[the British] government always kept a kind of standing army of news writers who without any regard to truth, or to what should be like truth, invented & put into the papers whatever might serve the minister
[the British] government always kept a kind of standing army of news writers who without any regard to truth, or to what should be like truth, invented & put into the papers whatever might serve the minister
Michael Moore just stopped by Liberty Plaza and spoke at the Occupy Wall Street gathering. Say what you will about Michael Moore, his visit should be a good thing for drawing attention to the movement. Of course, it's sure to draw some negative framing, too. Regardless, his message was on point. He called out the thieves of the financial industry. He called for a perp walk. He called for accountability. He called for taxation of the 1%.
Anyhow, an inspirational moment. I'm sure the speech shall soon follow.
And the Hedges interview... great stuff!
We discover ourselves to be characters in a novel, being both propelled by and victimized by various kinds of coincidental forces that shape our lives. ... It is as though you trapped the mind in the act of making reality. - Terence McKenna
Noam Chomsky gives his support to #OCCUPYWALLSTREET Noam Chomsky Announces Solidarity With #occupywallstreet Published 2011-09-26 10:57:09 UTC by OccupyWallSt
Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street -- financial institutions generally -- has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called "a precariat" -- seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity -- not only too big to fail, but also "too big to jail."
The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course.
[the British] government always kept a kind of standing army of news writers who without any regard to truth, or to what should be like truth, invented & put into the papers whatever might serve the minister
Occupy Wall Street - Official Demands Written by Occupy Wall Street
The Sovereign People's Movement, represented nationally through the people occupying the various Liberty Square locations across this great country, have laid out and democratically submitted and are currently voting on the list of following Demands to then be distilled into one Unified Common demand of the people.
Special Note!!! Read this before you comment or vote!
This document is a living breathing document updated daily but solely based on the votes for the items included within it.
This is how it works: After reading the list of publised proposals, if you have a point that is not already proposed that you would like added, simply submit it in the comments section at the bottom. The Suggestions are added to the ballot found Here so that they can be voted on by the people.
Proposals remain on this official page as long as the vote maintains a 2/3 majority,
You may vote once per IP address and view the current results Here
If you disagree with any of the items below, or think they should not be included please click Here to voice your vote and lobby among your friends and contacts to drop the majority below 2/3 majority. Do not add it in the comments section.
Please! Please! Please! Do not respond or comment to proposed or active demands. Please use the voting system. the numbers in the polling will naturally resolve your feelings democratically. If you strongly agree or disagree with proposed Demands. lobby your cause and get the votes up to represent your opinion.
After the Closing date, (shown on each Poll Item) and voting has officially closed, the remaining options will be consolidated into one poll on which the people will vote for the 1 ONE Common Demand.
This is a one vote one person movement.
There is no electoral college. There is no political authority. There is no ultimatum. There is no "or else". There is no compromise, There is only; We the Free people of the world demand the following:
[the British] government always kept a kind of standing army of news writers who without any regard to truth, or to what should be like truth, invented & put into the papers whatever might serve the minister
^^It's enough to make a mammal wish some think tank would step in and organize this stuff a little bit. That poll system is all kinds of fucked. If anyone is wondering if I could do it better, the answer is yes, for a living. I don't because I'm not involved and get a dozen conflicting answers about who's in charge -- which is a reliable sign that nobody is. I've got Anonymites telling me that Coup Media isn't "official" but that raises the awkward question of WTF is anymore.
That pastebin dump on Anthony Bologna? 120 seconds on google could get you more. That was weaksauce, yet it's been reported/sold as an "Anonymous" action.
I rather get the impression their movement has been given just enough rope.
Doug Henwood had an interesting critical report on it here.
The big media have largely ignored the OWS protest (though if you’re part of a certain kind of network on Facebook, you can’t miss it). Called first by Adbusters with only the most minimal agenda, it’s taking on a life of its own, as people trickle in from all over. And I do mean minimal—the agenda is supposed to evolve spontaneously. When I talked with one of the organizers last week, she told me that they merely hoped “to build the new inside the shell of the old,” and though that sounds seductively wonderful, I’m not sure how robust such an approach can really be.
