Demonstraties VS #3: Wanneer valt 'the wall'?

twitter:

AnonOpsUS twitterde op donderdag 17-11-2011 om 19:57:11 BREAKING LIVE: #NYPD are now entering #Zuccotti Park en masse. Large Police vehicles arriving with sirens.. http://t.co/jP9Uma9E #OWS #N17 reageer retweet

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Bankers Evicted From Nation’s Economy

STATEMENT FROM THE MAYOR

At 1 o’clock this morning, on my orders, the New York City Police Department and Department of Sanitation removed the bankers from the U.S. economy.

The Constitution that created the economy requires that it be open to the public for the pursuit of their livelihood 24 hours a day. Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with, as the economy has been taken over by bankers, making it unavailable to anyone else.

Inaction was not an option. The bankers had occupied the economy for well over a decade. It had become covered in collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, derivatives of derivatives, and other cumbersome financial instruments, making it next to impossible to navigate for the public–and for the regulators who are responsible for guaranteeing the public’s safety. The dangers posed were evident in an incident in 2008 in which bankers crashed the economy, doubled unemployment, reduced household wealth by trillions of dollars, threw millions of Americans out of their homes, widened the gap between rich and poor, and triggered the worst global downturn since the Great Depression. While this may have been an isolated incident, I became increasingly concerned that the occupation might come to pose a hazard. Make no mistake—the decision to act was mine.

No right is absolute and with every right comes responsibilities. The Constitution gives every American the right to pursue wealth, but it does not give anyone the right to take over the economy to the exclusion of others—nor does it permit anyone in our society to live outside the law.

During the operation this morning, the bankers were told that they could return to the economy after it had been thoroughly cleaned, which it has not been since the 1930s. They were informed, however, that they could not bring their exotic financial instruments with them. As for instruments removed today by the Sanitation Department, these are being held at the Manhattan District 7 Garage on West 56th Street between 11th and 12th Avenues and may be recovered on presentation of proof of ownership and a valid bank debit card.

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Op donderdag 17 november 2011 20:06 schreef Perrin het volgende:

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Op vrijdag 18 november 2011 00:01 schreef J0kkebr0k het volgende:
In New York is nu echt een redelijk grote manifestatie aan de gang. Zo'n 15 tot 20 duizend man die richting de Brooklyn Bridge trekken. Volgens mij willen ze de brug bezetten.

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6.36pm: Marchers have started to throng onto the pedestrian walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge now. Unlike in September, when some spilled over into the roadway, they are keeping to the pedestrian section. But the general chaos in the area means that no traffic is able to get onto the Brooklyn-bound section anyway, so it's going to be a long commute home for many people. The scenes are dramatic: many protesters are carrying candles (possibly battery-operated). It should be quite a picture.

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Op vrijdag 18 november 2011 01:51 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:
http://www.volkskrant.nl/(...)ing-Californie.dhtml

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De man werd neergeschoten in de Haas School of Business, een kilometer van de plaats van de betoging op Sproul Plaza.

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Op vrijdag 18 november 2011 01:55 schreef Nemephis het volgende:

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dat heeft dus geen zak met Occupy te maken.. raar dat het wel zo gebracht wordt.

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http://www.guardiannews.c(...)t-day-of-action-live

7.06pm: Ryan Devereaux writes: A massive projection is being displayed on the Verizon building south of the Brooklyn Bridge. In a series of shots it reads, "We are the 99%, Look around, you are a part of a global uprising...We are unstoppable, another world is possible...We are a cry from the heart of the world...It is the beginning of the beginning." The projection then goes on to display the names of occupations around the country in rapid-fire succession with the final name reading, "Occupy Earth." With a chorus of honking cars in the background, the crowd erupts in cheers and reads the display in unison as they pass.

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Op vrijdag 18 november 2011 02:36 schreef Nemephis het volgende:
De livestreams doen het niet meer. Men vraagt zich af of signalen geblokkeerd worden.

twitter:

OperationLeakS twitterde op vrijdag 18-11-2011 om 02:53:47 It's been Confirmed that Phone service is indeed out at Liberty Plaza. There's no Live Feed at the moment. #N17 #OWS #PoliceState reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 18 november 2011 09:56 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Pardon?

Hevige rellen bij Occupy-protest Wall Street

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Op woensdag 19 oktober 2011 21:35 schreef arucard het volgende:
Ik bedoel, het is toch logisch dat er arrestaties plaatsvinden, als je duizenden mensen op een kluitje hebt voor 3 weken. De politie moet ze maar babysitten, ook voor de veiligheid van de andere demonstranten, maar o wee als ze eens een keer ingrijpen.

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Op vrijdag 18 november 2011 09:56 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Pardon?

Hevige rellen bij Occupy-protest Wall Street

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Op vrijdag 18 november 2011 11:21 schreef RetepV het volgende:
Anyway, de rijke bovenlaag in de VS is niet helemaal goed wijs, wat dat betreft. Die willen nog steeds rijker worden. Maar des te rijker die worden, des te armer de normale mens daar wordt. Ook in deze crisis heeft de gewone man daar weer het meeste te leiden en worden de rijken nog steeds rijker.

De VS produceert vrijwel niks op dit moment. Het enige dat wij op dit moment aan de VS hebben is eigenlijk dat het een afzetmarkt is voor ons. Een hele grote afzetmarkt. Maar als de 'gewone man' daar geen geld heeft, valt er voor ons niks te verkopen in Amerika. Die paar rijke mensen daar zijn niet genoeg om voor ons een interessante afzetmarkt te vormen. Dus gaan wij op een gegeven moment stoppen met het maken van goederen voor de Amerikaanse markt. De transportsector zal het zwaar krijgen, en het zal gewoon niet meer lonend zijn om met Amerika te handelen.

Dus des te kleiner en rijker de bovenlaag daar wordt, des te armer het land eigenlijk wordt, zelfs als de hoeveelheid geld gelijk blijft. De VS is zichzelf op dit moment geen dienst aan het bewijzen. Des te meer controle de rijke bovenlaag naar zich toetrekt, des te minder interessant het land wordt voor Europa, Japan en China.

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Bloomberg’s office admits to arresting journalists for covering OWS

Arrests in the Occupy movement nationally have surpassed 1,000, with 177 being charged by the NYPD this Thursday in only the first few hours.

Now New York is admitting that journalists that they credentialed are among those that were cuffed by cops. In a statement to the press released from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Office on Thursday, November 17, spokesperson Stu Loeser addressed the media about reports relating to the growing number of journalists who have been arrested by the NYPD during Occupy Wall Street protests, a now-international movement which began in Lower Manhattan two months to the day of Loeser’s memo.

“Like all of you, I’ve heard and read many reports of reporters who supposedly were wearing valid NYPD press credentials, yet allegedly encountered problems on the streets of New York,” writes the spokesman. Loeser goes on to direct recipients of the memo to a roster of reporters published by independent outlet The Awl that has chronicled the names and affiliations of journalists that have been arrested across the country so far, which as of this writing totals 26.

“Not being familiar with many of the media outlets for which The Awl says these reporters work, I had the list of ‘26 arrested reporters’ checked against the roster of reporters who hold valid NYPD press passes,” Loser adds. “You can imagine my surprise when we found that only five of the 26 arrested reporters actually have valid NYPD-issued press credentials.”

