Still, seven days into the protest and there is no longer any room for tents on the plaza’s large lawn. Tents are squeezed together so tightly that in many areas there is no room to move in between them, for me in my wheelchair or for someone who walks. There is more access to the community tents. There is a free school, an art station, a Sukkot tent, a medical tent, a children’s area, a people of color tent, and a quite remarkable food station, where huge batches of soups and beans are made, and tea, coffee, and healthy snacks seem to be abundant. The various projects the camp is working on include installing solar panels, and reclaiming parts of the park as a community garden.Early yesterday morning the occupation was forcibly evicted by Oakland police. Last night, occupiers marched to reclaim the plaza and were again attacked by police using tear gas, flash grenades, bean bag rounds, and possibly rubber bullets.
—Sunaura Taylor writing in the excellent Occupy! An OWS-Inspired Gazette from n+1 magazine (PDF, quote from page 21)
Frank Ogawa Plaza will continue to be open as a free speech area from 6 am to 10 pm.Wow.
We want to thank the police, fire, public works and other employees who worked over the last week to peacefully close the encampment.
"Speech that does not fall into any of these disfavored categories [incitement to violence, libel, etc.] is still subject to some kinds of regulation. ... First, regardless of the type of speech, the government is entitled to impose some restrictions on methods of communication. The classic example is that it can forbid the use of loudspeakers in the middle of the night, whatever the message may be. These restrictions on the 'time, place, or manner' of speech are subject to some judicial scrutiny, but are likely to be upheld if at all reasonable." [Page 14. Emphasis in original.]Apologies for the derail, if it is one.
no one will actually see what happenedIt's the 21st century. The last time I went shopping for a phone, I literally could not find one in the store without a video camera. Whatever you do in a crowded place, everyone will see what happened.
How many members of Congress or of state or city govt have moved in to talk chat with the Occupiers?Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been talking favorably about OWS on Facebook and in his Twitter feed, but I'm not sure if he's made a personal appearance.
It's like they don't realize that when people collect en masse and continuously in public spaces with a definite grievance, attacking them or evicting them does not make the problem go away, it makes it worse.This seems a bit of a stretch to me. Sure, there are cases in which it made the problem worse, but there are also cases in which it made the problem go away (at least from the point of view of the people in power - obviously it may have caused increased resentment, but they don't care about resentment without action).
"'Heighten the contradictions' is what activists used to say back in the Sixties. And tonight, while President Obama was in San Francisco hosting a $7,500-a-plate fundraiser, people are getting teargassed in Oakland, just a few miles away - for alleged health and safety violations. You can't get much more of a contradiction than that. It's being reported that Occupy Atlanta, Occupy Baltimore, Occupy Clarksville, Occupy San Diego have all been served by police with eviction notices for midnight tonight. *posted by ericb at 12:17 PM on October 26, 2011 [3 favorites]
On top of that, if the economy is weak, the state is also likely to be weak, and so rebellion is not difficult. Rebel leader Laurent Kabila, marching across Zaire with his troops to seize the state, told a journalist that in Zaire, rebellion was easy: all you needed was $10,000 and a satellite phone. While this was obviously poetic exaggeration, he went on to explain that in Zaire, everyone was so poor that with $10,000 you could hire yourself a small army. And the satellite phone? Well, that takes us to the third and final economic risk factor in civil war: natural resources.posted by kaibutsu at 2:01 PM on October 26, 2011 [5 favorites]
Dependence upon primary commodity exports-oil, diamonds, and the like-substantially increases the risk of civil war. That's why Kabila needed a satellite phone: in order to strike deals with resource extraction companies. By the time he reached Kinshasa he reportedly had arranged $500 million worth of deals. There have been several cases where international companies have advanced massive amounts of funding to rebel movements in return for resource concessions in the event of rebel victory That is apparently how Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the present president of the Republic of the Congo (not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire), came to power. So natural resources help to finance conflict and sometimes even help to motivate it.
"Ten of the top 20 financial bailout firms have revealed the details of stock options pocketed in early 2009. Based on rising stock prices, the top five executives at each of these banks have enjoyed a combined increase in the value of their stock options of nearly $90 million, according to the report, the 16th in a series of annual 'Executive Excess' reports.Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession -- "The 17th annual executive compensation survey looks at how CEOs laid off thousands while raking in millions."
