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As Occupy Enters Third Month, a Look at How Protesters Are Building a Global Movement

17 Nov

And one of the things that I found most fascinating was a woman named Marisa Holmes, who I think has been on the show before and said, you know, at those early meetings, a lot of the traditional left groups walked out, and they weren’t there, and it left artists and media makers and writers and people who just were sort of thinking in terms of imagination rather than kind of very strict, you know, policy 10-point programs. And I think that’s key to what happened, is that imagination.

via As Occupy Enters Third Month, a Look at How Protesters Are Building a Global Movement.

Surprise, Homeland Security Coordinates #OWS Crackdowns

16 Nov

But it’s also now confirmed that it’s 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.

via Surprise, Homeland Security Coordinates #OWS Crackdowns.

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Occupy Wall Street Organizers Consider Value of Camps – NYTimes.com

16 Nov

OWS is like the little boy who said “the emperor has no clothes.” Everyone knew it, that the 1% were running away with a rigged game, but everyone didn’t know that everyone knew. Now we do. What do we do with that knowledge?

Still, some acknowledged that the crackdowns by the authorities in New York and other cities might ultimately benefit the movement, which may have become too fixated on retaining the territorial footholds, they said.

“We poured a tremendous amount of resources into defending a park that was nearly symbolic,” said Han Shan, an Occupy Wall Street activist in New York. “I think the movement has shown it transcends geography.” …

Marina Sitrin, a postdoctoral fellow at the City University of New York who is involved in the movement, said its influence would continue to ripple out. People are already assembling to address local issues in Harlem and Brooklyn, she said. “There’s so much more than Zuccotti Park,” she said.

Indeed, with winter looming, it seemed possible that Occupy Wall Street’s encampment would end on its own as the cold drove people away.

Maurice Isserman, a history professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., said New York City officials might have done Occupy Wall Street a favor “by providing a dramatic ending.”

Still, the encampments were an effective way of generating coverage, both in mainstream media and in the rest. Thus think of the 100s of thousands of photos and videos people have taken and posted to their blogs. How do we generate that coverage now?

via Occupy Wall Street Organizers Consider Value of Camps – NYTimes.com.

Occupy Wall Street Library Removed as NYPD Evicts Protesters

15 Nov

If true, it’s a crime that speaks loudly, very loud:

Fliers were handed out during the protester removal, according to several reports, with a message from Brookfield Properties (the owner of Zuccotti Park) and the City of New York telling protesters to remove all property immediately or it would be taken and stored in a Department of Sanitation facility at 650 West 57th Street in Manhattan. Property could be picked up by owners with proper identification as of noon today, according to the notice.

It is unknown if the library books were taken to that site. A post on the Occupy Wall Street Library website said that “it was clear from the livestream and witnesses inside the park that the property was destroyed by police and DSNY workers before it was thrown in dumpsters.”

via Occupy Wall Street Library Removed as NYPD Evicts Protesters.

On the eve of destruction – Occupy Oakland – Salon.com

15 Nov

But Occupy Oakland can’t fight police violence with violence. The movement’s high point may have been the Nov. 2 general strike, which grew out of mass revulsion at the police tactics used to tear down the camp the week before. At least 10,000 people joined a day-long peaceful protest that culminated in closing down the Port of Oakland, with the support of the traditionally radical longshoremen’s union. But the movement began sliding downhill the same day, first when splinter groups broke windows and vandalized storefronts during the peaceful march, despite efforts by the vast majority of protesters to either stop or discourage the violence. Then that night about 200 people broke into and occupied a downtown building, inviting new clashes with cops. Videos showed members of the violent faction even attacking other Occupy Oakland supporters, and some fervent occupiers began to claim that the violence was coming from outsiders unaffiliated with the Occupy movement.

via On the eve of destruction – Occupy Oakland – Salon.com.

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Police Oust Occupy Wall Street Protesters at Zuccotti Park – NYTimes.com

15 Nov

The police move came as organizers put out word on their Web site that they planned to “shut down Wall Street” with a demonstration on Thursday to commemorate the completion of two months of the beginning of the encampment, which has spurred similar demonstrations across the country.

