Occupy Wall Street 2: Occupy Everything

#OWS wins the battle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9D33hr4CW0&

Geithner (!) says they won't win the war

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65969.html#ixzz1almFImRd

oh wait

haha i misread that headline

"too much time on #occupy"

occupy harder

protest tunes for y'all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIsh3mt0FNc

http://mcenter.slideshowpro.com/albums/027/935/album-272055/cache/occupy13_JA05254.sjpg_900_540_0_95_1_50_50.sjpg?1318611622

Occupy Denver protester Matt Velasquez and a State Trooper he has known since first grade.

so already happened

x-post
Occupy Citius, Altius, Fortius

Occupy Denver protester Matt Velasquez and a life-size action figure he has owned since first grade.

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/topstories/2011/10/06/fi-sam-ralph-warner-bros.jpg

"Mornin', Sam."

"Mornin', Ralph."

http://i.imgur.com/g3Nkv.png

http://trendflux.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/chimneysweep-mary-poppins.jpg

Never need a reason!

how long before Patti comes to sing "People Have the Power"?

ahaha xp

The Voice witnessed two positively violent encounters on Beaver Street today, one in which a young woman was lifted kicking and screaming by her hands and legs and carried away forcibly. And this video of a cop punching a guy in the face isn't pretty either.

http://llwproductions.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-fri-oct-14-01-andrew-gombert-epa.jpg

always the guys in the white shirts

video of the legal observer getting run over by a cop scooter

cop runs over the leg with the front wheel, slows down when he sees what he's done, and then runs over him with the back wheel, gets off, and proceeds to zip tie him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyrQyUrHlZk&feature=youtu.be

There need to be specific protests for prosecuting and de-badging these assholes whose abuses have been recorded.

CNN's American Sauce asked a number of senators what they think the movement is about, and the initial responses were consistent.

"What do I think of the what?" asked Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia. "The which one?" responded Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey. Republican Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also checked the question, asking, "The what?" After we repeated the movement's name and explained it was the month-old protest centered in New York, senators showed more recognition and a strikingly similar view.

pretty amazing photo xp

http://i56.tinypic.com/110bxvs.jpg

red is occupations, blue is arrests

Who's at Occupy Billings? Or is that Occupy Helena?

did new england secede

got a link to that google map, Hoos?

hey hoos, can you recommend any good / fav sources on twitter for ows news & info? having a bit of trouble sorting wheat from chaff here

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-protest-map#map xp

Or is that Occupy Helena?

I don't even know 'er etc

http://www.herospy.com/wp-content/herospy2006/Movies/_1hwHelenaBonhamCarter.jpg

xp to elmo

Josh Harkinson has been basically live tweeting from Wall St for a while now, he's awesome and Mother Jones in general, for whom he writes, has been great.

#Occupy is a good tag, #OccupyDC sometimes gets tagged on broader interest stuff because of the perception of DC as a locus of power, and absolutely worth following @Occupy_Boston as a big player whose media team catches big stuff all over too.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Yp0RREISknI/TLIn_b8XNBI/AAAAAAAAAF4/__GnsBA7SCk/s1600/USREV0500081_640x480_01.jpg

more like andpoo sheitfart

http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2011/10/14/crowdsource-this-social-list-emails-expose-occupywallstreet-conspiracy-to-destablize-global-markets-governments/

there are broader tags like #OccupyTogether & #OccupyEverywhere that catch news from locals trying to reach bigger audiences too.

I guess liberty plaza is pretty disorganized compared to those? even the official and officialish webpages and twitters always seem behind on things.

ps tomorrow's schedule

11 am 'march on banks' liberty square
1 pm student meet-up wash sq
5 pm demonstration times sq

I'm gonna go to the times sq one

Flying back to Portland today. Anything going on at the camp? Is the weather shit?

i've really been pushing the guys behind the @OccupyDC acct to tweet out the GA resolutions daily so we can prevent confusion with the old left momentum hijackers across town.

they're the ones who keep starting up circuses like (uh) storming the air & space museum with that agent provocateur and yelling at innocent potential compatriot senate staffers while unfurling banners in random beaurecratic buildings and then tagging their actions as #OccupyDC

is greg oden there? xp

xp

yeah shit like that would be really useful

ty hoos!

Who's at Occupy Billings? Or is that Occupy Helena?

― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, October 14, 2011 12:39 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

looks like missoula you coastal snob

i met clay at the pdx camp yesterday and told him i'd been wrong to be so doomy the night before last; the camp is thriving and we've managed to spin our way out of the fucking Street Issue. (with the help of the mayor, who seems to love us.) yes the weather is shit, though.