With that sentence alone, Loeser manages to shoot himself in the foot. Twice.

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(And for those wondering how a reporter can obtain an official NYPD pass, The Observer notes that the qualifying factors require a journalist to prove that they covered six or more events in the city on separate days in the 24 months before asking for a pass implying that in order to be valid in the eyes of the law, one must break it first.)

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Justice Dept: Homeland Security Advised Raids On Occupy Wall Street Camps

President Obama's "position" regarding the NYPD's raid of Zuccotti Park, is that "every municipality has to make its own decision about how to handle" the issues of free speech and the concerns of the community. But according to Rick Ellis at the Examiner, a Justice Department official says that the recent evictions of Occupy movement across the country including Salt Lake City, Denver, Portland, Oakland, and New York City were "coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies."

Ellis reports that his source says though the decision to evict protesters ultimately rested with each individual jurisdiction, the local police departments "had received tactical and planning advice from national agencies" from the feds.

Oakland's mayor Jean Quan told the BBC yesterday that she had participated in a conference call with the leaders of 18 other cities to discuss their shared "situation where what had started as a political movement and a political encampment ended up being an encampment no longer in control by the people who started them."

Mother Jones reports that the US Conferences of Mayors has stated that two conference calls, one on October 13, the morning before the aborted raid on Zuccotti Park, and the second on November 10, were held with "mayors and police top brass." They discussed "issues of concern" and how to "maintain public health and safety" during the occupations. The USCM official "denied that there was any coordination or planning between mayors and police officials about breaking up Occupy protests or tearing down encampments." Mayor Bloomberg denies participating in these conference calls.

The AP reports that another set of conference calls on October 11 and November 14 were organized by the Police Executive Research Forum and included representatives from 40 different cities. A spokesman for the group said that the timing of the calls were "completely spontaneous" and had nothing to do with the recent raids. "This was an attempt to get insight on what other departments were doing." Including the maxim: "Don't set a midnight deadline to evict Occupy Wall Street protesters, it will only give a crowd of demonstrators time to form."

In our recent interview with Glenn Greenwald, a former civil rights attorney and current Salon columnist, we asked him a question regarding the expanding powers of the federal government.

Typically, new powers are often applied in ways that people will feel comfortable with. So if the government wants to restrict speech they will pick the most hated person in the society and restrict their speech and nobody will care...The problem is that these things proliferate far beyond their original applications, in every instance that's true. Historically, that's how power functions.

According to a Presidential directive issued by George W. Bush in 2003, the DHS's responsibility is to "develop all-hazards plans and capabilities, including those of greatest importance to the security of the United States homeland, such as the prevention of terrorist attacks and preparedness for the potential use of weapons of mass destruction, and ensure that state, local, and federal plans are compatible." Is assisting to coordinate the eviction of mostly-peaceful protests what the DHS was designed to do?

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Occupy Oakland: Iraq war veteran Kayvan Sabehgi beaten by police - video

Protester and three-tour American veteran Kayvan Sabehgi was beaten by Oakland police during the Occupy protest's general strike on 2 November. Sabehgi, who was 'completely peaceful', according to witnesses, was left with a lacerated spleen

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Occupy Wall Street: 250 arrestaties, 7 agenten gewond

De politie heeft donderdag in New York in totaal 250 personen opgepakt bij manifestaties van de protestbeweging 'Occupy Wall Street', die nu twee maanden bestaat. Zeven agenten raakten gewond, aldus een nieuwe balans van de politie.

In de loop van de avond werden nog 64 personen opgepakt bij een manifestatie met duizenden deelnemers die eindigde op Brooklyn Bridge.

Volgens organisatoren hebben 30.000 manifestanten (studenten en vakbondsmensen) deelgenomen aan de manifestaties. De politie onthoudt zich van elke raming.

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Lobbying firm made plan to deal with OWS

A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up Chris Hayes.”

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.

CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.

Het plan

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis

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Video: agent spuit studenten plat bij opruimen Occupy in Californië

Een protest van de Occupy-beweging bij de Universiteit van Californië in Davis zijn meerdere studenten gearresteerd. In een video zijn zittende studenten te zien die platgepeppersprayed worden.

Te zien is hoe een groep studenten op een rij zit als vreedzaam protest. Een agent loopt op z’n gemak op de studenten af, richt z’n bus pepperspray en spuit. De studenten worden vervolgens weggesleurd. De meesten werden gearresteerd.

Over de video is ophef ontstaan, vanwege de kalmte van de agent die z’n pepperspray spuit alsof hij zich wil ontdoen van wat lastige insecten. De video is, zelfs na enkele uren al, hard op weg een soort emblematische video te worden voor de manier waarop de Amerikaanse politie omgaat met de Occupybeweging. Eerder dook er al een foto op van een bejaarde vrouw die pepperspray in haar gezicht kreeg:

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Confirmed: Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) coordinating Occupy raids

Many of us have been wondering why the raids on Occupy camps across the country have had such a coordinated feel. If only the official response to real social ills could have been as timely and widespread as the crackdown on peaceful demonstrators expressing their freedom of speech, assembly, and the press covering their protest. An article at Examiner.com was understandably derided as being under-sourced for a charge as serious as a national DHS crackdown on non-violent protests. However, we have now received confirmation via Amy Goodman's interview on the 11/17 episode of Democracy Now! with PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler that this private NGO coordinated high-level conference calls amongst 40 police chiefs, distinct from the mayoral "therapy session" referred to by Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, in order to broadcast advice and documentation about cracking down on the Occupy social movement.

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Op zaterdag 19 november 2011 19:05 schreef Ketchupcurry het volgende:

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/(...)ccupy-in-californie/

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twitter:

Anon_Central twitterde op zaterdag 19-11-2011 om 21:39:54 Salary Details of John A. PikePOLICE LIEUTENANT - MSPUC Davis http://t.co/Vmxa5oUf reageer retweet

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California Penal Code Section 12403.7 (a) (8)
(g) Any person who uses tear gas or tear gas weapons except in self-defense is guilty of a public offense and is punishable byimprisonment in a state prison for 16 months, or two or three years or in a county jail not to exceed one year or by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment, except that, if the use is against a peace officer, as defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of Part 2, engaged in the performance of his or her official duties and the person committing the offense knows or reasonably should know that the victim is a peace officer, the offense is punishable by imprisonment in a state prison for 16 months or two or three years or by a fine of one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.