Or, to quote the event’s Facebook page, named in the now-ubiquitous hashtag fashion (#OCCUPYWALLSTREET):
we zero in on what our one demand will be, a demand that awakens the imagination and, if achieved, would propel us toward the radical democracy of the future
I don’t think that has Lloyd Blankfein trembling in his shoes. Not that I know what could make him tremble, aside from a few quarterly losses for Goldman.
... I was skeptical of this at first, and I still am. There’s no agenda at all. It’s mostly about process—meaning consensus. There’s no organization to speak of. But maybe people will just keep trickling in and it will grow and persist and something good could come of it. Word is that some buses will be coming in from Wisconsin soon. At some point, though, I fear the NYPD will stop putting up with a semi-permanent occupation of a small park. I hope not. But if you’re listening to this, and are in a position to head to lower Manhattan, check it out. Zuccotti Park, at the corner of Broadway and Liberty St.
A buddy of mine just called it "protest as performance art" and "the first emergent attempt at Augmented Reality protest action" -- gotta love potheads, but he makes a great point. He says their one demand has been implicit since the beginning and will never change: Attention.
The Now-Infamous NYPD Pepper-Spraying of #OccupyWallStreet Protesters By: Kevin Gosztola Monday September 26, 2011 8:10 pm
The incident involving a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer unloading a canister of pepper spray on a few female protesters at the Occupy Wall Street protest on Saturday has garnered much attention. It is responsible for the huge uptick in media coverage and renewed interest in the occupation in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.
The officer that unleashed the spray on protesters has had his personal details posted on the Internet. His name is Antony Bologna. The Guardian’s Karen McVeigh reports he was accused of “civil rights violations at the time of the 2004 Republican national convention protests.”
The Guardian has learned that the officer, named by activists as deputy inspector Anthony Bologna, stands accused of false arrest and civil rights violations in a claim brought by a protester involved in the 2004 demonstrations at the Republican national convention.
Then, 1,800 people were arrested during protests against the Iraq war and the policies of president George W Bush.
Alan Levine, a civil rights lawyer representing Post A Posr, a protester at the 2004 event, told the Guardian that he filed an action against Bologna and another officer, Tulio Camejo, in 2007. The case, filed at the New York Southern District Court, is expected to be heard next year.
OccupyWallSt.org has posted three videos that show different angles of the pepper-spraying. The New York Times has also posted a report on the incident and the NYPD’s reaction to video of it.
First, establishment media like the NYT ridiculously write, “Video appears to show Wall Street protesters being pepper-sprayed.” The protesters are quite clearly being sprayed. There is no “appears.” The NYT report cites the annotated version so casting doubt as to whether the protesters were sprayed with some chemical substance is ridiculous.
The NYT reports NYPD chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, contends the officer used the pepper spray “appropriately.” It is not surprising that the spokesman would reflexively defend the action. What is absurd is that Browne continues and says the spray was used after “individuals confronted officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier — something that was edited out or otherwise not captured in the video.”
The video shows the moving cage or “mesh barrier” is already deployed. The female protesters are penned. In the screenshot above, one protester has her hand on her face and is freaking out at the conduct of the police. Others about to be sprayed have cameras outstretched or are close to the barrier trying to get a good look at people being thrown around by police. The police can be heard telling people to get back, but the videographer asks him if he wants them to go into the parking garage because there really isn’t much space for them to go anywhere.
The NYPD is depending on the fact that they are the NYPD and can make up whatever story they want. They are counting on the reality that whatever they say will have some credibility because the media would not disregard it even if reporters can look at video evidence and call bullshit.
In suggesting protesters have “edited” video, the NYPD is doing what any security force would do. Recall, the Israel Defense Forces said this about those massacred on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The protesters were not killed like those on the flotilla. That is not why this comparison is being made. The comparison is made to show that this force believes they can get away with the act that took place by discrediting the video, which is not edited at all. It runs continuously and clearly shows an officer walking up to target the protesters. The females are not pushing and making it difficult for the NYPD to contain the protesters at all.
It is reported, “Police made arrests in the area on charges not only of disorderly conduct and impeding traffic, but also of inciting to riot and assaulting a police officer.” The issue of blocking traffic is not disputed in the report, which is problematic.