6 pm Dinner at Sardis
7:30 pm Spider Man: Turn Off The Dark

i have not seen greg oden. yet.

i visited Occupy LA this week, talked to people there etc - was it discussed at all on the other mammoth thread that i can't face opening? if not i can jot down thoughts later.

might go to the first day of Occupy LSX tomorrow but think it'll be underwhelming on the weekend, might wait til the week

breitbart should "crowdsource" an analysis of the last thread

he can crowdsource an analysis of deez nuts

In re Geithner: would just like to throw out there that reforming the system is FAR more important than sending people to jail -- to extend the drug metaphor, otherwise you're just trading Avon for Marlo.

GOOGLE BUZZ IS BEING SHUT DOWN SOON AND ALL YOU PEOPLE CAN TALK ABOUT IS OCCUPY WALL STREET

#7-11

hurting otm

Creepy convo today in office lunch room. Same guy who the other day said protesters "should be shot" is now speaking in favor of it. Kept saying weird things like, "X told me that it was really all Obama who was organizing it..." (other people in lunchroom tell him that's clearly not the case) "...of course I don't believe it." Later, something incomprehensible about how "China's not behind it, because they have their own problems to worry about"

“What you see is a general sense across the country of concern that the U.S. economy is not growing faster,

A nice glass-half-full way to see things.

you’re not seeing incomes rise more rapidly,

For anyone not in the top 1%. You left out that bit, and it's pretty crucial, it's in the name.

and people want to make sure that the government, Washington, is acting to make things better now.

The government, Washington, as opposed to the government, Wall Street.

The Treasury Secretary added that the domestic focus was to ensure that Congress would take steps that would encourage economic growth and lower the deficit.

Hooray, that almost nearly addresses the concerns of the 99% movement. Soaring profits can demonstrate 'economic growth' and slashing gov't programs can help 'lower the deficit' and we're right back where we started, aren't we Timmy?

I'm gonna go to the times sq one

cool might try to go to that too. it's like a big street party right? I got an email about it that was from, like, a music promoter. but it was a bit unclear whether it was an "official" rally.

on the Twitter question andrew krucoff (@krucoff) seems to be covering the NY stuff pretty good, was at liberty plaza this morning posting as the announcement about the clean-up went out

Tomorrow protests scheduled in 951 cities in 82 countries http://t.co/3Xreiykb

expect photos of mission creep, but so it goes

oh that's good to know dmr

i visited Occupy LA this week, talked to people there etc - was it discussed at all on the other mammoth thread that i can't face opening? if not i can jot down thoughts later.

I don't think there were any on-the-scene reports from L.A. in the other thread, just SF and Portland

i wrote a bit about it. there's something going down at the bel air hotel today?

and apparently there's an occupy venice, for westsiders

please tell me it's not on the boardwalk

please tell me it's not on the boardwalk

occupy la is p chill from what I've heard, one of my friends took a class at the public school setup there last week

on architecture I think

altho was was walking thru downtown last night and a bunch of protesters w/ signs ran by and I was like lol you idiots, I mean I really don't know what to think of all this irl, I don't really like it physically or something maybe, maybe I should actually check it out before typing stupid shit like this

san diego pd just broke out pepper spray

i think except for that bank of america stunt, no one's even been arrested? city council was basically like "stay here as long as you want, dudes"

http://twitter.com/Debbie858/statuses/124924377337827328

^ twitter is amazing

This falls in line with PD tactics at other Occupations RT @jenkuhney: Protesters say police ambushed them while they were eating. #OccupySD

sdpd scanner says they're sending down swat

re: hurting's creepy coworker... i've definitely been seeing a lot of people opposed to the protests grasping for "who's behind it" and idk... what i see in that, and what i find it so depressing, is that so many conservatives have internalized hierarchical power structures so completely that spontaneous collective action completely escapes their comprehension, it's just impossible to them

"conservatives"

(but yeah otm)

biking back to occupy boston now, will report back

well, fair enough, the attitude is not at all exclusive to conservatives but maybe more prominent in the conservative mindset?

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html

^^ "the paranoid style in american politics"

spontaneous collective action completely escapes their comprehension, it's just impossible to them

yeah this is just baffling

well, we haven't really seen it much in this country lately.

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html

^^ "the paranoid style in american politics"

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, October 14, 2011 3:15 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yes, the guy I'm talking about is very much a McCarthy era guy in age and style. I was just a little weirded out by the fact that he actually seemed, maybe, to be trying to 'infiltrate' our lunch room conversation by pretending to be on our side? I mean that seems a little paranoid, but the way he was talking was really bizarre. And he has previously bragged about his time in military intelligence.

