#OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign - September 17

[2012 Countdown]

Protesters finally returned from 1 Police Plaza. Now Liberty is absolutely packed.
fuelnyc
September 30, 2011 at 18:28

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http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet

[Laodicean]

Keep your eyes out for drones in the sky. It wouldn't surprise me to see them, especially now as it gets bigger.

[2012 Countdown]

A police officer stands guard outside a Bank of America building where demonstrators gathered in Boston on Sept. 30, 2011.

BofA’s Boston Building Draws Protesters, Arrests

By Tom Moroney - Sep 30, 2011

Twenty people were arrested as about 500 demonstrators converged on a Bank of America Corp. (BAC) office building in downtown Boston today, protesting the largest U.S. lender’s foreclosure practices.
Some participants were taken into custody after entering the building’s lobby and refusing to leave, said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. The crowd had marched a half-mile from Boston Common to the building at 100 Federal Street while chanting, banging on drums and toting signs that read “Stop Corporate Greed” and “Bank of America: Guilty as Charged.”
The rally was organized by Right to the City Alliance and follows demonstrations in Manhattan, known as #OccupyWallStreet, which began 13 days ago to protest the influence of Wall Street money on politics. A second Boston protest group, Occupy Boston, is scheduled to hold a rally at 6 p.m. at Dewey Square adjacent to the South Station train and bus terminal. Hundreds may camp on the square, said Nadeem Mazen, an Occupy Boston spokesman.
“We are essentially challenging the system of financial malfeasance and social bankruptcy,” Mazen said in a telephone interview.
“These individuals choose to ignore the facts and instead focus on increasingly aggressive public-relations stunts,” said T.J. Crawford, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, the largest U.S. lender by assets. “Bank of America has a lot to be proud of in Massachusetts, from modifying 18,000 mortgages since 2008 to lending nearly $400 million in the first half of 2011 to small businesses.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-3 ... rests.html

[JackRiddler]

Keep your eyes out for drones in the sky. It wouldn't surprise me to see them, especially now as it gets bigger.

In this town you hear them regularly, not just over the protest (I heard one there today!) but just anywhere. They're called helicopters. No doubt the drones are supposed to come soon.

[Laodicean]

^

David DeGraw's piece via Washington's Blog deserves mention here.

[psynapz]

Chant Down Babylon

Men see their dreams and aspiration
Crumble in front of their face
And all of their wicked intention
To destroy the human race - Bob Marley

Maybe more Yippie, and less Hippie?

Yesterday on the RI board, "Johnny Nemo" remembered Abbie
Hoffman saying "There were all these activists, you know,
Berkeley radicals, White Panthers... all trying to stop
the war and change things for the better. Then we got
flooded with all these 'flower children' who were into
drugs and sex. Where the hell did the hippies come from?"

The Yippies were trickster revolutionaries, who staged
shamanic acts to advance social transformation. They led
thousands to the Pentagon in 1967 to attempt its levitation.
They crashed the galleries of Wall Street to shower money
on the trading floor. They ran a pig for president. But
the decade, in America's memory, belongs to the Hippies.

The misty-eyed nostalgia has created bitterness and
confusion over how members of the Grateful Dead can also be
members of the Bohemian Grove. Before Neil Young's change
of heart, there was dismay at his support for Ronald
Reagan and at his "Let's Roll" jingoism. And there's the
resistance I still feel within myself to the consideration
that Hunter S Thompson may have been up to some pretty
weird shit with some disturbed company, even though
Michael Aquino is also a fan, and Thompson said in
2003 that he didn't "hate Bush personally. I used to know
him. I used to do some drugs here and there."

But where the hell did the hippies go? They entered into
power, and the institutions of selfishness, because If
it feels good, do it is a philosophy of life that
doesn't shy from power, because it needs power to feed the
habit.

The Sixties, at least as romantically recalled, is one of
the most debilitating things that ever happened to
progressive America. A mass, Dionysian movement for social
justice became co-opted and debased into Bacchian
self-indulgence, and was called a triumph.

In Breaking Open the Head, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the
story of Robert, who one day in the Sixties consumed three
Fly Agarics with some friends. To their disappointment,
nothing seemed to happen. Until he went to the kitchen to
grab a beer:

I took out the beer, turned around, and across the kitchen
there were three huge mushrooms staring at me - a five foot
tall, a four foot tall, and a three foot tall mushroom. The
mushrooms were red and yellow and they had little eyes and
little mouths. They looked just as solid and real as me or
you.