The police have escorted all the marches since the occupation began. The police let the Saturday march step off and allowed it to reach the street area, where the harassment and violence by police took place. They were in charge of crowd control. Their inability to keep the protest moving and then their decision to roll out moving cages and corral protesters because they were “obstructing” traffic is in effect why traffic stopped moving. If protesters are allowed to keep walking the sidewalks or street, all is well. They move out of the area onward to another part of the city and the traffic can get through. And pedestrians who are not part of the protest do not end up detained or in a few cases arrested.
Additionally, the NYT spoke to a retired deputy chief about the pepper spraying:
“We don’t use it indiscriminately like other cities do,” said Thomas Graham, a retired deputy chief who until last year commanded the department’s Disorder Control Unit. “You’re not just spraying indiscriminately into a crowd.”
Police officers, he said, “have the choice between spraying the guy or struggling with the guy with the night stick,” he said, adding, “Get poked with a nightstick good and hard and you might have a cracked rib from that.”
Two problems arise here. Posing the idea that it’s better to be pepper-sprayed than hit with a police baton is a conceited excuse for setting off a chemical weapon on protesters. And, whether it is used more in New York or not doesn’t justify the use of the spray either.
Occupy Wall Street has called for Officer Bologna to be charged with committing a crime and do jail time. They also “demand Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly resigns” asserting Kelly is sheltering officers from punishment. They demand Mayor Michael Bloomberg “address our General Assembly and apologize for the police brutality and the cover-up that followed.” And, add:
This was an attempt to make us weak, this was an attempt to destroy or derail our message, our conversation. It has not succeeded. We have grown, we will grow. Today we received unconfirmed reports that over one hundred blue collar police refused to come into work in solidarity with our movement. These numbers will grow. We are the 99 percent. You will not silence us.
The organizers are very bold in their belief that the NYPD should pay. The movement should fight against the measures taken, which implicitly if not explicitly make people afraid of exercising their right to peaceably assemble.
It is easy to suggest the organizers will never see a single NYPD officer punished. But, then, that is cynical. The movement is boldly taking on the financial system and along with challenging Wall Street they must also call out and make demands of the security state, which has transformed Wall Street into a Green Zone shielding corporate criminals from having to face angry and passionate Americans fed up with economic injustice in America.
Here’s video of the pepper-spraying incident, if you haven’t seen it already (in addition to the spraying, one woman is pulled over the barrier and tugged by her hair across the pavement):
Lawrence O'Donnell on Police Brutality at Occupy Wall Street
====
ONLINE SEPTEMBER 26, 2011 Why I Was Maced at the Wall Street Protests Jeanne Mansfield
My boyfriend Frank and I are heading toward Liberty Square to check out what’s going on at the Occupy Wall Street protest, when we stumble upon the afternoon march toward Union Square. So we join up and walk along behind. The crowd looks like maybe 300 people, mostly punk-styled kids and folks carrying their computers (for live streaming, we found out later) and some aging-hippie types. People are beating drums, blowing whistles, carrying signs, and chanting: “Banks got bailed out, you got sold out!” and “We are the 99 percent!” and “All day, all week, occupy Wall Street!” and of course the classic “This is what democracy looks like!” All in all, it starts out as a pretty good time. There are police, but for the most part they are walking behind the group casually, just beat cops bantering and laughing, keeping an eye on things. There are around 30 of them. We reach Union Square, circle it a couple times, and join the human microphone. The human microphone consists of one person speaking or shouting, and then everyone within earshot repeating, thus, a human amplifier, albeit with some delay. After about fifteen minutes, we are on the move again, the crowd spurred toward the United Nations by the messages transmitted from the human microphone. As we circle Union Square, about twenty NYPD officers haul out orange plastic nets (the kind used to fence off construction sites) and close off the road, diverting the crowd. But the detour, too, is closed, leaving us only one option: straight down Broadway. The lighthearted carnival air begins to get very heavy as it becomes clear that we are being corralled. The main group, about 150 protesters, keeps on down the street, but the police are running behind with the orange nets, siphoning off groups of fifteen to twenty people at a time, classic crowd control. A new group of police officers arrives in white shirts, as opposed to dark blue. These guys are completely undiscerning in their aggression. If someone gets in their way, they shove them headfirst into the nearest parked car, at which point the officers are immediately surrounded by camera phones and shouts of “Shame! Shame!” Up until this point, Frank and I have managed to stay ahead of the nets, but as we hit what I think is 12th Street, they’ve caught up. The blue-shirts aren’t being too forceful, so we manage to run free, but stay behind to see what happens. Then things go nuts. The white-shirted cops are shouting at us to get off the street as they corral us onto the sidewalk. One African American man gets on the curb but refuses to be pushed up against the wall of the building; they throw him into the street, and five cops tackle him. As he’s being cuffed, a white kid with a video camera asks him “What’s your name?! What’s your name?!” One of the blue-shirted cops thinks he’s too close and gives him a little shove. A white-shirt sees this, grabs the kid and without hesitation billy-clubs him in the stomach.
