Protesters Begin Effort to ‘Occupy Wall Street’
ABC News’ Candace Smith reports:
Protesters are gathering on Wall Street today in a movement they call “Occupy Wall Street.”
As of noon, hundreds of protesters gathered at Bowling Green Park in Manhattan, home of the iconic charging bull in New York’s Financial District as they prepare to “take the bull by the horns,” as said on a flyer advertising the event.
“The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%,” said a statement on the website Occupy Wall Street.
According to statements on the website, the movement, an offshoot of online magazine AdBusters, is angered by what it calls the principle of “profit over and above all else,” which it says has dominated not only America’s economic policies, but also the way in which Americans view culture and humanity.
Posts on the website compare the group’s efforts to those used in pro-democracy movements across the Middle East, dubbed the Arab Spring.
“On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months,” one statement says. “Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece, Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the use of nonviolence to achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants.”
Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne of the NYPD told ABC News that a protest area was established on Broad Street at Exchange Place, next to the Stock Exchange, but protesters elected not to use it and no one associated with the demonstrations sought a permit.
As of late afternoon, two people had been taken into custody after wearing bandanas that covered their faces, he said. It is a crime for two or more people in a group to have their faces covered.
A group of seven individuals with walkie-talkies under their clothing — three of whom were also wearing body armor or bullet-resistant vests — were questioned and released, he said.
But police say that many protesters have been compliant, heeding officers’ request to not block roadways and sidewalks especially after being informed that they would be faced with arrest should they stay.
As has become the norm of such protests, this movement has been fueled by social media fire, with supporters taking to Twitter under the hash tag #occupywallstreet. The major hacking group Anonymous has also thrown in its support, live streaming the day’s events.
The protest has also generated some celebrity support. Hip-hop artist Lupe Fiasco, known for his criticism of President Obama, joined in with protesters. After tweeting his support, Fiasco responded to a tweet by ABC News asking if he was at the park by saying, “We Out Chea!!!”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2 ... ll-street/====
Hacktivists Begin Operation Occupy Wall StreetSarah Lai Stirland | September 17, 2011, 2:42PM
Protestors and hacktivists of all stripes filled the streets of lower Manhattan Saturday as they sought to register their ongoing anger at what they see as the influence of big financial institutions over politics and everyday life in the United States. The protests, dubbed Occupy Wall Street, were organized through Twitter, the magazine web site Adbusters and under the banner of "Anonymous" at various sites online, and were planned for several other cities around the world we well.
New York City Police wouldn't give TPM's Idea Lab any crowd estimates, but they apparently showed up in force to keep things under control and to protect the bronze bull in Bowling Green Park, which has often been the target of anti-Wall Street wrath in the past.
A Livestream broadcast of the streets around Bowling Green Park showed a rowdy, circus-like atmosphere with people conducting yoga lessons in the park, and a choir singing behind a protest sign. The sound of police sirens blared in the background, against chants of "All day, all week, occupy Wall Street!"
Ron Paul supporters, supporters of Bradley Manning, members of the Socialist Party, self-described anarchists, Lyndon LaRouche supporters showed up, and were interviewed by a cameraman broadcasting on LiveStream.
Earlier in the week, protestors said that they were inspired by the participants of the Arab Spring. They say that they plan on camping out around Wall Street for months until President Obama forms a commission to address their concerns. The protestors haven't formed a precise list of those concerns, but had scheduled themselves to formulate their demands on Saturday afternoon.
Members of the loosely-affiliated online group Anonymous had also promised to release a new tool called #Ref#Ref to enable sympathizers to participate in online distributed denial of service attacks, but as of early Saturday, there were no reports of any major online attacks against a financial institution. Demonstrators both online and off say that they want to keep their offline protests peaceful.
The Saturday protest is the latest manifestation of an emerging form of political organizing that's grown over the past few years that usually involve a core group of activists, but with its open-source ethic draws in many more individuals of all political persuasions who have been politicized and galvanized by particular events. They often join in by labeling themselves as part of the group Anonymous.
"The core group of people isn't like 10 people, it's much larger than that, probably in the couple hundreds, and it grows and shrinks depending on operations," said Gabriella Coleman, a long-time observer of hacker culture and an adjunct professor of media and anthropology at New York University. She is writing a book about Anonymous.
Many self-identified members of Anonymous are hard core "hard left" activists, she said. It appears that some of them showed up in person on Saturday.
"I'm here because Wall Street has destroyed this country's economy, and ruined millions of people's lives," said one unnamed protest participant interviewed in Bowling Green Park by a cameraman broadcasting events as they unfolded on Livestream.
"I'm here for the very simple reason that the working class people of this country need to start fighting back," said another interviewee decked out in red and holding a "Socialist Party of America" sign. "We're told that it's class warfare when we fight back, but it's class warfare 24/7, and this is the world headquarters for the class warfare that's been going on in this country for many, many years."
"We're here to tell you, hey Wall Street, fuck you, we know you run the country, we know the political system is here to serve the rich and not us," said another protestor. "I have a background in anarchy, and I would like to see some kind of anarchist society arise from below sometime sooner rather than later."
