why this method used.

Then brief video of guy who was trying to photograph cop getting ready to pepper spray a protester, but cop noticed the camera, spun around and sprayed the guy directly in his eyes.

Violence leads...but a bit of messaging got out. I hope.

Suggestion: Work on some soundbites people can pull out of their memories when a microphone shows up....