Robert and the mushrooms stared at each other, until the
largest asked, "Why did you eat us?" Robert thought, and then
replied, "I was just following my dream."

Pinchbeck writes:

The mushrooms conferred with each other. Finally they
seemed satisfied by his answer. "But are you prepared to
follow this path?" the tallest Fly Agaric asked. Robert
answered, intuitively and without hesitation, "Yes I am."
Whereupon the mushrooms vanished. Fifteen years passed
before Robert realized that the path he had agreed to
follow was plant shamanism.

(Unknown at the time to Robert, Paul Devereux writes in
The Long Trip that "the spirits of the mushrooms
might appear to the individual and converse with him
directly.... The number seen depends on the number of
mushrooms consumed.")

A friend of Robert's who also ate Fly Agarics received a
similar visitation, and was also asked "Why did you eat
us?" But he answered, "I was trying to get high." The
mushrooms told him, "Well, if you ever do this again,
we're going to kill you."

That was America in the Sixties, and that was its choice,
and these are the consequences. And it was more than just
the mushrooms talking. At almost every turn in the culture
and the counterculture, the easy and the selfish were
chosen over the hard and the common. Not surprising. But
America and the wider world still await a vanguard to take
the harder paths into sacred space that lead to sacrifice
and social transformation. It's a lot to ask, but that's
how Babylon gets chanted down.

[2012 Countdown]

Five Ways #OccupyWallStreet Has Succeeded
posted Sep 30, 2011

#OccupyWallStreet protests are now well into their second week, and they are increasingly capturing the public spotlight. This is because, whatever limitations their occupation has, the protesters have done many things right.

I will admit that I was skeptical about the #OccupyWallStreet effort when it was getting started. My main concerns were the limited number of participants and the lack of coalition building. One of the things that was most exciting about the protests in Madison—and the global justice protests of old such as Seattle and A16—was that they brought together a wide range of constituencies, suggesting what a broad, inclusive progressive movement might look like. You had student activists and unaffiliated anarchists, sure; but you also had major institutional constituencies including the labor movement, environmentalists, faith-based organizations, and community groups. The solidarity was powerful. And, in the context of a broader coalition, the militancy, creativity, and artistic contributions of the autonomist factions made up for their lack of an organized membership base.

With #OccupyWallStreet, the protest did not draw in any of the major institutional players on the left. Participants have come independently—mostly from anarchist and student activist circles—and turnout has been limited. Some of the higher estimates for the first day’s gathering suggest that a thousand people might have been there, and only a few hundred have been camping out.

That said, this relatively small group has been holding strong. As their message has gained traction—first in the alternative media, and then in mainstream news sources—they have drawn wider interest. On Tuesday night, Cornel West visited the occupied Zuccotti Park and spoke to an audience estimated at 2,000. Rallies planned for later in the week will likely attract larger crowds. People will come because the occupation is now a hot story.

#OccupyWallStreet has accomplished a great deal in the past week and a half, with virtually no resources. The following are some of the things the participants have done that allowed what might have been a negligible and insignificant protest to achieve a remarkable level of success:

1. They chose the right target.

The #OccupyWallStreet protesters have been often criticized for not having clear demands. They endured a particularly annoying cheap shot from New York Times writer Ginia Bellafante, who (quoting a stockbroker sympathetically) resurrected the old canard that no one who uses an Apple computer can possibly say anything critical about capitalism. Such charges are as predictable as the tides. Media commentators love to condescend to protesters, and they endlessly recycle criticism of protests being naïve and unfocused.

I am among those who believe that the occupation would have benefited from having clearer demands at the outset—and that these would have been helpful in shaping the endgame that is to come. But protesters have largely overcome the lack of a particularly well-defined messaging strategy by doing something very important: choosing the right target.

Few institutions in our society are more in need of condemnation than the big banks and stockbrokers based where the critics are now camped. “Why are people protesting Wall Street?” For anyone who has lived through the recent economic collapse and the ongoing crises of foreclosure and unemployment, this question almost answers itself.