"I'm sending a message to the powers-that-be in our society that people cannot be stepped on, disregarded and treated with gross neglect as the people of this city, this state and this country have been treated for too, too long," said a man who identified himself as Beau Johnson, a Vietnam veteran from Staten Island. "It's up to all different generations to try to be here, and to share our stories, our anecdotes, our feeling and passion for life, to be a loving people filled with family and community and dedication to one another, instead of to the mighty dollar bill, which makes an enemy of all of us."
Another recent offline and ongoing protest organized by members of Anonymous involved people in San Francisco angered by the Bay Area Transit Authority's handling of protests over its most recent incident in July. That's when BART police shot and killed a homeless man who threw a bottle at them. SF BART cut off cell phone service in an attempt to thwart a planned protest over the incident. That resulted in further protests and its web site being brought down.
But online activists operating under the banner of Anonymous, as well as other groups such as Telecomix have also worked to help the citizens in the Middle East as part of the Arab Spring. Anonymous took full responsibility for taking down the web sites of PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, as well as an attempt on Amazon in December for cutting off service to Wikileaks.
One New York City cop reportedly characterized some members of the Saturday protestors this way: "Oh you know, a bunch of angry college students showing up because they can't get jobs, so they're blaming Wall Street."
Non-Livestream street photos courtesy of: Gabriella Coleman.
---
More photos and hot links at link-
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/20 ... of-all.php===
Hundreds of protesters descend to 'Occupy Wall Street'By Julianne Pepitone CNNMoneyTech September 17, 2011: 7:07 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Manhattan's financial district on Saturday in a largely peaceful protest aimed at drawing attention to the role powerful financial interests played in wreaking havoc on America's economy.
Modeled on the "Arab Spring" uprisings that swept through Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and other countries this year, Occupy Wall Street is a "leaderless resistance movement" orchestrated through Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools. The Twitter hashtags #OccupyWallStreet and #TakeWallStreet lit up Saturday with coordination messages and solidarity tweets. (See CNNMoney's coverage in photos and tweets.)
Activist magazine Adbusters spearheaded the event, putting the call out two months ago for participants in a Sept. 17 demonstration in lower Manhattan. Protestors arranged to meet and discuss their goals at the iconic Wall Street Bull statue at noon, as well as at a "people's assembly" at One Chase Manhattan Plaza at 3 p.m.
"The NYPD is aware of various protests and we have planned accordingly," Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told CNN late Friday.
Early Saturday morning, police barricaded off Wall Street, erecting barriers around the bull statue that protestors had planned to make their rallying point. Protestors instead took to the surrounding streets, blocking traffic. By 2 p.m., nearly two dozen uniformed police officers surrounded the bull, while others worked to disperse the crowd.
"None associated with the demonstrations sought permits," Browne said Saturday. "A group that formed at the bull at Bowling Green spilled into the streets on each side of the bull, posed safety issues and impeded vehicular traffic. The streets were re-opened to vehicular traffic and barriers were subsequently erected at the bull to prevent a re-occurrence.
A marching band played as participants held impromptu yoga and tai chi classes in Bowling Green Park. Demonstrators moved their protest to another nearby park as their numbers swelled to around 500.
"Something needs to change," said one protester, who declined to give his name and covered half his face with a bandanna. "We need an economy for the people and by the people, not for the rich and by the rich."
Another protester, Rheannone Ball, chimed in: "It's our duty as Americans to fight for our country and to keep it true to serving its people. When it doesn't do that, it's immoral not to stand up and say something."
A call for 'justice:' Kalle Lasn, the editor-in-chief of Adbusters -- an activist magazine with a worldwide circulation of 100,000 readers -- said the editors there are angry that leaders in the financial sector "had not been brought to justice." Their inspiration came when pro-democracy uprisings broke out in Egypt on January 25 and quickly spread to other countries.
"We thought, why isn't there a backlash here?" Lasn told CNNMoney in an interview before the event. "We need to shake up the corporate-driven capitalist system we're in. To do that, we needed something radical."
Last month, cyberactivism group Anonymous released a video in support of the protest.
"It gave us a nice bit of street cred, some mystique. We lefties need a lot of mystique," Lasn said with a laugh.
That mystique is what drew Josh Dworning, a 20-year-old college student, to shell out $300 for a 24-hour train ride from Florida to New York.
"I heard about the protest through StumbleUpon, and I just really agreed that there's widespread discontent with the banks and corporations," Dworning said. "I'm no crazy radical, just a student who believes in something."
Dworning, who brought a tent for camping near Wall Street on Saturday night, said he's "planning on staying as peaceful as possible" -- though he'll be on alert, because "there's always the chance that someone can get a little too angry and throw a brick or something."
That's what scares Dworning's mom, Jeanne Molle, who said she's "a nervous mother watching her son get involved in a large-scale event in [a huge] city."
Lasn is hoping safety won't be an issue. A "Gandhi-like peaceful protest" is the only way the event will work, he says, though he acknowledges that central control is impossible over a group that organizers hope will swell to 20,000. And "there is a question of legality" around setting up tents and barricades, he admitted.
In a September test run of the occupation, nine people were arrested for disorderly conduct, and later released without being charged.
"It takes a lot to rise up and reform the global economic system," Lasn says. "And maybe this time we fail. But if we do, we're just setting the tone for the next revolution."
Video story and many hotlinks in story here-
http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/17/technol ... m?iid=Lead
by Nordic » Sat Sep 17, 2011 7:00 am 