The move also came hours after a small demonstration at City Hall on Monday by opponents of the protest, including local residents and merchants, some of whom urged the mayor to clear out the park.

Before the police moved in, they set up a battery of klieg lights and aimed them into the park. A police captain, wearing a helmet, walked down Liberty Street and announced: “The city has determined that the continued occupation of Zuccotti Park poses an increasing health and fire safety hazard.”

The captain ordered the protesters to “to immediately remove all private property” and said that if they interfered with the police operation, they would be arrested. Property that was not removed would be taken to a sanitation garage, the police said.

via Police Oust Occupy Wall Street Protesters at Zuccotti Park – NYTimes.com.

The New Progressive Movement – NYTimes.com

13 Nov

OCCUPY WALL STREET and its allied movements around the country are more than a walk in the park. They are most likely the start of a new era in America. Historians have noted that American politics moves in long swings. We are at the end of the 30-year Reagan era, a period that has culminated in soaring income for the top 1 percent and crushing unemployment or income stagnation for much of the rest. The overarching challenge of the coming years is to restore prosperity and power for the 99 percent.

via The New Progressive Movement – NYTimes.com.

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How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests | Politics News | Rolling Stone

13 Nov

We’re a nation that was built on a thousand different utopian ideas, from the Shakers to the Mormons to New Harmony, Indiana. It was possible, once, for communities to experiment with everything from free love to an end to private property. But nowadays even the palest federalism is swiftly crushed. If your state tries to place tariffs on companies doing business with some notorious human-rights-violator state – like Massachusetts did, when it sought to bar state contracts to firms doing business with Myanmar – the decision will be overturned by some distant global bureaucracy like the WTO.

via How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests | Politics News | Rolling Stone.

Occupy the Home Front: Why Veterans Are Deploying With the 99 Percent | The Nation

11 Nov

Olsen is recovering. But his wounding inspired an outcry from veterans. IVAW and VFP members marched in New York earlier this month with banners that read: “I Am a Veteran, and I am the 99%” and “Still Serving My Country.”

According to a statement from IVAW: “Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War marched to draw attention to the ways veterans have been negatively affected by the economic and social issues raised by the growing movement. The veterans hope the march will help encourage more veterans’ and service members’ to take an active role in the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

Veterans for Peace declared that: “These ‘occupy movement’ participants are telling us something we need very desperately to hear. They should be listened to, not arrested and brutalized.”

via Occupy the Home Front: Why Veterans Are Deploying With the 99 Percent | The Nation.

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The Inequality Map – NYTimes.com

11 Nov

This is an amusing piece by David Brooks. As you can see, it takes the form of advice to a foreigner about what kinds of inequality are acceptably displayed in America and what kinds must be hidden. On a quick read the advice appears to be reasonable. And so Brooks opens:

Foreign tourists are coming up to me on the streets and asking, “David, you have so many different kinds of inequality in your country. How can I tell which are socially acceptable and which are not?”

After cruising through this that and the other, Brooks gets to the what surely is the heart of the piece:

Income inequality is acceptable. If you are a star baseball player, it is socially acceptable to sell your services for $25 million per year (after all, you have to do what’s best for your family). If you are a star C.E.O., it’s no longer quite polite to receive an $18 million compensation package, but everybody who can still does it

That, of course, is NOT what the Occupy Wallstreeters are saying. Notice how he defuses the issue. His first and primary example is that of a star athlete. Everyone knows the best of the best get paid outlandish sums of money, and everyone knows THAT’s not what’s being protested. It’s the corporate CEOs—thanks for mentioning one, David—and bankers. And what’s bothersome is not simply the huge sums of money, but the sense that it’s not earned. What’s bothersome is that these folks have distorted the system so they get piles and piles of loot without really earning it. But then, Brooks doesn’t want us to think about THAT, does he? No the whole purpose of this piece is to make us forget that.

Then more examples of this and that until Brooks reaches his acceptably bland conclusion:

Dear visitor, we are a democratic, egalitarian people who spend our days desperately trying to climb over each other. Have a nice stay.

That is, just business as usual. NOT. Business as usual is NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE. Deal with it, Mr. David “Flim Flam Man” Brooks. And have a nice day.

via The Inequality Map – NYTimes.com.

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