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Occupy HOPE

This image represents my support for the Occupy movement, a grassroots movement spawned to stand up against corruption, imbalance of power, and failure of our democracy to represent and help average Americans. On the other hand, as flawed as the system is, I see Obama as a potential ally of the Occupy movement if the energy of the movement is perceived as constructive, not destructive. I still see Obama as the closest thing to “a man on the inside” that we have presently. Obviously, just voting is not enough. We need to use all of our tools to help us achieve our goals and ideals. However, I think idealism and realism need to exist hand in hand. Change is not about one election, one rally, one leader, it is about a constant dedication to progress and a constant push in the right direction. Let’s be the people doing the right thing as outsiders and simultaneously push the insiders to do the right thing for the people. I’m still trying to work out copyright issues I may face with this image, but feel free to share it and stay tuned…
-Shepard Fairey

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_Fairey

Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding[1] scene. He first became known for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" (…OBEY…) sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His work became more widely known in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, specifically his Barack Obama "Hope" poster.

twitter:

londonmoan twitterde op zaterdag 19-11-2011 om 23:07:25 It just goes to show its not about changing the leader you need to change the system. #Egypt #Tahrir reageer retweet

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https://bicyclebarricade.(...)or-linda-p-b-katehi/

18 November 2011

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:

1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today

2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality

3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.” You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”

I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating “a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

Sincerely,

Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis

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Anger at Walmart heiress's $1.4bn gallery as art market becomes focus for protests

Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art is built at vast expense in rural Bentonville as supermarket giant cuts benefits for workforce

When Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart supermarket fortune and the the 10th richest woman in the United States, opened a spectacular fine art museum in her home town, she might have expected plaudits and gratitude. It hasn't quite worked out that way.

The long-awaited opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art in Walton's home town of Bentonville, Arkansas, has provoked mixed reactions. Some have celebrated the unveiling of a significant new private art institution, but many have criticised the decision to spend $1.4bn of company and family foundation money as the retail colossus cuts back its workers' benefits.

Protesters at the museum have informally joined forces with the Occupy Wall Street camps across the US and point to growing ties between the Occupy movement and established trade unions.

The museum, which opened last weekend and features a survey of American art from Benjamin West to Georgia O'Keefe, from Norman Rockwell to Andy Warhol, and from Joan Mitchell to Walton Ford, has also come under criticism from within the art establishment for both inflating values and buying masterpieces from impoverished art institutions without giving local institutions a chance to match Walton's offer.

While historians point out that this is little different from 19th-century robber barons such as Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie amassing vast collections of European art and bringing it to America, the prospect of hundreds of masterpieces in rural Bentonville, two hours' drive from Tulsa, is still controversial.

Walton, at 62 the youngest of Walmart founder Sam Walton's four children, started buying specifically for the project in 2005. The Moshe Safdie-designed institution, which sits in 120 acres of dogwood trees and trails minutes from downtown Bentonville, already has 440 works on display and 800 in storage.

"We set market records for very few pieces that we purchased," says curator, David Houston. "But there is latent criticism from an east coast elite that bringing a famous painting like Thomas Eakins's [$68m] Gross Clinic to Arkansas is itself an act of cultural vandalism. We're bringing art to the public, but it's a different kind of public, and there are social and political connotations to that."

In the week since Crystal Bridges opened, it has already seen 5,000 registered visitors. "Sheer curiosity and hunger for an institution like this bears out Alice Walton's vision," Houston says.

Ben Waxman, spokesman for the union-affiliated Making Change@Walmart, said: "Opening a huge, opulent museum in the middle of nowhere while the company is cutting health insurance for its employees is troubling. It sends the message Wal-Mart doesn't care about them."

The issues of wealth distribution that have brought art into conflict with the labour movement at Crystal Bridges have also been on display at Sotheby's during the billion-dollar modern, impressionist and contemporary sales earlier this month in New York.

Since August, when Sotheby's dismissed 43 unionised art handlers, its salesrooms have been besieged by Teamsters union members, bearing an inflatable rat and a fat cat banker with a cigar in one hand and throttled worker in the other. "The company is having its most profitable year in 267 years and they locked us out in the middle of our contract," said Teamsters member Phil Cortero. "Sotheby's represents the richest people in the world. When you lose your shirt down on Wall Street you come and hock your stuff here."

Increasingly, the Teamsters are joined by Occupy Museum activists, chanting "We are the 99%!" They protest that the multimillion dollar art handled by auction houses is used to maintain and transfer the wealth of the 1%.

Outside Christie's, which is not involved in the dispute, Los Angeles property developer Eli Broad, one of America's wealthiest men, confirmed as much to the New York Times. "People would rather have art than gold or paper," he said.

OWS Labor Outreach member Mike Friedman said that Occupy had no problem with the art itself. "But at a time when we're seeing cutbacks in health and education spending, we're seeing the transfer of wealth by way of tax cuts and subsidies to an elite who use excesses of that transfer to buy these magnificent works of art."

With the end of the Zuccotti Park sit-in, Occupy says it plans to initiate focused protests against cultural institutions associated with big Wall Street donors. It has singled out Lincoln Center, home to the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and New York fashion week, which is financially supported by Tea Party funder David Koch.

Back at Crystal Bridges, Houston argues that it will take years to see the full effect of how the Walton family has used its wealth. The family foundation is active in a whole variety of charitable activities, many of them educational, he says. "Their intent is not to create a shrine to an individual or even a family. Their goal is to create a tremendous cultural resource in this part of the world."

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Op zondag 20 november 2011 10:37 schreef PalmRoyale het volgende:
Het is nu toch wel erg duidelijk dat de gevestigde orde de beweging wel degelijk als een grote bedreiging ziet, waarom zouden ze anders steeds weer geweld gebruiken tegen mensen die hun grondwettelijke recht uitoefenen. Amerika roept altijd dat ze voor vrijheid en democratie zijn maar als je iets doet dat het systeem bedreigd krijg je een wapenstok in je nek.

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Op zondag 20 november 2011 11:03 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

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Ik wil het onderwerp niet groter en zwaarder maken dan het is, maar kijkend naar de daadwerkelijke betekenis van begrippen en de verhoudingen waar het op slaat, begin ik me af te vragen wat hier niet fascistisch aan is.

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Op zondag 20 november 2011 11:13 schreef PalmRoyale het volgende:
Het heeft idd fascistische trekken. Als de politie zo doorgaat dan kunnen ze als een binnenlandse agressor gezien worden en dan hebben de betogers het grondwettelijke recht om wapens tegen hen op te nemen.

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Rep. Deutch Introduces OCCUPIED Constitutional Amendment To Ban Corporate Money In Politics

In one of the greatest signs yet that the 99 Percenters are having an impact, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, today introduced an amendment that would ban corporate money in politics and end corporate personhood once and for all.
Deutch’s amendment, called the Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy (OCCUPIED) Amendment, would overturn the Citizens United decision, re-establishing the right of Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance laws, and to effectively outlaw the ability of for-profit corporations to contribute to campaign spending.
“No matter how long protesters camp out across America, big banks will continue to pour money into shadow groups promoting candidates more likely to slash Medicaid for poor children than help families facing foreclosure,” said Deutch in a statement provided to ThinkProgress. “No matter how strongly Ohio families fight for basic fairness for workers, the Koch Brothers will continue to pour millions into campaigns aimed at protecting the wealthiest 1%. No matter how fed up seniors in South Florida are with an agenda that puts oil subsidies ahead of Social Security and Medicare, corporations will continue to fund massive publicity campaigns and malicious attack ads against the public interest. Americans of all stripes agree that for far too long, corporations have occupied Washington and drowned out the voices of the people. I introduced the OCCUPIED Amendment because the days of corporate control of our democracy. It is time to return the nation’s capital and our democracy to the people.”

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Op zondag 20 november 2011 11:13 schreef PalmRoyale het volgende:
Het heeft idd fascistische trekken. Als de politie zo doorgaat dan kunnen ze als een binnenlandse agressor gezien worden en dan hebben de betogers het grondwettelijke recht om wapens tegen hen op te nemen.