One of the blue-shirts, tall and bald, stares in disbelief and says, ‘I can’t believe he just fuckin’ maced her.’
At this point, the crowd of twenty or so caught in the orange fence is shouting “Shame! Shame! Who are you protecting?! YOU are the 99 percent! You’re fighting your own people!” A white-shirt, now known to be NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, comes from the left, walks straight up to the three young girls at the front of the crowd, and pepper-sprays them in the face for a few seconds, continuing as they scream “No! Why are you doing that?!” The rest of us in the crowd turn away from the spray, but it’s unavoidable. My left eye burns and goes blind and tears start streaming down my face. Frank grabs my arm and shoves us through the small gap between the orange fence and the brick wall while everyone stares in shock and horror at the two girls on the ground and two more doubled over screaming as their eyes ooze. In the street I shout for water to rinse my eyes or give to the girls on the ground, but no one responds. One of the blue-shirts, tall and bald, stares in disbelief and says, “I can’t believe he just fuckin’ maced her.” And it becomes clear that the white-shirts are a different species. We need to get out of there. The other end of the street is also closed off, and we are trapped on this one block along with about twenty frustrated pedestrians. My eye is killing me and I’m crying, partially from the pain and partially from the shock of the violence displayed by these police. A shirtless young “medic” with ripped cargo shorts, matted brown hair, and two plastic bottles slung around his neck runs up to me and says, “Did you get pepper sprayed? Okay here, tilt your head to the side, this isn’t going to feel great,” at which point he squirts one of the plastic bottles of white liquid into my left eye, then tilts my head the other way and does the other eye, then repeats with water. Then he unties the white bandanna from his wrist and wipes my eyes with it saying, “You’ll be okay, this is my grandfather’s bandanna, he got through Korea with it, and if he got through that, then you’re going to get through this. Just keep blinking.” Thanks to the treatment—liquid antacid, pepper-spray antidote—the burning behind my eyes subsides. A woman with two little girls in tow walks up to a cop at the end of the block and explains that they just need to get to ballet, but he won’t let them through. The woman seems to accept this, turns to the girls, thinks for a second, then marches straight to the edge of the fence at the corner of the building. A different officer sees them coming and, understanding their situation, lets them through. So Frank and I bolt for the same opening and escape. The farther away we get, the more normal everyone starts to look. People have no clue about what’s happening just five or six blocks down. Frank and I say maybe two words to each other the whole five-hour bus ride home. Just for the record, I love cops. I do, my mother worked in the justice system for 30 years, and I’ve known a lot of really good cops, really good honorable people just doing their jobs. I’ve never agreed with the sentiment, “Fuck the Po-lice,” and I still don’t. But these guys are fucked up. There was an anger in those white-shirt’s eyes that said, “You don’t matter.” And whether they were just scared or irrational or looking for a target for their rage, there was no excuse for their abuse of authority. I had always thought that people who complained about police brutality must have done something to provoke it, that surely cops wouldn’t hurt people without a really good reason. But they do. We were on the curb, we were contained, we were unarmed. Pepper spray hurts like hell, and the experience only makes me wish I’d done something more to deserve it. --- http://bostonreview.net/BR36.5/jeanne_m ... street.php
by Plutonia » Mon Sep 26, 2011 11:06 am 
I think I should join the Raging Grannies.
