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Liberty Plaza was the most crowded I've seen it to date on a week day, and the joint was jumping with a pretty boss drum line!



On top of that, technology has come to the camp.

Here's an (almost) live cam that had a pretty steady stream of interest, and if you look closely, your intrepid photographer is visible...



And as usual, all photos (and many more) are available here.

^^Wall Street dude's words in the clip above sounds so HOLLOW, mean, and vacant....and yet another progressive talking about the Fed. The guy in the bee-bop cap/purple shirt...Watch that too, Alex the liar. WE the people, not YOU the arbiter of what is true.

OCCUPY LOS ANGELES: DAY 7

On Friday, I decided to take the day off of work and head down to Occupy Los Angeles. I hadn't been there since Sunday, and was very surprised to find at least two hundred tents covering most of the north lawn of city hall. There were probably 500 occupiers present when I arrived at 11am. That number grew throughout the day. Not bad for a Friday.











I was sitting on the stairs speaking with a fellow occupier when, all of a sudden, Cornell West and Tavis Smiley showed up and spoke to the crowd. It was definitely an unexpected surprise. I thanked Cornell West for sharing his voice with us. He responded by giving me a big hug and thanking me for being there!






Right after West's appearance, this group of protestors showed up:




It was a lovely day in the park!




Professor West returned around 6 in the evening to give another speech in front of the occupiers. This time, he had a larger crowd.

Here he is giving one of our organizers a big hug:




Tell it like it is!




One of my favorite pictures of the day:




One of my favorite signs:




The General Assembly:






Stay tuned for updates from Day 8!

2012 Countdown wrote:

That does NOT look like a 300-lb guard.

Thank you for the photos Bruce and Aurataur.

...and I never said so, but Elvis, you sir, rock the fuggin' HOUSE.

All of you in this thread move me.

Yes! And thank-you's to all you on-the-street reporters and occupiers from me too!

I had some good news today - my boss has decided to go to the Occupation on Saturday, with her tent and tech gear, for an indefinite stay!

She's a small business owner, mom and community volunteer who's never attended a protest or march in her life. She's so networked through her family and the community, that where I'm like a raft, she's more like a flotilla lol!

So I've offered to donate my time, to keep her business going, while she's down there saving us from corporate tyranny.

So, in effect, I'm going to sponsor my boss! Haha!

Means I wont be there so much myself, but this is better.

I made it down for a short union-led protest march today after the mayor was supposed to speak. If he did show up, I missed him. There was a good sized crowd.

Reporting in from San Francisco this weekend: hung out for about three hours with a few hundred occupiers lining the sidewalk directly in front of the Federal Reserve bank on Market Street.

There's been trouble with the police, who cleared out all the occupiers possessions on Thursday night.







There's not much room there so the GA discussion was revolving around logistics issues. No smoking in the camp, please.

^^
Wow! You got a naked guy. Makes sense for SF I guess.
.....

I am going to suggest recruiting naked guys at the next GA.
.....

On that note, I overheard an organizer complain about at least one off-balance appearing protester entering the park. He said, "That's not real, that's just not real." The idea is that, along with provocateurs, PTB are sending in fake crazies to make the environment even less appealing to the mainstream.

Project Willow wrote:^^
Wow! You got a naked guy. Makes sense for SF I guess.
.....

I am going to suggest recruiting naked guys at the next GA.
.....

On that note, I overheard an organizer complain about at least one off-balance appearing protester entering the park. He said, "That's not real, that's just not real." The idea is that, along with provocateurs, PTB are sending in fake crazies to make the environment even less appealing to the mainstream.

There was a pretty uncomfortable moment at the NYC camp this afternoon.

A mid-20ish guy who's been there since day one addressed a crowd of protesters and said that there should be absolutely no drug taking. NONE. This garnered lots of groans and "I'm not sure how I feel about this" hand gestures.

But then he said that if he sees any drug taking within the camp, he will bring in the NYPD.

This resulted in nearly unanimous disapproval and strange vibes all around.

He made the point that it could be seized upon by the media to make the entire movement look bad, and he has a point, but nobody was down with turning to the man to police the movement.

There was no resolution as far as I could tell.

Again, it was just really weird and uncomfortable.

Bruce, it may have had something to do with the headline in the local Metro paper:

So a good way to sow dissension but he's right about the drugs.

Don't [mean to] be a fear-monger here but ...

Basically there are undercovers and snitches everywhere and anyone can be squeezed to snitch through a drug-related arrest. So chains of snitches can get established and they are pretty much unidentifiable because they are YOU guys.

Besides, you take on the most powerful cabal of psychopaths in the whole history of the world and you can't afford to sit around and get high.

So don't.

This is what I've seen:

---> amphetamines circulated and because everyone is getting tired, some people take them and are subsequently neutralized

----> key activist finds out a new co-worker has been smoking heroin with her partner and now he's hooked and upgrading to needles - she's toast until it's sorted

---> friendly activist dude has an endless supply of weed for anyone to partake and pretty soon organizational meetings are stoner parties.

---> Booze is bad too because people are easy to manipulate into doing stupid shit when they are drunk.

It's bio-warfare and one of the sharper tools in the toolbox.

Just say NO, kids.

Okay, rant over. Carry on.

Edit: fixd that thing up there.