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Op zondag 20 november 2011 17:08 schreef PalmRoyale het volgende:
Ik hoop het ook niet maar het zou me niks verbazen dat gewapende milities zich bij de beweging aansluiten als de politie zo doorgaat. Ze slaan nu nog op vreedzame betogers in maar als dat gebeurd en ze goed getrainde gewapende milities tegenover zich hebben dan piepen ze wel anders.

Het is in ieder geval wel duidelijk dat het politieke en sociale landschap aan het veranderen is. De gevestigde orde voelt zich langzaam maar zeker in het nauw gedreven en zal nog hele rare sprongen maken in een poging hun macht te behouden.

Gingrich on OWS

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Op zondag 20 november 2011 18:59 schreef PalmRoyale het volgende:
Het is bekend dat vele milities in de VS een grote afkeer hebben van de overheid en sommige van de meer extreme milities zijn bereid de grondwet met hun leven te verdedigen. Als het georganiseerde geweld tegen de beweging door blijft gaan zou dat het excuus zijn wat ze nodig hebben om met wapens tegen de overheid te vechten.

Ik hoop en denk niet dat het zal gebeuren maar het is wel degelijk een reeël gevaar.

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Occupy wall street Oakland neemt bezit van een nieuwe locatie

Anti-Wall Street protesters in Oakland pushed down a chain-link fence surrounding a city-owned vacant lot where they planned a new encampment.

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Op zondag 20 november 2011 19:07 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Denk je dat de gewone mensen van Occupy, arbeiders en studenten, daar wat tegen zouden kunnen doen? Want zoiets kan natuurlijk nooit de bedoeling zijn.

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Op zondag 20 november 2011 15:05 schreef J0kkebr0k het volgende:

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis

Wat een smeerlappen om die jongeren zo te pepperen.

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Op zondag 20 november 2011 19:07 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Denk je dat de gewone mensen van Occupy, arbeiders en studenten, daar wat tegen zouden kunnen doen? Want zoiets kan natuurlijk nooit de bedoeling zijn.

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US Occupy: officers in pepper spray incident placed on leave

YouTube footage from University of California, Davis protest sparks investigation as Occupy protests spread across state

Two University of California, Davis police officers involved in pepper spraying seated protesters are being placed on administrative leave as the chancellor of the school accelerates the investigation into the incident.

Chancellor Linda Katehi said she has been inundated with reaction over the incident, in which an officer dispassionately fired pepper spray on a line of sitting demonstrators.

Video of the incident was circulated widely on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter on Saturday, and the university's faculty association called on Katehi to resign, saying in a letter there had been a "gross failure of leadership".

Katehi said she takes "full responsibility for the incident" but has resisted calls for her resignation, instead pledging to take actions to make sure "that this does not happen again".However, a law enforcement official who watched the clip called the use of force "fairly standard police procedure".

In the video, an officer dispassionately pepper-sprays a line of sitting protesters who flinch and cover their faces but remain passive with their arms interlocked as onlookers shriek and scream out for the officer to stop.

The protest was held in support of the overall Occupy Wall Street movement and in solidarity with protesters at the University of California, Berkeley who were jabbed with batons by police on 9 November.

Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.

"When you start picking up human bodies, you risk hurting them," Kelly said. "Bodies don't have handles on them."

After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques, Kelly said.

Images of police actions have served to galvanize support during the Occupy Wall Street movement, from the clash between protesters and police in Oakland last month that left an Iraq war veteran with serious injuries to more recent skirmishes in New York City, San Diego, Denver and Portland, Oregon.

Some of the most notorious instances went viral online, including the use of pepper spray on an 84-year-old activist in Seattle and a group of women in New York. Seattle's mayor apologised to the activist, and the New York Police Department official shown using pepper spray on the group of women lost 10 vacation days after an internal review.

In the video of this week's UC Davis protest, the officer, a member of the university police force, displays a bottle before spraying its contents on the seated protesters in a sweeping motion while walking back and forth. Most of the protesters have their heads down, but several are hit directly in the face. Some members of a crowd gathered at the scene scream and cry out. The crowd then chants, "Shame on you," as the protesters on the ground are led away. The officers retreat minutes later with helmets on and batons drawn.

Ten people were arrested at the protest. Nine students hit by pepper spray were treated at the scene, two were taken to hospitals and later released, university officials said.Elsewhere in California, police arrested six Occupy San Francisco protesters early on Sunday and dismantled a tent encampment in front of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Officer Albie Esparza said police and city crews took down about 12 tents. The six were arrested on charges of interfering with officers.

The raid came several hours after police and public works crews removed dozens of tents from the nearby Occupy camp at Justin Herman Plaza.

Earlier, several hundred protesters in Oakland tore down a chain-link fence surrounding a city-owned vacant lot and set up a new encampment five days after their main camp near City Hall was torn down.

"They obviously don't want us at the plaza downtown. We might as well make this space useful," Chris Skantz, 23, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Occupy Oakland protesters breached the fence and poured into the lot next to the Fox Theater on Telegraph Avenue, police said in a statement.

The protesters passed a line of police surrounding the lot without a struggle, used wire cutters to take down the fence and pulled down "no trespassing" signs, the Chronicle reported.

Police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said surrounding streets had been closed and officers were protecting nearby buildings

Watson said there had been no arrests or citations, but the city's position remains that no camping will be allowed and protesters cannot stay overnight.

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NYPD cops block Occupy Wall Street protestors from drumming outside Mayor Bloomberg’s townhouse

Occupy Wall Street protesters who were kicked out of their downtown “home” last week moved uptown Sunday, to lay siege to Mayor Bloomberg’s swank Upper East Side townhouse with drumming and chanting.

But cops closed down the block, one of the city’s most exclusive, forcing Bloomberg’s neighbors on E. 79th St. between Fifth and Madison to show ID to get past barricades.

City Hall officials did not say if the billionaire mayor was home to hear the commotion.

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‘Anonymous’ targets pepper-spraying policeman

The online “hacktivist” group Anonymous published the personal contact details on Monday of a California university policeman who used pepper spray on protesters, and it urged supporters to flood him with phone calls and emails.

YouTube videos of Friday’s incident on the campus of theUniversity of California, Davis have gone viral and led to the suspension of the college police chief, two police officers and calls for the chancellor to step down.

In the YouTube videos, one of which has received 1.44 million views, two university police officers in riot gear are seen spraying an orange mist on protesters sitting peacefully on the ground.

Following the spraying, the crowd begins chanting “Shame on you!”

A YouTube video on Monday purportedly from Anonymous published the home address, the home telephone number, the cellphone number and the email address of one of the policeman who allegedly used the pepper spray on protestors.

In the video, an artificially altered voice tells the “police forces of the world” that “brutalization of our citizens is both unjust and uncalled for.”

Specifically addressing the officer involved in the Davis incident, it said: “You are a coward, and a bully.”

“Flood his phones, email and mailbox to voice your anger,” it said.

A call to the cellphone number listed identified it as that of the police officer involved and said his voicemail box was full.

Anonymous has been involved in scores of hacking exploits including the recent defacing of a website of Syria’s Ministry of Defense to protest a bloody crackdown on anti-government protestors.

Last year, the shadowy group launched retaliatory attacks on companies perceived to be enemies of the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

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Op woensdag 19 oktober 2011 21:35 schreef arucard het volgende:
Ik bedoel, het is toch logisch dat er arrestaties plaatsvinden, als je duizenden mensen op een kluitje hebt voor 3 weken.

twitter:

allisonkilkenny twitterde op dinsdag 22-11-2011 om 17:07:39 RT @JeffSharlet: Egyptian activists ask Americans to go to Zuccotti Park for solidarity Tahrir Square at 3 pm today. #ows reageer retweet

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/22/pregnant-seattle-protester-miscarries-after-being-kicked-pepper-sprayed/

A woman who was pepper sprayed during during a raid on Occupy Seattle last week is blaming police after she miscarried Sunday.

Jennifer Fox, 19, told The Stranger that she had been with the Occupy protests since they started in Westlake Park. She said she was homeless and three months pregnant, but felt the need to join activists during their march last Tuesday.

“I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,” Fox recalled. “I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.’”

She claimed that police hit her in the stomach twice before pepper spraying her. One officer struck her with his foot and another pushed his bicycle into her. It wasn’t clear if either of those incidents were intentional.

“Right before I turned, both cops lifted their pepper spray and sprayed me. My eyes puffed up and my eyes swelled shut,” Fox said.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer photographer Joshua Trujillo snapped a picture of Fox in apparent agony as another activist carried her to an ambulance.

Seattle fire department spokesman Kyle Moore told The Washington Post that a 19-year-old pregnant woman was among those that were examined by paramedics.

While doctors at Harborview Medical Center didn’t see any problems at the time, things took a turn for the worst Sunday.

“Everything was going okay until yesterday, when I started getting sick, cramps started, and I felt like I was going to pass out,” she explained.

When Fox arrived at the hospital, doctors told her that the baby had no heartbeat.

“They diagnosed that I was having a miscarriage. They said the damage was from the kick and that the pepper spray got to it [the fetus], too,” she said.

“I was worried about it [when I joined the protests], but I didn’t know it would be this bad. I didn’t know that a cop would murder a baby that’s not born yet… I am trying to get lawyers.”

The Scoville heat chart indicates that U.S. grade pepper spray is ten times more painful than the blistering hot habanero pepper, according to Scientific American. While law enforcement officials regulary claim that the spray is safe, researchers at the University of North Carolina and Duke University found that it could “produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death.”

Seattle Police Attack Pregnant Jennifer Fox Aftermath

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Bill O'Reilly On UC Davis Pepper Spray: We Shouldn't Second-Guess Police (VIDEO)

First Posted: 11/22/11 08:27 AM ET Updated: 11/22/11 11:01 AM ET

Megyn Kelly and Bill O'Reilly discussed the shocking pepper-spray incident that rocked the UC Davis campus on Monday's "O'Reilly Factor."

Kelly called the pepper spray "a food product, essentially," but both wondered whether the particular mix the campus police used to repeatedly spray student protesters had been diluted. "A lot of experts are looking at that and saying, is this the real deal?" Kelly said, though she added that the spray was "obviously abrasive and intrusive."

She then said that it was not clear that the police had overstepped their boundaries, since they were trying to disperse a crowd practicing civil disobedience.

"I know that the tape looks bad," she said. "I agree it looks bad. All I'm saying is from a legal standpoint, I don't know that the cops did anything wrong."

O'Reilly was a tad less nuanced in his comments. "I don't think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police," he said.

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

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:

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Op dinsdag 22 november 2011 20:19 schreef Chooselife het volgende:
Nog even en pepperspray is groente. Let maar op.

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Politie New York moet media ongestoord laten werken

De politie in New York mag vertegenwoordigers van de media niet op onredelijke wijze lastigvallen tijdens hun werk. Die boodschap van hoofdcommissaris Raymond Kelly is gisteren voorgelezen op alle politiebureaus in de Amerikaanse stad.

De mededeling volgt op de arrestatie van verschillende journalisten die de protesten versloegen van de beweging Occupy Wall Street. Sommigen waren, samen met betogers, opgepakt terwijl ze zich bevonden op privéterrein. Dat is volgens Kelly voortaan uitdrukkelijk verboden, tenzij de eigenaar van het perceel de politie vraagt in te grijpen.

Protestbrief
Na de arrestatie van ten minste zes journalisten ontving de politie vorige week een gemeenschappelijke protestbrief van verschillende mediabedrijven, waaronder het persbureau AP, dat een verslaggever en een fotograaf opgepakt zag worden. 'Het politieoptreden was vijandiger tegenover de pers dan bij elke andere gebeurtenis uit het recente verleden', stond onder meer in de brief.

Vertegenwoordigers van onder meer AP, de New York Times, de New York Post en de Daily News hebben gisteren een gesprek gevoerd met hoofdcommissaris Kelly. In de dienstmededeling die op de bureaus is voorgelezen, staat onder meer dat de politie in haar omgang met de media 'de principes van een vrije pers en een geïnformeerde burgerij' moet respecteren.

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Occupy Seattle occupies Wal-Mart

On Friday, November 25th, Occupy Seattle will join Occupy Tacoma, Occupy Bellingham and Occupy Everett in a statewide protest at Wal-Mart in Renton at 2:00pm.

With its long history of mistreating workers and suppliers, its recent announcement of significant cutbacks on employee health care, and its obscene profits, Wal-Mart is a prime example of how the 99% are suffering at the hands of the 1%.

Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in the world and proof positive of how big business is destructive to our democracy. While Americans are shopping at Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart is buying Congress. Last year, Wal-Mart paid over $4.3 million in campaign contributions (not to mention the monies funneled through donations to lobbying organizations) to protect its interests.

Unfortunately, its interests are not those of its employees. With $14.3 billion in profits in 2010, Wal-Mart still saw fit to eliminate health insurance coverage for part time employees, cut company contributions to employee health savings accounts by 50% and increase health care premiums 17% to 61% for over 2.1 million employees worldwide. According to an article in the Huffington Post, the average Wal-Mart worker makes $8.81 per hour, while the CEO makes $8990.00 per hour.

The Walton family (the largest shareholders of Wal-Mart stock and descendants of its founder) is the wealthiest family in the United States with an estimated net worth of $92 billion (according to Forbes’ latest ranking). That’s more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans combined. They directly gave $7,000,000 in political contributions in 2010 and billions more through their family foundations in an effort to buy our legislative process.

twitter:

Anon_Central twitterde op vrijdag 25-11-2011 om 09:59:56 #DirectAction call to all #Occupy Movements on Twitter || Lets trend #OccupyBlackFriday! ty @OWS_Live Full support from #Anonymous! reageer retweet

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The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality

_{Naomi Wolf
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 November 2011 17.25 GMT
Article history}

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.

But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."

In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests.

To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.

I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors', city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.

Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.

That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.

The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.

The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women's wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).

In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.

But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential contender Newt Gingrich's having been paid $1.8m for a few hours' "consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies' profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.

Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists' privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can't suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organised Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.

So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.

Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.

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Dear Michael: Shut Down The Protests Now (An Email From Goldman Sachs’ CEO to Bloomberg)

Dear Michael Bloomberg:

You must shut down these protests, they are creating a negative psychology. We need the people to remain submissive to the financial doctrine and I am sure you understand this. Our business has been suffering from the political pressures abroad and now political pressures at home are making the future seem very bleak.

Goldman Sachs needs political stability and we count on you to bring back this stability to the city of New York. I am sure you understand the consequences of a prolonged people’s movement: less shopping, less consumption, less submission, less control. You and I know that protests kill the consumerist drive because they give the common people a new outlet for their emotions, shut this new outlet before it’s too late.

You need to squash these protestors, you need to wipe them out by any means necessary. Change the laws if you must, change the rules, change the platform. The longer the protestors stay in the streets, the bigger the dent will be in the common people’s consumption habits.

I have full confidence in you Michael as a prominent businessman, I am sure you know what will happen if consumption goes down, we will lose massive amounts of capital.

We know you understand this and we put our trust and confidence in you you. Let’s get rid of these street urchins, let’s bring back business as usual. Let’s create harmony and passive peace so that our businesses can grow, yours and ours.



Lloyd Blankfein

Goldman Sachs’ CEO

November 12th, 2011

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Occupy Wall Street Protesters Propose A National Convention, Release Potential Demands

WASHINGTON -- While an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Occupy Wall Street protesters flooded into Times Square on Saturday, there was still a regular New York general assembly at 7 p.m. During that meeting, according to sources who contacted The Huffington Post, the Zuccotti Park General Assembly -- though at a reduced presence due to the Times Square march -- saw the formation of a new working group.

This “Demands Working Group” then immediately “established a website and fairly educated/articulated list of solutions.” A separate group out of Zuccotti Park has also been working on a list of possible proposals, but a member of the Education and Empowerment Working Group said he suspects the Demands Working Group’s list might become the national platform.

They’ve posted the list online but they’ve also made this announcement under the radar -- a national convention to be held July 4, 2012:

WE, THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in order to form a more perfect Union, by, for and of the PEOPLE, shall elect and convene a NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY beginning on July 4, 2012 in the City Of Philadelphia.

Their plan includes to elect delegates by direct vote, one male and one female per each of the 435 Congressional Districts. The office would be open to any United States citizen over the age of 18. The 870 delegates would then compose a petition of grievances that would be non-partisan.

The posted “demands” are only a working list of “suggestions,” however. Number one and two are a ban on private contributions to politicians seeking or holding federal office and instead public financing for campaigns, and a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court.

The list then goes on to suggest single-payer national health care, immediate passage of the DREAM Act, a jobs plan, a deficit reduction plan and recalling military personnel at all non-essential bases.

The movement would also reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, increase regulation and increase taxes by way of eliminating corporate tax loopholes.

The idea of coming up with a list of demands has been controversial among protesters.

David Sauvage, who directs videos for the Occupy Wall Street protests and supports the movement, said he viewed demands as being too similar to talking points.

But Daniel Lerner, a physicist and member of the Demands Working Group, argued to Mother Jones that their demands would have wide appeal.

In their list, however, they close with one last warning: if Congress, the President and the Supreme Court do not act on the settled grievances the movement eventually comes up with, its members are prepared to form a third, independent political party to run in every Congressional seat in 2014 and 2016.

Update at 10:50 a.m.: As mentioned above, the working group's suggestions and website have not been adopted by the movement as a whole, or approved by the NYC General Assembly as a whole. The debate over whether or not to even have "demands" within the Occupy Wall Street movement has continued.

One person involved, Andy Stepanian, told HuffPost that this particular declaration has not been approved by the General Assembly in New York and so it can't be said this reflects the movement's feelings as a whole.

"Everyone is entitled to make their own blog or website to post their opinions about how OWS should operate or what they think the OWS demands should be, this 99% group is no different," Stepanian said in an email. "However, all of OWS's official statements are agreed upon by way of consensus-based general assemblies. This matter was not submitted or agreed upon by the NYC general assembly, and therefore by-passed the process all OWS plans have been made through."

So far, the General Assembly has accepted a "Declaration of the Occupation" back on Sept. 29.

"Demands have come up before," wrote Ryan Hoffman in another email to HuffPost. "They were shot down vociferously under the argument that demands are for terrorists and that is not who we are. From that debate however, another proposal was passed: that we table all talk of demands until future notice! Therefore, any talk about demands, posts of demands, etc. are null and void. We already tabled those discussions using consensus."

Hoffman said the Declaration took a while to edit and revise with everyone putting in their own contributions and ideas before they could arrive at a final product the group agreed on. He explained that the General Assemblies have set up an entire process by which something like these "demands" could be agreed to, but the way this working group bypassed the process has caused some frustration.

"There is a 'demands working group' out there right now," Hoffman said, adding that the way they met in secret with The New York Times infuriated many members of the General Assembly. "There is a lot of internal dissent due to the manner in which this group was created and conducted its meetings."

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Op zondag 27 november 2011 11:10 schreef deelnemer het volgende:
Dat briefje is niet echt Papierversnipperaar .

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Op zondag 27 november 2011 18:39 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Het zou echt moeten zijn

bill maher on The Wealth Gap in America and the World 12-03-2011

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Occupy L.A.: More than 200 arrested in peaceful sweep

Without resorting to large-scale violence, Los Angeles police successfully cleared out the Occupy L.A. camp at City Hall early Wednesday, managing to avoid fierce confrontations that marred sweeps in Oakland and New York.

Hundreds of police officers swarmed the large camp at City Hall’s south lawn shortly after midnight, encircling the demonstrators in less than 10 minutes. By quickly establishing a perimeter, police managed to take control of the scene in the first moments of engagement.

No tear gas was used in the shutdown of what was the nation's largest remaining Occupy camp. More than 200 people were arrested in the operation that involved 1,400 officers.

“They were like storm troopers. They encircled us,” said protester Cheryl Aichele, who was sitting in the middle of the south lawn in a circle with other protesters when police first entered the camp.

The protesters largely kept to their promise of confronting the police peacefully. While some taunted police verbally and a few rocks were thrown, most protesters either left on their own or nonviolently submitted to arrest, with many going limp and forcing the police to carry them out.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck was satisfied in the first few moments after the raid.

“That was the hardest part,” Beck said of the first rush of officers into the park. “That first contact: You learn if your officers are going to break ranks and if people are going to get physical. It went as well as we could have expected.”

In a matter of minutes, officers poured out of City Hall and from streets in all directions, encircling the park as protesters linked arms and chanted, "We are peaceful" and "We are the 99%."
It was a stark departure from old LAPD crowd control techniques, Beck said. In years past, police would have used a single skirmish line to sweep through the park and push people out.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appeared proud and relieved after the eviction, and thanked officers in a brief predawn news conference.

“I said that here in L.A., we’d chart a different path. And we did,” Villaraigosa said.

Speaking with the mayor, Beck said he had established a relationship with the protesters early on in the seven-week demonstration.

Most protesters seemed to eschew violence, and downtown did not see any of the violence of the kind that erupted in Oakland last month, when protesters started fires, police used tear gas and some protesters suffered serious injuries.

By early Wednesday, the last remaining protesters had holed up in a palm tree just outside Villaraigosa's office. The protesters smoked cigars as they joked with police, at one point asking police to bring them beer.

The moment spoke to the generally light tone of the eviction. Moments before police entered the park, protesters were setting off fireworks. After they entered, a man who refused to leave told an officer: "If you give me a hug, I will leave right now."

"Are you serious?" the officer asked with a smile. He appeared for a moment ready to comply, but then moved away.

Still, there were some moments of tension. A confrontation built early in the evening on the corner of 1st Street and Broadway, where a crowd approaching from the west, seeking to join protesters at City Hall, was stopped by a line of police wearing face masks and armed with batons.

On Main Street, one protester yelled at police: "Remember your mother! You're not here to beat up citizens."

Twenty-eight-year-old Sam Gray, an Army veteran, said he is angry that the city "took its word back."

"I took an oath to uphold the Constitution and in my opinion, the police are trampling on it," he said.

Toward the end of the operation, a large group of protesters that had locked arms in the middle of the south lawn chanted to police making arrests: “You’re sexy. You’re cute. Take off your riot suit.”

Earlier in the night, at the police staging area outside Dodger Stadium, a supervisor told a group of officers that they needed to be prepared for some protesters to fight back.

"They've got a bunch of concrete gravel and other [things] they're going to throw at us," he said. "Please put your face masks down and watch each other's back."

Amid fears protesters had stored urine and feces to throw at officers, some were wearing white protective body suits.

The conclusion of the raid marked the end of a two-month tent city that the City Council initially welcomed, with then-Council President Eric Garcetti telling protesters they could "stay as long as you need."

But city leaders began withdrawing their support as the demonstrators seemed determined to stay indefinitely.

By 5 a.m., the protest site was in shambles, and what was left of the tents was strewn across the ground.

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Philadelphia police force occupy protesters out, arrest dozens

Occupy Philadelphia has been cleared out of Dilworth Plaza next to City Hall. The eviction came more than two days after a city-imposed deadline for getting protesters to leave.

Civil Affairs Captain William Fisher read out the warnings shortly after 1 a.m., telling protesters they would be arrested if they refused to leave. The protesters split into two groups, one staying near City Hall, the other taking police on a two hour march through much of Center City. Eventually about 50 protesters were arrested.

Gwen Snyder of Occupy says even though they have been evicted their fight isn't over. "We'll continue to fight for economic justice in this country and this world and we will continue to do it whatever happens, that's what we've said and that's what we will continue to say," said Snyder.

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey was pleased with his officers and how they handled the protesters. "We work with people the best we can but sometimes people cross the line and wind up getting arrested," said Ramsey.

Sanitation and fire department workers joined together to clean up the plaza and power wash it with fire hoses to prepare for the $50 million renovation of Dilworth Plaza.

UPDATE 8 a.m.:

The Associated Press reports that near 50 protesters have now been arrested.

More than 40 Occupy Philadelphia protesters were arrested overnight outside City Hall as police moved in to enforce the eviction notice given last week.

After reading warnings starting at 1 a.m., officers moved in to arrest people who would not leave Dilworth Plaza. Four men and two women were taken into custody about 3 a.m. The city wants the protesters out so a long-planned $50 million dollar renovation can move forward.

As officers moved in to make arrests, many Occupy protesters left and starting marching through the streets. About 5 a.m. police arrested about 40 more people near 15th and Hamilton Streets. Police still did not have exact arrest numbers.

A splinter group of Occupy Philadelphia has taken out a permit for daytime protests at Paine Plaza, across the street from the original location. But many members did not want to move to the new location since the permit bars them from camping overnight. They say without a 24 hour presence the "occupy" part of the movement would be lost.

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Training alongside the American police departments at Urban Shield was the Yamam, an Israeli Border Police unit that claims to specialize in “counter-terror” operations but is better known for its extra-judicial assassinations of Palestinian militant leaders and long record of repression and abuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Urban Shield also featured a unit from the military of Bahrain, which had just crushed a largely non-violent democratic uprising by opening fire on protest camps and arresting wounded demonstrators when they attempted to enter hospitals. While the involvement of Bahraini soldiers in the drills was a novel phenomenon, the presence of quasi-military Israeli police – whose participation in Urban Shield was not reported anywhere in US media – reflected a disturbing but all-too-common feature of the post-9/11 American security landscape.

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When a riot squad from the New York Police Department destroyed and evicted the Occupy Wall Street protest encampment at Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan, department leadership drew on the anti-terror tactics they had refined since the 9/11 attacks. According to the New York Times, the NYPD deployed counterterrorism measures to mobilize large numbers of cops for the lightning raid on Zuccotti. The use of anti-terror techniques to suppress a civilian protest complemented harsh police measures demonstrated across the country against the nationwide Occupy movement, from firing tear gas canisters and rubber bullets into unarmed crowds to blasting demonstrators with the LRAD sound cannon.

Given the amount of training the NYPD and so many other police forces have received from Israels military-intelligence apparatus, and the profuse levels of gratitude American police chiefs have expressed to their Israeli mentors, it is worth asking how much Israeli instruction has influenced the way the police have attempted to suppress the Occupy movement, and how much it will inform police repression of future upsurges of street protest. But already, the Israelification of American law enforcement appears to have intensified police hostility towards the civilian population, blurring the lines between protesters, common criminals, and terrorists. As Dichter said, they are all just crimiterrorists.

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Farmers Join Occupy Wall Street, Calling for Food Justice

As Wall Street’s corrupt influence on the economy has grown, the corporate ownership of our food system has hurt the health and livelihood’s of some of our most vulnerable communities. This Sunday, December 4th food justice activists and occupiers will be traveling from as far as Colorado, Iowa, Maine and Upstate New York to join together for the Occupy Wall Street FARMERS’ MARCH.Through a day of dialogue, musical performances, and a march, farmers and their urban allies working for food justice in their communities will form alliances to fight and expose corporate control of the food supply.

Events throughout the day will call and inspire participants to fight against the corporate manipulation of the agriculture system. An industry that is responsible for using chemical toxins tied to soaring obesity rates, heart disease and diabetes and limiting access to affordable, wholesome food to the country’s poorest citizens.

The event will kick off at 2pm at La Plaza Cultural Community Gardenwith a musical performance followed by remarks from food justice activists and occupiers. They will share their stories and listen to their peers as they highlight the role of urban-rural solidarity in building a sustainable food system as well as challenges of family-scale farmers in a culture of corporate dominance.

At 4pm, musicians will be among those leading the Farmers’ March in a colorful parade from La Plaza to Zuccotti Park/Liberty Plaza, the site of a Solidarity Circle at 5pm. Stories of struggle, triumph and ruminations about the role OWS might assume in the food justice movement will help form the circle. The circle will close with a Seed Exchange.

Participants are encouraged to express their dissent creatively, donning fruits hats, wearing burlap sacks, carrying brightly colored signs and moving in time to the beat of the drums.

Please join us, farmers, ranchers, farm workers, urban gardeners, foodies and supporters of all kinds in the Occupy Wall Street FARMERS’ MARCH.

Speakers will include:

George Na ylor - Iowa farmer and president of the National Family Farm Coalition. Karen Washington - Founder of City Farms Market and board member at NYC based organization Just Food. Jim Gerritsen - Maine based farmer who was named one of 20 world visionaries by Utne Reader in 2011 and is the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Monsanto.

Severine von Tscharner - Food advocate and producer of the film “Green Horns”, profiling young farmer entrepreneurs. Jim Goodman - Wisconson Farmer, organizer of the tractorcade to Madison to speak out against Governer Walker’s union legislation. Jalal Sabur - Founding member of the Freedom Food Alliance and advocate working on the alliance of black urban communities with black rural farmers. Mike Callicrate - Colorado cattle rancher, entrepreneur and rural advocate . Andrew Faust - World renowned permaculture expert and educator.

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Yasha Levine Released From Jail, Exposes LAPD’s Appalling Treatment of Detained Occupy LA Protesters…

I finally got home Thursday afternoon after spending two nights in jail, and have had a hard time getting my bearings. On top of severe dehydration and sleep deprivation, I’ve got one hell of pounding migraine. So I’ll have to keep this brief for now. But I wanted to write down a few things that I witnessed and heard while locked up by LA’s finest…

First off, don’t believe the PR bullshit. There was nothing peaceful or professional about the LAPD’s attack on Occupy LA–not unless you think that people peacefully protesting against the power of the financial oligarchy deserve to be treated the way I saw Russian cops treating the protesters in Moscow and St. Petersburg who were demonstrating against the oligarchy under Putin and Yeltsin, before we at The eXiled all got tossed out in 2008. Back then, everyone in the West protested and criticized the way the Russian cops brutally snuffed out dissent, myself included. Now I’m in America, at a demonstration, watching exactly the same brutal crackdown…

While people are now beginning to learn that the police attack on Occupy LA was much more violent than previously reported, few actually realize that much—if not most—of the abuse happened while the protesters were in police custody, completely outside the range of the press and news media. And the disgraceful truth is that a lot of the abuse was police sadism, pure and simple:

* I heard from two different sources that at least one busload of protesters (around 40 people) was forced to spend seven excruciating hours locked in tiny cages on a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. prison bus, denied food, water and access to bathroom facilities. Both men and women were forced to urinate in their seats. Meanwhile, the cops in charge of the bus took an extended Starbucks coffee break.

* The bus that I was shoved into didn’t move for at least an hour. The whole time we listened to the screams and crying from a young woman whom the cops locked into a tiny cage at the front of the bus. She was in agony, begging and pleading for one of the policemen to loosen her plastic handcuffs. A police officer sat a couple of feet away the entire time that she screamed–but wouldn’t lift a finger.

* Everyone on my bus felt her pain–literally felt it. That’s because the zip-tie handcuffs they use—like the ones you see on Iraq prisoners in Abu Ghraib—cut off your circulation and wedge deep through your skin, where they can do some serious nerve damage, if that’s the point. And it did seem to be the point. A couple of guys around me were writhing in agony in their hard plastic seats, hands handcuffed behind their back.

* The 100 protesters in my detainee group were kept handcuffed with their hands behind their backs for 7 hours, denied food and water and forced to sit/sleep on a concrete floor. Some were so tired they passed out face down on the cold and dirty concrete, hands tied behind their back. As a result of the tight cuffs, I wound up losing sensation in my left palm/thumb and still haven’t recovered it now, a day and a half after they finally took them off.

* One seriously injured protester, who had been shot with a shotgun beanbag round and had an oozing bloody welt the size of a grapefruit just above his elbow, was denied medical attention for five hours. Another young guy, who complained that he thought his arm had been broken, was not given medical attention for at least as long. Instead, he spent the entire pre-booking procedure handcuffed to a wall, completely spaced out and staring blankly into space like he was in shock.

* An Occupy LA demonstrator in his 50s who was in my cell block in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center told us all about when a police officer forced him to take a shit with his hands handcuffed behind his back, which made pulling down his pants and sitting down on the toilet extremely difficult and awkward. And he had to do this in sight of female police officers, all of which made him feel extremely ashamed, to say the least.

* There were two vegetarians and one vegan in my cell. When I left jail around 1:30 pm, they still had not been given food, despite the fact that they were constantly being promised that it would come.

* There were 292 people arrested at Occupy LA. About 75 of them have been released or have gotten out on bail, according the National Lawyers Guild. Most are still inside, slapped with $5,000 to $10,000 bail. According to a bail bondsman I know, this is unprecedented. Misdemeanors are almost always released on their own recognizance, which means that they don’t pay any bail at all. Or at most it’s a $100.

* That means the harsh, long detentions are meant to be are a purely punitive measure against Occupy LA protesters–an order that had to come from the very top.

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Occupy Oakland: police use teargas after protesters force port to close

Police in Oakland use teargas on three separate occasions as tensions flare after protesters occupied building during protest

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Op dinsdag 22 november 2011 19:47 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Seattle Police Attack Pregnant Jennifer Fox Aftermath

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Meer dan dertig Occupy manifestanten opgepakt in Washington.

In Washington heeft de politie 31 mensen opgepakt bij een operatie in het kamp van de protestbeweging tegen Wall Street. Het kamp zelf werd niet ontruimd.

Tientallen politieagenten trokken naar het kamp nabij het Witte Huis om een door de betogers opgetrokken houten chalet te ontmantelen. De operatie leidde tot een urenlange zenuwoorlog tussen de politie en de ongeveer 400 betogers. Daarbij pakte de politie manifestanten op die de afgezette zone betraden of weigerden te gehoorzamen aan politiebevelen.

De politie ontruimde het hoofdstedelijke kamp van de Occupy Wall Street-beweging niet. Ook de kampen in Boston en Pittsburg ontsnappen voorlopig aan ontruimingen. In New York is het kamp midden november ontmanteld en in Los Angeles en Pittsburg zijn de antikapitalistische betogers vorige week uit hun kampen verwijderd.

West Coast port shutdown announcement video.mov

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the next phase of occupy wall street: Occupy the universities

Once upon a time, our colleges and universities in the United States were forces for progressive social change. I'm not sure that's the case any longer. As someone who has been on the inside of higher education now for over 15 years, I see our universities more and more becoming tools of the corporatocracy.

Recently, my own college decided to toss 2/3s of the entire philosophy collection of our library (apparently the ability to think critically is no longer required in the United States). This compelled me to write a post about "The University as Corporation:"

http://www.michaelsrusso.(...)-as-corporation.html

Needless to say, the post didnt win me any fans among our administrators (or even among many of our faculty, for that matter).

I really do believe that the next phase of Occupy Wall Street has to involve an effort to radicalize students and reclaim the academy for what it was originally intended to provide the kind of education that actually empowers students and teaches them to think critically about our social problems. I really dont think that we are doing this any longer.

Id like to know what other people think about this. Have American colleges and universities become so corrupted by American capitalism that they are beyond hope at this point?

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Op zaterdag 3 december 2011 12:32 schreef Bolkesteijn het volgende:

Ik heb voor mijn werk (bij een universiteit nota bene) ook wel eens meegeschreven aan een stuk waarvan de uitkomst al vooraf vast stond. De opdrachtgever wilde een bepaalde uitkomst en daar hebben wij een economisch verhaal omheen getimmerd.

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Op maandag 5 december 2011 13:21 schreef Viajero het volgende:

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Leuk dilemma voor extreem rechts Amerika. Wat is belangrijker, de haat tegen hippies of het beschermen ongeboren leven?