#OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign - September 17

[bks]

Luther Blissett:

In Philly, the city wants to give us a permit, but we're not sure if we want to take it. The ACLU is recommending that we do. In GA, we voted to postpone the vote until tomorrow.

Police present is still really minimal.

Luther, can I find you at the Philly occ tomorrow afternoon? Love to meet up.

[Jeff]

CBC disgraced itself today, and frankly embarrassed all of Canada,letting its greed is good Kevin O'Leary near Chris Hedges to discuss OWS.

link

[ninakat]

^^^ Wow, Hedges PWNED that asshole. Loved how Hedges ended the interview too. I'd never seen/heard Kevin O'Leary before. And "it'll be the last time" for me too. Yeah, an embarrassment.

[barracuda]

The sack of marginalizing strategies available to hacks like O'Leary is proving to be amazingly shallow here.

[ninakat]

The sack of marginalizing strategies available to hacks like O'Leary is proving to be amazingly shallow here.

Yes, and Hedges was extremely adept at dealing with those weak strategies -- and the insults, no less. Very impressive.

[Plutonia]

I guess O'Leary didn't read Chris's bio or he prolly would have known that that obnoxious brow-beating schtick wouldn't work on Chris - 20 years reporting from war zones like El Salvador and Sarajevo and all that.

Is O'Leary a news anchor or is that a news magazine or what? Anyway I watched it twice.

TV is poison.

I'm going to tell CBC how badly O'Leary sucks: http://www.cbc.ca/contact/

[Allegro]

.
The people-powered 99 percent movement | Think Progress
— The Associated Press’ Jacquelyn Martin snapped this
photo of activists at the Occupy DC rally forming a “99%”
sign at Freedom Plaza.

[Jeff]

Is O'Leary a news anchor or is that a news magazine or what? Anyway I watched it twice.

Co-hosts a business show, and stars on "Dragons Den" investment game show.

Horrible, horrible measure of the decline and dumbing of our public broadcaster.

[2012 Countdown]

New Orleans...







Lafayette Square...

[wintler2]

I loved the Oleary clip, textbook case: domineering alpha male tries ridicule and bombast, is gross in high contrast to calm speaking of the radical truth. Let all the fellow alpha's nod along in agreement with Oleary, everybody else takes away a different lesson.
-
Occupy Melbourne starting 15 Oct (and Sydney on 16th), thanks Yanks for your inspiring example.

[Bruce Dazzling]

"The elected officials are essentially wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state, and we're seeing a reaction. Of course, for those of us who have been calling for acts of civil disobediance and physical defiance of the corporate state it's deeply heartening."

[Bruce Dazzling]

Let the co-opting begin!

Protests Offer Obama Opportunity to Gain, and Room for Pitfalls
By MARK LANDLER
Published: October 6, 2011
New York Times

WASHINGTON — Anti-Wall Street protesters marched past the gates of the White House on Thursday, bringing their message of economic injustice to the capital and posing an opportunity, but also a threat, to President Obama, who presents himself as a fervent defender of the middle class.

Brandishing placards that said “No More Wall Street White House” and chanting “Shame! Shame!” the crowd took aim at the president, even if it saved most of its vitriol for the nearby headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — or as one banner labeled it, “Chamber of Corporate Horrors.”

To hear some Democratic analysts tell it, the mushrooming protests could be the start of a populist movement on the left that counterbalances the surge of the Tea Party on the right, and closes what some Democrats fear is an “enthusiasm gap” between their party and Republicans in the 2012 election.

But that assumes the president is able to win the support of these insurgents, rather than be shunned by them.

Mr. Obama, in a series of recent hard-edged speeches around the country, has channeled many of the grievances of the movement known as Occupy Wall Street: deepening economic inequity, a tax code that gives breaks to the wealthy and corporate interests and banks that profit from hidden consumer fees.

Yet the president also oversaw a bailout of those banks, appointed a Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, who is viewed by the protesters as a shill for Wall Street and pushed a reform of the financial industry that many in the movement condemn as shamefully inadequate in curbing its excesses.

“There’s a lot of discontent with Obama’s policies,” said Kevin Zeese, an organizer of the protest, which drew about 500 people. “Obama is out of touch. He’s busy going around the country raising $1 billion to run for re-election.”

At his news conference Thursday, Mr. Obama seemed to recognize the potential and pitfalls of the moment. He sympathized with the frustration of the protesters and criticized Republicans for trying to roll back regulations. But he also defended the bailout and the financial reforms known as Dodd-Frank.

“These days, a lot of folks who are doing the right thing aren’t rewarded, and a lot of folks who aren’t doing the right thing are rewarded,” he said. “And that’s going to express itself politically in 2012 and beyond until people feel like once again we’re getting back to some old-fashioned American values.”