The protest’s initial call to action repeatedly stressed the need to get Wall Street money out of politics, demanding “Democracy not Corporatocracy.” Since then, many protesters have been emphasizing the idea that “We Are the 99 Percent” being screwed by the country’s wealthiest 1 percent. At Salon, Glenn Greenwald writes:

Does anyone really not know what the basic message is of this protest: that Wall Street is oozing corruption and criminality and its unrestrained political power—in the form of crony capitalism and ownership of political institutions—is destroying financial security for everyone else?....

So, yes, the people willing to engage in protests like these at the start may lack (or reject the need for) media strategies, organizational hierarchies, and messaging theories. But they’re among the very few people trying to channel widespread anger into activism rather than resignation, and thus deserve support and encouragement—and help—from anyone claiming to be sympathetic to their underlying message.
Notably, young protesters have been able to convey the idea that their generation, in particular, has been betrayed by our economy. This idea was picked up in remarkably hard-hitting commentary at MarketWatch.com, which reads like more like something you’d expect to find in the socialist press than on a business website:

Ask yourself how you might act if you were in school or fresh out of it or young and unemployed. What future has Wall Street, the heart and brain of our capitalist country, promised you? How does it feel to be the sons, daughters and grand kids of a “me” generation that’s run up the debt and run down the economy?

Unemployment is between 13% and 25% for people under 25. Student loans are defaulting at about 15% at a time when more young people have no alternative but to borrow to pay for school.

Meanwhile, Wall Street bonuses continue to be paid at close to all-time highs. Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS), took home $13.2 million last year, including a $3.2 million raise.
Such a message resonates with many, and protesters did something important to attract them:

2. They made a great poster.

I write this partially in jest. There is a joke among labor organizers that if you are spending all your time obsessing over the quality of your posters or handouts, rather than going out to actually talk to people, you are in big trouble.

In this case, however, there’s some truth to the idea that posters matter. When you’re not mobilizing an established organizational membership, but rather trying to capture the imagination of unaffiliated activists, protest planning is more akin to promoting a concert than staging a workplace strike. And if you’re doing that kind of promotion, how cool your call to arms is makes a difference.

#OccupyWallStreet has benefited from a series of great posters and promotional materials. Foremost among them is a lovely depiction of a ballerina dancing on top of Wall Street’s famous bull statue, created by the veteran leftist image-makers at Adbusters. The text below the bull reads simply: “#OccupyWallStreet. September 17th. Bring tent.”

The poster hinted that the event would be exciting and creative and audacious. It suggested that culture jamming and dissident art would be part of the adventure. And it pointed to another thing the protesters did right:

3. They gave their action time to build.

Most protests take place for one afternoon and then are finished. Had #OccupyWallStreet done the same, it would already have been forgotten.

Instead, planners told participants to get ready to camp out. The event operated on the premise that challenging Wall Street would take a while, and that things would build with time. In fact, this is exactly what has happened. It took a few days for alternative press sources to catch on, but now the occupation is a leading story at outlets such as Democracy Now!.

The extended time frame for the protest has allowed for the drama of direct action to deepen, which is my next point about the protesters:

4. They created a good scenario for conflict.

By claiming space in Zuccotti Park (also known as Liberty Plaza), #OccupyWallStreet set up an action scenario that has effectively created suspense and generated interest over time.

Participants there have invoked Tahrir Square. On the one hand, the comparison is silly, but on the other hand, the fact that occupations of public space have taken on a new significance in the past year is another thing that made #OccupyWallStreet a good idea. If the authorities allow them to continue camping out in lower Manhattan, the protesters can claim victory for their experiment in “liberated space.” Of course, everyone expects that police will eventually swoop in and clear the park. But, contrary to what some people think, civil disobedients have long known that arrests do not work against the movement. Rather, they illustrate that participants are willing to make real sacrifices to speak out against Wall Street’s evils.

The fact that police have used undue force (in one now-famous incident, pepper spraying women who were already detained in a mesh police pen and clearly doing nothing to resist arrest) only reinforces this message.

When will the police finally come and clear out the occupation’s encampment? We don’t know. And the very question creates further suspense and allows the protest to continue gaining momentum.