'America's executive pay bubble remains un-popped,' says Sarah Anderson, lead author on the Institute study. 'And these outrageous rewards give executives an incentive to behave outrageously, putting the rest of us at risk.'"
"Incomes for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans nearly tripled from 1979 to 2007, far outpacing income growth for all other groups, said a new report [PDF] that underscored sharply increased U.S. income disparity.posted by ericb at 2:48 PM on October 26, 2011 [5 favorites]
As demonstrators nationwide protest the power of Wall Street and the wealthy, the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday gave further evidence that, in the last three decades, the United States has become a far more unequal nation.
'For the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007,' said the report from the CBO, a nonpartisan budget and tax analysis arm of Congress.
The next-highest 19 percent of earners saw their income grow by 65 percent over the same period. Income grew by just under 40 percent for the 60 percent of the population in the middle, while the 20 percent at the bottom of the scale saw income growth of only about 18 percent, the report said.
The CBO's conclusions will likely figure in the debate over whether tax increases on the rich should play a role in cutting budget deficits and reducing the U.S. national debt.
'This report confirms what the American people already know,' said Representative Sander Levin.
'The rules have been changed by the unfair tax policies of the last decade and our tax code is doing less to level the playing field than it was in the past.'" ....
Personally, Dr. King had it all figured out. The "not resisting arrest" part is the key. Put all of the blame on the cops. There's the reason he's the only person in US history to lead a successful social change campaign of major scale and effect. -- IronmouthPlenty of Abolitionists were violent, and they succeeded. There were also other civil rights leaders who advocated different tactics. It's not like MLK was the dictator of the civil rights movement.
As a local Occupant, I am trying to confirm a story that circulated (I heard it secondhand from someone who read it on reddit/r/occupywallstreet) that in some cities, Police are directing criminals released from jail on bail etc. to go to the local Occupy Wall Street encampments. They are deliberately pushing criminal elements into the camps to disrupt them, to cause crimes that can be used as a pretext for police to invade and patrol the camps.That particular rumor sounds kind of ridiculous, but Agent Provocateurs have always been used by the powerful. In fact, regardless of whatever nonsense Ironmouth spouts, there were problems at some of King's rallies, often times instigated by Agent Provocateurs. In any event, it's completely false to say that every rally that MLK lead was problem free.
By your logic if I'm getting assaulted, the police shouldn't step in for fear of hurting the perpetrator? When people break the law, there are supposed to be consequences. That's how society works.Well, they shouldn't pepper both of you with machine gun fire.
Police with automatic rifles, grenade launchers against crowds of civilians - it's absolutely ridiculous. It makes me feel crazy that this even needs to be noted. We need more people like Sgt. Shamar Thomas who know from experience when you really do need automatic rifles and grenade launchers, and to loudly state that this is not the place. These people are not the enemy.The guy who took that canister to the head had served two deployments in Iraq.
This whole "Occupy" thing makes no sense to me. This is happening in America, not in some country where we don't already have systems in place to make a change (read democracy).People feel the democratic system isn't working properly, because both parties are beholden to Wall Street and the 1%. People have no confidence in either the republican or democratic parties. A third party could be organized, and maybe these protests will result in the creation of one.
Newsweek, May 25, 1970, p. 30. A Newsweek poll reported that in placing blame for the shootings at Kent State :Most Americans had a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin when she was chosen as VP. People pointing to polling right after the Kent State shooting without pointing out that public opinion rapidly shifted after more information came out are doing people a disservice.
10% blamed the Ohio National Guard
58% blamed the students
and 31% were undecided.
The city gets a 10 percent administrative fee for allowing officers to take the side job in uniform – as long as they wear white shirts instead of the rank-and-file dark blue uniforms.posted by odinsdream at 6:32 AM on October 28, 2011 [3 favorites]
After three decades as an American citizen and years of leaving messages for my representative, only last night, speaking into the human microphone, did I feel for the first time that my political participation could matter.posted by finite at 11:55 AM on October 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
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posted by FfejL at 7:14 AM on October 26, 2011 [64 favorites]