Even before the protests welled up, Mr. Obama’s political advisers said he would focus heavily on the issue of fairness, tapping into a widespread sense among middle class voters that they lost the most in the recession.

Underscoring his more populist tone, Mr. Obama confirmed that he was open to paying for his $450 billion jobs bill by levying a tax surcharge on people with incomes of more than $1 million. The White House had earlier been cool to the proposal, made by Senate Democrats, in favor of taxing a broader group.

Democratic strategists conceded that Occupy Wall Street was a fledgling movement — it began in New York’s financial district last month and has spread to about a dozen other cities — with a murky future but said they viewed it as a potential boon. The left has not had a popular movement to energize progressive voters for some time, even as the Tea Party has become a vital force in Republican politics.

The decision by organized labor to join the demonstrations has given them an extra jolt of numbers and credibility, since unions have historically played an important, but waning role, in mobilizing voters on the left.

“There’s been a lot of talk about how the progressive base is demobilized,” said Robert Creamer, a longtime organizer for progressive causes. “Not only do I believe this will inspire the progressive base, the same way that Tunisia inspired Egypt, but President Obama has framed up the issues perfectly.”

Indeed, the placards carried by the protesters — with messages like “I am the 99 percent; I don’t have a lobbyist” — could have been written by the Obama campaign. The president has made much of the widening gulf between the wealthiest Americans and everybody else, as well as a tax code that makes Warren E. Buffett’s secretary pay proportionally higher taxes than the billionaire investor himself.

Geoff Garin, a Democratic strategist, said the movement effectively counters Wall Street’s argument, echoed by many Republicans, that burdensome regulations lie at the root of the nation’s economic problems.

“The coverage the protesters are getting certainly puts a spotlight back on the role Wall Street abuses played, and raises the salience of having a president like Obama who is willing to insist on Wall Street reform,” he said.

The trouble is, the protesters do not think the president has done nearly enough to crack down on abuses. Several pointed out the lack of prosecutions of investment bankers or others involved in the mortgage-finance industry. Others said the Dodd-Frank legislation did nothing to curb the missteps of banks, while Mr. Obama’s economic team, particularly Mr. Geithner, came in for stinging criticism.

“With the people he put in, Goldman Sachs basically occupies the White House,” said one of the protesters, Bill Brunot, 60, a mechanical engineer from Winchester, Va. “We got sold out; the banks got bailed out.”

Mr. Brunot said the president could still win back the support of these protesters by changing course, though Mr. Zeese, the organizer, emphasized that the movement did not want to be co-opted by any party.

Jared Bernstein, a liberal economist and former senior adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said it was inevitable that progressive voters would be disappointed with the Obama administration’s track record, given the compromises that presidents have to make to steer major legislation through Congress.

But Mr. Bernstein said the protests were valuable as an indicator of broader sentiment in the country. “I would advise the administration to think very carefully about the validity of the themes these folks are raising,” he said, “because these are themes that resonate well past the folks on Wall Street.”

[elfismiles]

I envy the larger cities being #Occupied ... we had well over 1000 folks at yesterday's launch but when I drove by on my way to work this morning there was very little activity - though I have seen a "day break" news report from before dawn that showed more people. I think many of them went to sleep after that morning news crew left.

Here are a couple news stories:

Occupy Austin protesters move into day 2 (Video)
http://www.kvue.com/news/Occupy-Austin- ... 18884.html

Occupy Austin protest could last for days (Video)
http://www.kvue.com/video?id=131301799&sec=551187

I met up with my friend/co-host Mack White, ran into past RigInter Sweejak, as well as many other friends. Mack should have a video of it all soon.

Here are some of the pics I took:

#OccupyAustin 10/06/11
http://www.psiopradio.com/2011/10/occupyaustin-100611/

Click Pics for Full Size versions...


Police Chief "Count Acevedo"




One of my favorite signs there on the left.


"Oh When the Saints, Go Marching In..."


Invoking The-Matrix-Analogy


Watching the Watchers - SWAT Teams on Rooftops

More here...
#OccupyAustin 10/06/11
http://www.psiopradio.com/2011/10/occupyaustin-100611/


Check out Jueri's photos below. He got some nice ones!

Sweejak's Pics
http://www.flickr.com/photos/svj/sets/7 ... 835236842/

Or just browse everyone's pics...
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=occupy+austin

[IanEye]

I met up with my friend/co-host Mack White, ran into past RigInter Sweejak, as well as many other friends. Mack should have a video of it all soon.

please give Sweejak my regards!

[elfismiles]

Will pass along your regards.

please give Sweejak my regards!

Meanwhile ... here is Mack's video of yesterday's festivities:

PsiOp TV: Occupy Austin Day One 10/6/11 #OccupyAustin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDgvseiaTKI