Fuck Bloomberg, he's part of the 1% causing the problems.He's actually part of the .0001% who can use their bazillions of dollars to buy high public office. He's not just some garden-variety rich guy making $250,000 a year.
Then, Friday morning, we'll awake and position ourselves with our brooms and mops in a human chain around the park, linked at the arms. If NYPD attempts to enter, we'll peacefully/non-violently stand our ground and those who are willing will get arrested.posted by davidjmcgee at 1:50 PM on October 13, 2011 [2 favorites]
In response, Montgomery County Attorney Leon Rodriguez said that the street in question, Ellsworth Drive, "constitutes a public forum" and that the First Amendment's protection of free speech applies there. In an eight-page letter, Rodriguez wrote, "Although the courts have not definitively resolved the issue of whether the taking, as opposed to the display, of photographs is a protected expressive act, we think it is likely that a court would consider the taking of the photograph to be part of the continuum of action that leads to the display of the photograph and thus also protected by the First Amendment."That street still belongs to the city and it simply leased but that seems to be to be not so far from a privately owned park that is run in cooperation with a city and commonly open to all.
..in the eight months since Mubarak's departure, the ruling military junta has tried and convicted 12,000 Egyptian civilians in military tribunals, more than in the entire 30 years of Mubarak's rule. The country's emergency laws have not only remained in force since Mubark's ouster, but have been expanded to include such offences as "spreading rumours" and "blocking traffic".posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:47 PM on October 13, 2011 [15 favorites]
The only group which isn't persecuted by Egypt's military dictators are Islamist hardliners who have been given a free rein to terrorise the country's Coptic Christian minority.
"As the birthplace of Free Speech, Philadelphia holds a special place in our Constitutional history. Occupy Philly has chosen Philadelphia as one of the cities to express solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protest. Per our ongoing conversations with various event organizers, the ACLU and attorneys representing Occupy Philly, we are all in agreement that this event can be conducted in a safe and organized way that does not impact the public safety and allows Occupy Philly to forward its agenda while also allowing city residents to continue with their lives. Consistent with these principles, the first six days have held true to those promises. The relationship between organizers and the city is being heralded as a national model on how to celebrate Free Speech in an effective manner."- Richard Negrin, Deputy MayorWe should all stand in solidarity with the folks at Liberty Square, but it's equally important that we don't let the narrative be one of universal confrontation between cities and protesters.
On Thursday night, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. sent a message to members asking them to show up at Zuccotti Park early Friday morning to support the protesters.posted by yarrow at 7:16 AM on October 14, 2011 [5 favorites]
By 6 a.m., the crowd had swelled to more than a thousand.
Few people can be in any doubt that Islam is a deeply misogynistic religion. The Vatican's announcement last week that the ordination of women is as "grave" a "crime" as paedophilia didn't do much to advance the cause of feminism, but the Pope begins to look like Gloria Steinem next to most Islamic leaders. Under Iranian Islamic law, for instance, if a woman has sex before marriage she should be punished with 100 lashes and if she commits adultery she should be buried up to her neck and stoned to death. Iranian women aren't even allowed to get sun tans.The second source, Andrew Roberts, is also terrified of Islam:
[English speaking peoples] stand for modernity, religious and sexual toleration, capitalism, diversity, women's rights, representative institutions – in a word, the future. This world cannot coexist with strict, public implementation of Islamic sharia law, let alone an all-powerful caliphate.Con Coughlin, the third source, wrote a piece entitled, "When the next bomb goes off in London, blame the judges":
Why don't our judges just come clean and sign up with the Taliban? Every time they are asked to choose between the defence of the realm, or upholding the rights of some Islamic militant who claims his human rights have been violated, the judges invariably find in favour of the latter. Whether it is holding suspected terrorists so that thorough investigations of their activities can be carried out, or pandering to civil rights campaigners such as the odious Clive Stafford-Smith, the judical establishment never misses an opportunity to undermine the government's efforts to protect us from harm.True enough, Egypt has its problems after their revolution, but if I were serious about learning what those problems are, those are the last three people I would ask. If we're interested in the state and future of a democratic Egypt, wouldn't it make more sense to ask an Egyptian?
Suddenly, there was a great surge of people moving back, and something strange happened. Two armored personnel carriers (APCs) began driving at frightening speed through protesters, who threw themselves out of its path. A soldier on top of each vehicle manned a gun, and spun it wildly, apparently shooting at random although the screams made it difficult to discern exactly where the sound of gunfire was coming from.posted by Jahaza at 7:53 AM on October 14, 2011
It was like some brutal perversion of the military show the armed forces put on for the 6th of October celebration three days before. The two vehicles zigzagged down the road outside Maspero underneath the 6th of October Bridge and then back in synchronicity, the rhythm for this particular parade provided by the "tac tac tac" of never-ending gunfire, the music the screams of the protesters they drove directly at.
And then it happened: an APC mounted the island in the middle of the road, like a maddened animal on a rampage. I saw a group of people disappear, sucked underneath it. It drove over them. I wasn’t able to see what happened to them because it then started coming in my direction.
...
The Coptic Hospital tried its best to deal with the sudden influx of casualties. Its floors were sticky with blood and there was barely room to move among the wounded, the worried and the inconsolable.
A man asked if we were press, and whether we’d like to film the morgue if we “were strong enough.”
The morgue was a harshly lit two-room building surrounded by men and women screaming and hitting themselves in paroxysms of grief. In the first room there were two bodies, middle-aged men on the floor next to the fridge, which we were told held three bodies. In the other room there were the bodies of 12 men of varying ages.
A young woman sat by one of them clasping his hand and wailing. Vivian and Michael, who were engaged to be married. Michael had been crushed, his leg destroyed. Next to Michael was the body of a man whose face was contorted into an impossible expression. A priest opened his hands and showed me the remains of the man’s skull and parts of his brain. He too had been crushed.
Outside a woman said out loud to the dead, “How lucky you are, now in heaven!” A man screamed, “We won’t be silent again.”
**
Even while the wounded were still being brought in, state TV was reporting that Christian protesters stole weapons from the army and killed soldiers, and that the busy "foreign hands" are back again, still trying to destabilize Egypt.
There should be a finality in death, an unchallengeable truth when it happens with the simple brutality of last night. But even when death happens on Maspero’s doorstep, it can be rewritten, in order to lend a twisted sense where there is none, to justify the impossible and, above all, to sabotage any attempt to consider that the problem is within us, not without.
very favorable: 25%Agree with the following statements:
somewhat favorable: 29%
don't know enough to answer: 23%
"Wall Street and it's lobbyists have too much influence in Washington": 86%It looks like there's support.
"The gap between rich and poor in the United States has grown too large": 79%
"Executives of financial institutions responsible for the financial meltdown in 2008 should be prosecuted": 71%
"The rich should pay more taxes": 68%
(higher number it's "people with annual incomes of a million dollars or more")
The abrupt decision to call off the clean up seemed to frustrate Mr. Bloomberg. He said that if Brookfield decided that it did still want to clean the park, it would place the city in a more difficult situation.posted by smackfu at 8:32 AM on October 14, 2011
...
“My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying, ‘If you don’t stop this, we’ll make your life more difficult,’ ” Mr. Bloomberg said. “If those elected officials would spend half as much time trying to promote the city and get jobs to come here, we would go a long ways toward answering the concerns of the protesters.”
Change is frightening, even when it is good, and the army is exploiting this for its own ends with the help of state media and some conservative Muslim groups who seem to want to outdo each other in demonstrations of loyalty... For us still to be hearing this shit 6 months after the revolution is devastating. Even assuming that the army doesn’t have a long-term political agenda (protecting its interests, ensuring it gets the president it wants), it has completely hijacked the transitional process through its spectacular lack of political finesse and inability to cede power to citizens.I can imagine what she would have to say to any of the people who mentioned her in the article.
The Traditional Public Forum: an area which is traditionally understood to be and has always acted as a space for public expression. Think public squares, streets and wide open parks where people are known to congregate to express themselves. The government can only restrict speech when the restriction in question is “narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest”. But, even here certain restrictions, mainly to uphold public safety, order and decorum, are allowed.So the fact that these folks may wander some surrounding neighborhoods and wave some signs that maybe the residents don't want to see isn't enough for the cops to legally conduct mass arrests.
Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press. In all criminal prosecutions or indictments for libels, the truth may be given in evidence to the jury; and if it shall appear to the jury that the matter charged as libelous is true, and was published with good motives and for justifiable ends, the party shall be acquitted; and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the fact. (Amended by vote of the people November 6, 2001.)
Despite the demographic nonsense they're spouting about "99%", they have basically privatized a public space for a single use by a group that may or may not be representative of a broad swath of the population.That's fucking stupid. You're more than welcome to join them and participate in the General Assembly.
Block—When we have a proposal, we try to reach consensus. If you block that means you have a moral or ethical concern with whatever is being proposed. A block is very serious. If we can still reach 9/10 majority, even with your block, you are choosing to walk away. We don’t want anyone to walk away, so we will do our best to address all blocks.In a representative body, the people who disagree with its policies can't walk away. It still represents them whether they like it or not. The General Assembly represents only itself.
The more unequal a country's income distribution, the farther its Lorenz curve from the 45 degree line and the higher its Gini index, e.g., a Sub-Saharan country with an index of 50.The GINI in the US is 45.0, according to the CIA's own ranking - that's 5 points away from the CIA's "Sub-Saharan country" example of high inequality.
If together these different protest encampments -- from Cairo and Tel Aviv to Athens, Madison, Madrid, and now New York -- express a dissatisfaction with the existing structures of political representation, then what do they offer as an alternative? What is the "real democracy" they propose?
The clearest clues lie in the internal organization of the movements themselves -- specifically, the way the encampments experiment with new democratic practices. These movements have all developed according to what we call a "multitude form" and are characterized by frequent assemblies and participatory decision-making structures. (And it is worth recognizing in this regard that Occupy Wall Street and many of these other demonstrations also have deep roots in the globalization protest movements that stretched at least from Seattle in 1999 to Genoa in 2001.)
[snipped blah about twitter for brevity]
Do not wait for the encampments, then, to develop leaders or political representatives. No Martin Luther King, Jr. will emerge from the occupations of Wall Street and beyond. For better or worse -- and we are certainly among those who find this a promising development -- this emerging cycle of movements will express itself through horizontal participatory structures, without representatives. Such small-scale experiments in democratic organizing would have to be developed much further, of course, before they could articulate effective models for a social alternative, but they are already powerfully expressing the aspiration for a "real democracy."
Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.posted by titus-g at 12:58 AM on October 18, 2011
AMY GOODMAN: And how would these powerful financial entities be held accountable? What exactly should happen?posted by homunculus at 9:38 AM on October 19, 2011 [7 favorites]
WILLIAM BLACK: It all starts with the regulators, which is why it’s all not started here, because we have, of course, the wrecking crew, Bush’s wrecking crew, what Tom Frank called them, in charge, and they stopped making criminal referrals. So our agency, in the savings and loan crisis, made over 10,000 criminal referrals to the FBI. That same agency, in this crisis, made zero criminal referrals. If you don’t get people pointing the way and pointing to the top of the organization, you don’t get effective prosecutions. So, in the peak of the savings and loan crisis, we had a thousand FBI agents. This crisis has losses 70 times larger than the savings and loan crisis. And the savings and loan crisis, when it happened, was considered the largest financial scandal in U.S. history. So we’re now 70 times worse. And as recently as 2007, we had 120 FBI agents—one-eighth as many FBI agents for a crisis 70 times larger. And they looked not at the big folks, but almost exclusively at the little folks.
AMY GOODMAN: William Black, you mentioned Bush’s wrecking crew, but we live in the time of President Obama.
WILLIAM BLACK: And we’ve been living for some years in the time of President Obama, and he has done absolutely nothing to reestablish the criminal referral process. And as a result, there are virtually no prosecutions of any elites.
The Court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations. Bellotti, supra , at 778, n. 14 (citing Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro , 431 U. S. 85 (1977) ; Time, Inc. v. Firestone , 424 U. S. 448 (1976) ; Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc. , 422 U. S. 922 (1975) ; Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad , 420 U. S. 546 (1975) ; Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn , 420 U. S. 469 (1975) ; Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo , 418 U. S. 241 (1974) ; New York Times Co. v. United States , 403 U. S. 713 (1971) (per curiam); Time, Inc. v. Hill , 385 U. S. 374 (1967) ; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 ; Kingsley Int’l Pictures Corp. v. Regents of Univ. of N. Y. , 360 U. S. 684 (1959) ; Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson , 343 U. S. 495 (1952) ); see, e.g., Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC , 520 U. S. 180 (1997) ; Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC , 518 U. S. 727 (1996) ; Turner , 512 U. S. 622 ; Simon & Schuster , 502 U. S. 105 ; Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC , 492 U. S. 115 (1989) ; Florida Star v. B. J. F. , 491 U. S. 524 (1989) ; Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps , 475 U. S. 767 (1986) ; Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia , 435 U. S. 829 (1978) ; Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc. , 427 U. S. 50 (1976) ; Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. , 418 U. S. 323 (1974) ; Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Assn., Inc. v. Bresler , 398 U. S. 6 (1970) .Corporations do have free speech rights. Otherwise, NAACP, NRA, Sierra Club, the New York Times would not have free speech rights. Indeed, Kraft could be prevented entirely from even putting a word on their boxes by a government law if corporations did not have free speech.
This protection has been extended by explicit holdings to the context of political speech. See, e.g., Button , 371 U. S., at 428–429; Grosjean v. American Press Co. , 297 U. S. 233, 244 (1936) . Under the rationale of these precedents, political speech does not lose First Amendment protection “simply because its source is a corporation.” Bellotti, supra, at 784; see Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n of Cal. , 475 U. S. 1, 8 (1986) (plurality opinion) (“The identity of the speaker is not decisive in determining whether speech is protected. Corporations and other associations, like individuals, contribute to the ‘discussion, debate, and the dissemination of information and ideas’ that the First Amendment seeks to foster” (quoting Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 783)). The Court has thus rejected the argument that political speech of corporations or other associations should be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not “natural persons.” Id., at 776; see id. , at 780, n. 16. Cf. id. , at 828 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).
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Who's actually suggesting otherwise? That's transparently the goal.
posted by odinsdream at 1:00 PM on October 13, 2011 [35 favorites]