5. They are using their momentum to escalate.

Lastly, but probably most importantly, the #OccupyWallStreet effort is using its success at garnering attention in the past week and a half to go even bigger. Their action is creating offshoots, with solidarity protests (#OccupyBoston, #OccupyLA) now gathering in many other cities. Protesters in Liberty Plaza are encouraging more participants to join them. And they are preparing more people to risk arrest or other police reprisal.

It might seem obvious that a protest movement would treat a successful event as an occasion to escalate. But, in fact, it is quite rare. More established organizations are almost invariably afraid to do so: afraid of legal repercussions, afraid of the resources it would require to sustain involvement, afraid of bad press or other negative outcomes. Such timidity is anathema to strategies of nonviolent direct action.

In this respect, the fact that #OccupyWallStreet has not relied on established progressive organizations ends up being a strength. Its independent participants are inspired by the increasing attention their critique of Wall Street is getting, and they are willing to make greater sacrifices now that their action has begun to capture the public imagination.
This can only be regarded as a positive development. For the more that people in this country are talking about why outraged citizens would set up camp in the capital of our nation’s financial sector, the better off we will be. #OccupyWallStreet protesters have gotten that much right.

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Mark Engler is a senior analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus and author of How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy (Nation Books, 2008). He can be reached via DemocracyUprising.com. He is a contributor to Dissent Magazine, where this article originally appeared.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power ... n=mrEngler

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FRI SEP 30, 2011 AT 11:57 PM PDT
United Steelworkers Union Announces Support for #OccupyWallStreet
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/0 ... WallStreet

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09/30/2011
March to police plaza for protesting against police brutality.



"WE ARE THE 99 PERCENT!"

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FRI SEP 30, 2011 AT 07:42 PM PDT
"We Are the 99 Percent" - A Photo Diary That Will Bring Tears
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/3 ... ring-Tears
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[AhabsOtherLeg]

I have somehow managed to miss both this thread and the entire #Occupy meme, but I'm amazed and impressed by what's happening over there - and, I don't know why, but I'm still stunned by the actions of the cops. I know I should be used to it by now - actually, no, none of us should ever become used to it - but how can they possibly get away with the things they are shown doing here? And look at the fear in them - ocassionally it looks like sheer naked terror and panic. All because some kids are shouting at them to stop after they launch an attack. It's astonishing.

The media and the politicians might like to say that this can have no real impact and is nothing more than a futile gesture, but it's clear that the police, at least the white shirts and "plainclothes", think otherwise. In a sense, they're showing more faith in the effectiveness of this action than large parts of the chattering pseudo-left, who don't like what's happening simply because they don't directly control it, and weren't needed to bring it about.

Thanks Bruce and Jack and everybody for being there. I was meant to be at a march today myself (not an #Occupy thing) but I've screwed up and failed to make it, so I'll keep an eye on yours instead.

Keep up the good work.

[jam.fuse]

More from the BIg Windy: http://occupychi.org/

Day 8 GA
Posted on October 1, 2011 by occupychiadmin

GA was our biggest yet. Tonight was a big night for the movement. A list of grievances is being discussed, and we are formulating our message. This movement is growing in leaps and bounds, the new faces, and new voices are amazing to our democratic process. As we move into the night, we reflect on what is our core message. This is a fluid process with differing opinions. This is our democracy in action, and we will prevail. Goodnight Chicago, tomorrow is a new day. The days of our government held hostage are coming to a close. We will prevail, Stand Strong Chicago.

Day 8 block party
Posted on October 1, 2011 by occupychiadmin

Chicago Critical Mass graced us with their presence when they rode right by camp downpour. The energy was electric as we chanted, banged drums and spread our message of hope. This was the biggest rally yet, easily attracting 300 people. We took over the Fed and turned it into a block party...

Hell is about to freeze over... here it comes.... I am PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!!!

Never thought I would say let alone think that.

[2012 Countdown]

Occupy Wall Street - Jeremy Gilchrist Original Music - We Are the 99%

I wrote this song for all those protesting in NYC as part of the Occupy Wall Street Demonstrations. Lyrics below:

They can take our money
They can take our homes
They can steal the future
Mortage our souls

Occupy the politicians mind
Buy the truth and sell us lies

But there's a rising on wall street
I am you and you are me
We are the 99%'ers
On the right side of love and history

It's hard to say where it went wrong
Decades before me and this song
Through the banksters and the wars
You know I just can't take it anymore

There's a rising on wall street
I am you and you are me
We are the 99%'ers
On the right side of love and history

Jeremy Gilchrist
2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlQM8G7_ ... _embedded#!
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[AhabsOtherLeg]

Hell is about to freeze over... here it comes.... I am PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!!!

Never thought I would say let alone think that.

You should be proud. Everybody should be proud of what they are. Unless they are an arsehole, obviously.

I'm proud of ye's too, if that doesn't sound too condescending/paternal/soppy. Or even if it does actually.

[Luther Blissett]

I'm on the bus on the way up now and am palpably excited. I'm hoping to take what I learn today and use it in the Occupy Philadelphia op.

[MinM]

Wednesday, 28 September, 2011
CORRECTING THE ABYSMAL 'NEW YORK TIMES' COVERAGE OF OCCUPY WALL STREET

NYPD Caught On Camera Punching #OccupyWallStreet Protestor In The Face

My name is Kelly Schomburg, I’m the girl with the red hair in these pictures. I was protesting at the Occupy Wall Street march yesterday when I and several other women were sprayed with mace and subsequently arrested. Many have already seen the video, which has been spreading like wildfire over twitter, Facebook, tumblr, and other video feeds, along with hundreds of other photos and videos. This is my recount of what happened.

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I was finally put into the holding cell, where I was reunited with my friend and met with a bunch of the other women involved. Soon after, we were each placed in our own cells: 5 women per 1 person room. I was detained there for between 5 and 6 hours. Some demanded their one phone call, only to be told that they could only make calls within the five boroughs. We sat and waited to be processed.

I was finally released at 1:30 am. I have a court date on November 3rd at 9:30 am. I’m being charged with blocking vehicle traffic and unlawful conduct.

http://rosinhabela.tumblr.com/post/1067 ... l-with-the

Listening to the radio this morning and ABC News reports that "People are out protesting the arrests of some of the previous protesters."

Translation from the tone of the report; "The protesters are whining and got their feelings hurt over a few arrests."

Why Establishment Media & the Power Elite Loathe Occupy Wall Street
By: Kevin Gosztola Tuesday September 27, 2011 12:22 pm

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/0 ... ll-street/

^^ I was going to do that also.

Greenwald weighs in...
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/28/protests/index.html

What's behind the scorn for the Wall Street protests?
By Glenn Greenwald

It's unsurprising that establishment media outlets have been condescending, dismissive and scornful of the ongoing protests on Wall Street. Any entity that declares itself an adversary of prevailing institutional power is going to be viewed with hostility by establishment-serving institutions and their loyalists. That's just the nature of protests that take place outside approved channels, an inevitable by-product of disruptive dissent: those who are most vested in safeguarding and legitimizing establishment prerogatives (which, by definition, includes establishment media outlets) are going to be hostile to those challenges. As the virtually universal disdain in these same circles for WikiLeaks (and, before that, for the Iraq War protests) demonstrated: the more effectively adversarial it is, the more establishment hostility it's going to provoke.

Nor is it surprising that much of the most vocal criticisms of the Wall Street protests has come from some self-identified progressives, who one might think would be instinctively sympathetic to the substantive message of the protesters. In an excellent analysis entitled "Why Establishment Media & the Power Elite Loathe Occupy Wall Street," Kevin Gosztola chronicles how many of the most scornful criticisms have come from Democratic partisans who -- like the politicians to whom they devote their fealty -- feign populist opposition to Wall Street for political gain.

[2012 Countdown]

Well worth a watch, imo.-

Occupy Wall Street Begins To Go National.
September 30, 2011 CURRENT TV



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDnFbIwZ ... ture=share

[Elihu]

http://thedailybell.com/3015/Anthony-Wi ... t-Is-Wrong

easy with the claws and fangs trying to help. in the title i think "Wrong" is the wrong word. i would substitute "the beginning". fellow travelers understand that linking an article doesn't identify the linker 100% with the content. perhaps the spirit instead. and by any measure someone who didn't get up and go out must be respectful of those that did in a shared cause.

on a tangent, there's only one wall street. where would the rest of us go to protest? austin, talahassee, sacramento, madison? b of a hq in charlotte? the 12 federal reserve district banks? wall street could be like a matador with a red cape...