#OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign - September 17

[Jeff]

It's a shitty, cold, rainy day, but in all honesty, evicting the tents and tarps and turning Zuccotti Park into a gated community may have been the best thing for the movement. Without a comfortable home, they've stepped up the roving direct action something fierce.

Thanks for that heartening report, Bruce. Though, as you just added:

Live stream is reporting that the NYPD is raiding the park.

http://www.ustream.tv/TheOther99

The media seemed on the verge of making this a campers' rights action. Today looks like a beautiful push-back on that.

Of course it's critical for OWS to reclaim the commons, but that can be done on the move. Keeping things fluid - or maybe, being able to switch instantly from a solid to a liquid - will be the health of movement.

[AlicetheKurious]

There's a very good article by Glen Greenwald at Salon: OWS-inspired activism

Nothing highlights the validity of the movement’s core grievances more than watching a piggish billionaire Wall Street Mayor — who bought and clung to his political power using his personal fortune — deploy force against marginalized citizens peacefully and lawfully protesting joblessness, foreclosures and economic suffering. If Michael Bloomberg didn’t exist, the Occupy protesters would have to invent him.

[Jeff]

The park was opened, and as it was filled it was barricaded. No way in or out. Reports of beatings and bloodied protesters. Mass arrest expected.

[Bruce Dazzling]

Zuccotti Park is open again.

Witnesses are reporting that a protester had been kicking the barricade, and that he ran when multiple cops jumped the barricade, chased him down, and tackled him from behind. It was at this point that he hit his head on a cement curb. On the live stream, I saw a photo of him with blood-matted hair. He looked like quite a mess.

[Jeff]

Marching to Union Square now, it looks like.

[thurnundtaxis]

On my way to Union Square!

[Jeff]

On my way to Union Square!

Reporters For Right-Wing Publication Daily Caller Beaten By NYPD, Helped By Protesters

By Zaid Jilani on Nov 17, 2011 at 1:20 pm

The right-wing Daily Caller website has been anything but kind to Occupy Wall Street, even going so far as to condemn the protest movement as generating riots, murder, and arson.

But when a couple of Daily Caller employees were at Occupy Wall Street this morning, it was the very protesters they had been demonizing who ended up helping them out. Daily Caller reporter Michelle Fields — who faced off with actor Matt Damon earlier this year over education policy — and videographer Direna Cousins both claim they were attacked by the New York Police Department (NYPD) while covering the raucous protests in the Financial District today. Fields added that Occupy Wall Street protesters immediately came up to her to offer their help:

“Direna had a camera in her hand and I had a microphone, and we were being hit,” she said. “When I fell to the ground I said at one point, ‘I’m just covering this! I’m covering this!’ And the officer just said, ‘Come on, get up, get up,’ before pulling me up by my jacket.’” “The protesters came up to me right away and asked if I needed any medical assistance. They were actually very kind and helpful. It was the police officers who were very aggressive,” Fields added.

...

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/1 ... rotesters/

[Bruce Dazzling]

Any charitable feelings I can muster for police right now are down to this man.

(I'd like some more examples, officers.)

Here's another interview with the recently arrested Captain Ray Lewis.

[Jeff]

Huge crowd right now at Union Square.

http://www.ustream.tv/theother99

[JackRiddler]

.

I was there this morning & hope both to give a report and to make Union Square later. I presume that's where it will still be happening. It's the best choice. This has reached the stage where it needs to be done for crowds, not locations.

.

[Bruce Dazzling]

.

I was there this morning & hope both to give a report and to make Union Square later. I presume that's where it will still be happening. It's the best choice. This has reached the stage where it needs to be done for crowds, not locations.

.

They seem to be leaving Union Square and they're still planning to get to Foley Square by 5.

I should be there by 5:15.

Give me a call when you get there, Jack.

[brainpanhandler]

I'm gonna be here until after thanksgiving and if I'm not they got me. They're looking for ways to get me, believe me.

[Bruce Dazzling]

The unstoppable force (3 - 5,000 protesters) is headed directly towards the unmovable object (police barricade).

<Biting nails>

http://www.ustream.tv/TheOther99

[Jeff]

Video: NYPD Pull female protester through street by her hair

[Nordic]

Video: NYPD Pull female protester through street by her hair

A female protester. Of course.