Like, oh wait people like this are real, they're not just in stories my grandpa told me.

Did he eat his lunch out of a tinfoil hat?

someone should just update that paranoid style essay every generation w/ new sections; "sharia" would probably be the latest one

difficult listening hour your help is needed on this thread ask ilx poster difficult listening hour

http://www.businessinsider.com/occupy-wall-street-has-plans-for-a-coordinated-national-gathering-2011-10

^^ :|

t's in the works. A massive Occupy Wall Street gathering with delegates from all over the country. And if these plans are carried out, Occupy Wall Street will be a major force to be reckoned with on Election Day 2012. The date? July 4, 2012.

Discussions on how to proceed will begin tomorrow at a massive General Assembly at 7 PM. Here's how they describe what they're about to do:
....the election of delegates and holding of a national general assembly or convention on July 4, 2012 must be organized. No calls for violence. No calls for the violent overthrow of the government.

...Once organized and the delegates have been elected by direct ballot in all 435 districts. They must demand that our elected leaders take action. If they do not take action within one year of the demand, we will demand their mass resignations and that new elections be held so we can take back our democracy from the corporations and those who BUY power and influence with MONEY.

iatee you heard anything about this?

xp oh shit, on it

I talked to someone about the protests and they said "why don't these protestors work on becoming politicians instead, then they can effect real change"

I just let the issue drop, politely, like catching a falling vase and laying it down gently on the floor, sideways

A week ago in Austin, TX I went to one of these, and while I was in town I heard from a number of people about it. They made it sound like a fun thing to go to, LOL'd a bit about the Ron Paul types, the hardcore anarchists, the drum circlers, but all in good jest. There was a sense that yeah things might get silly, but that just makes it more fun to check out.

Fast forward and back in Atlanta, everyone is too cool to give a shit. Hate City, indeed.

...Once organized and the delegates have been elected by direct ballot in all 435 districts. They must demand that our elected leaders take action. If they do not take action within one year of the demand, we will demand their mass resignations and that new elections be held so we can take back our democracy from the corporations and those who BUY power and influence with MONEY.

this seems a little... hyperbolic

in case anyone wants to call vikram pandit http://gawker.com/5849826/want-to-talk-to-the-ceo-of-citigroup-heres-his-cell-phone-number

this seems a little... hyperbolic

― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, October 14, 2011 7:45 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also i can't seem to figure out anything about who wrote it other than the source of that link

no ref to it anywhere else by anyone i can find

the fact that my roommate is high up in the AFL-CIO has suddenly proved very helpful -- president of the AFL-CIO is paying OccDC a visit right now; last night she asked me what they needed at camp, and prez brought it with him.

I just let the issue drop, politely, like catching a falling vase and laying it down gently on the floor, sideways

― 2001: a based godyssey (dayo)

Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you for that phrase, and idea.

iatee you heard anything about this?

nope...but again...I'm not sure who would be calling for this

cops moving in on chicago now

The Teachers Union has been part of that one this week.

i figured the crackdowns we saw yesterday would be continuing so they could bring down numbers before saturday, but i'm blown away that they're macing nonresisters in broad daylight

pepper spraying that is

are city PDs coordinating crackdowns? gotta wonder

then they can effect real change"

Not sure there are enough positions in elective govmt, really

i wonder, yeah, but even entertaining the thought and thinking of either the red-tape wrangling or the smoky-backroom phone calls make it seem unlikely it's coordinated and more just PD chiefs thinking they have permission now because the dam is cracking.

xp

btw in advance i'd like to move for "occupy wall street 3: the occupyening"

Not sure there are enough positions in elective govmt, really

― What does one wear to a summery execution? Linen? (Michael White), Friday, October 14, 2011 4:23 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you dont have to be an actual politician to be in the game, activists inside the party sphere have a lot of power, play a big part in setting the agenda

During marches, the DC group streams from an apparatus it affectionately calls the droid, a baby stroller with a webcam clipped to the handle and a laptop, mobile Wi-Fi hot spot and heavy-duty battery secured in the carriage.

fyi the droid is the cutest thing ever

Occupy Oakland is, I believe, pretty much the second biggest in the country atm. And it is pretty awesome.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003010185115

oakland has never been known to hold back w/ these things

it's how we do.

people in occupy oakland should just occupy san francisco

rent, too damn high

god can we get russell simmons just stfu

yeah oakland offered their barracks to sf as crash space. they're apparently calling their space a demilitarized zone since they're getting support from city and cops.

there was actually talk in the SF GA yesterday of having SF as the front lines and oakland for sleeping / chilling. not sure that having SF be fulltime aggro would be good tho.

chicago finance types blog about the occupation

http://managed-futures-blog.attaincapital.com/2011/10/13/behind-enemy-lines/

that's great

thx

re politics, a NY OWS-inspired movement to finally get Schumer out of the Senate next time would be an excellent move.

loooool just got this PR email

Tomorrow on Saturday, October 15th at 08:00AM we are calling all Occupy Wall Street supporters and Penguin Prison fans to join Chris Glover and Jake Sumner the video’s director on a protest march that will take us from Liberty Plaza at 08:00AM where Penguin Prison will perform his forthcoming single ‘Don’t F**k With My Money” for the official video. We will then will proceed to leave Liberty Plaza with fellow protesters (and YOU!) to march on forward all the way up to Times Square from 11AM.

The Plan: Meet Penguin Prison and us on the corner of Maiden Lane and Broadway (1 block North of the plaza) at 8:00AM, where we can proceed to Liberty Plaza together.

08:00AM – Strength in numbers! Join the protest, be heard and be in Penguin Prison's video that is already steadily becoming the anthem for this movement!

11:00AM – This is when authorities are kicking everyone out of Liberty Plaza and when we will all begin the march uptown that will eventually lead us to Times Square by the late afternoon.

New Yorkers, PLEASE spread the word to your friends, on your blogs, write about it and be sure to join us for this Occupy Wall Street march and to be in Penguin Prisons official music video, directed by the talented Jake Sumner.

If you need to familiarize yourself with the single, listen/stream here:

See you tomorrow and remember to SPEAK LOUD AND CLEAR TO WALL STREET!

‘DON’T F**K WITH OUR MONEY!’

pouring rain here in boston, don't know how it is down in NYC but i imagine it's much the same

random bursts of rain mostly just overcast tho

been gray all day but never pouring as far as I can tell. but I'm indoors up in midtown.

Driving down to the PDX camp to have a look round. Look for a big dude in a Michigan sweatshirt and glasses.

http://vimeo.com/30476100

ah kingfish today's the first day i'm taking off since the beginning, naturally. let me know how it looks down there though!

haha gr80 i am happily surprised that "hot chicks of occupy wall st" vid is not even 1/10th as creepy / pervy as i feared it would be

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2011/10/another-problem-with-zuccotti-park/294/

true btw

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/14/understanding-occupy-wall-street/

Critics of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement complain that the protesters don’t have a policy agenda and, therefore, don’t stand for anything. They're wrong. The key isn’t what protesters are for but rather what they’re against -- the gaping inequality that has poisoned our economy, our politics and our nation.

Head exploded so I couldn't read more

i dunno maybe the Fox opinion blogs normally post a wide range of views?

i don't normally read that site but that sentence just looks ridiculous

Jesus, the camp is twice the size it was Saturday

letter from the ACLU to mayor menino:

http://aclum.org/sites/all/files/images/2011/aclu_letter_to_menino_re_occupy.pdf

a ban on using little metal spikes from deterring people from sitting down

haha I think I pointed these out to you iatee last time I was in NY

Occupy Oakland is, I believe, pretty much the second biggest in the country atm. And it is pretty awesome.

t3ddy, you've settled for less than societal implosion?? ;)

I didn't believe that G.E. didn't pay taxes in 2011 but hey look

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html

*2010 sorry

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/295814_10150325801386596_681036595_8666879_1219730182_n.jpg

the OccupyPDX kitten!

In the background, you can see some of the tents and a hint of the rope superstructure supporting everything.

The head of its tax team, Mr. Samuels, met with Representative Charles B. Rangel, then chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which would decide the fate of the tax break. As he sat with the committee’s staff members outside Mr. Rangel’s office, Mr. Samuels dropped to his knee and pretended to beg for the provision to be extended — a flourish made in jest, he said through a spokeswoman.

That day, Mr. Rangel reversed his opposition to the tax break, according to other Democrats on the committee.

The following month, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Immelt stood together at St. Nicholas Park in Harlem as G.E. announced that its foundation had awarded $30 million to New York City schools, including $11 million to benefit various schools in Mr. Rangel’s district. Joel I. Klein, then the schools chancellor, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who presided, said it was the largest gift ever to the city’s schools.

hahaha...haha...ha...

JoshHarkinson Josh Harkinson
Drummer believe enemies of #OWS are trying splinter it complaining about drums. "They will divide us, and they they will come for us"
8 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

JoshHarkinson Josh Harkinson
"The drumming is driving us crazy. I beg you to give us some relief"
5 minutes ago

the drumming is unbearable.

but i mean what are you gonna do.

I am going down to the Occupy Eugene (Oregon) event tomorrow afternoon as a legal observer, I expect lots of hippie drumming.

maybe I'll get run over by a cop

don't get run over by a cop!!

sorry, a little black humor there

The drums are not what kills me--that would be the saxophone. Srsly last wkend at Wash Sq Park, some kid was playing uh riffs? free jazz? I do not even know, but it went on for at least an hour than I know of.

there's gonna be a goddamn marching band at dc tomorrow

i might be less than excited

sorry, a little black humor there

― sleeve, Saturday, October 15, 2011 12:39 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm

Srsly last wkend at Wash Sq Park, some kid was playing uh riffs? free jazz? I do not even know, but it went on for at least an hour than I know of.

― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, October 14, 2011 8:40 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

I hope this wasn't someone I know

http://i.imgur.com/kamRX.jpg

this is v minor point verging on pedantry but the 99% would be much better defined by wealth than income

Srsly last wkend at Wash Sq Park, some kid was playing uh riffs? free jazz?

Occupy Saturn!

He will be occupying Saturn if he does that at Times Square tomorrow.

haha:

Suits for Wall Street

http://www.suitsforwallstreet.org

"We all look great in suits. To reporters, to workers, to skeptical tourists, we'll look like people to listen to, or, at the very least, to hear out. Lazy journalists won't be able to take the easy, dismissive out, and will have to actually listen to what we are saying . . . You can help us realize this vision with your donations. Twenty dollars will put a protester in a crisp thrift store suit. Or, mail us a nice suit you're not using anymore. If you got a job, mail us your interview suit. It’s free if you mail it from work."

and here's info about tomorrow's Times Square rally:

The Occupation Party

This Saturday we take Times Square with music, performance, and a street party protest in support of the actions of Occupy Wall Street. It's rare that a grassroots protest takes over the national conversation. But it has. Occupy Wall Street has birthed a thrilling national movement. And this Saturday hundreds of cities will be taking it to the streets. In New York City thousands will join in a street party protest that is stunning, grand, and meaningful. You believe in something. And this Saturday is your moment to say it out loud.

More than 200 artists and performers have signed on to participate. There will be brass bands and stilt walkers, but you and the people you know will complete the carnival. Bring your crew, dress in white (a symbol of hope/transition in many cultures), bring something that makes noise and something that lights up. At 5:59p you will participate in a spectacle that will light the night (what we have planned is safe, legal, and participatory).

Times Square
46th Street and Broadway, near the TKTS booth, Manhattan
5p; $free
theoccupationparty.com/

White? In TIMES SQUARE? Do they know how dirty that place is? You won't be able to sit down or in fact TOUCH anything. Um I don't think so.

ha ha laurel, do you remember times square in the '80s? i do.

these days i bet you could eat off the streets in times square, they power-wash it so much

Nah, sadly I didn't move here until 1998! I visited a few times before that, but not in the '80s. I just owned a white coat once and from sitting on the subway and doing normal stuff it became this stained horrible mess.

you probably shouldn't have dripped swagu all over it

Google is not helping me out here.

ha, this is awesome -- the occupy boston globe!

http://occupybostonglobe.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-zmlvfM16c xp

That is genuinely terrible.

2011-era times square is perfect for this kinda thing actually, one of the best locations in the city all things considered, I'm sorta psyched?

Entering Times Square & wearing white, two things I have almost entirely avoided for a decade.

Right???

Loud, long argument with Dad (the small business owner) tonight. He supports the movement in the abstract but insists that if we're going down the shitter we ALL go down. The most violent part of the discussion involved members of police and fire rescue unions, who have generous vacation and sick leave and job security.

But fifty years ago, thanks to unions, we could all expect a equivalent standard of living, I countered. Those benefits have been stripped. As a state employee not covered by a union, I lost three percent of my salary, no questions asked, to pay for retirement benefits -- a move I would not have opposed if I'd had a union negotiating.

Dad, a former union-protected employee in Braniff, understood that times had changed; as a result, there's no reason why you or I need to continue paying for benefits that neither you nor I get. Basically: austerity for everybody.

Part of the problem is that his neighbor is a fire rescue guy who's at home five out of seven days a week and complains about working too hard (a true story because he's complained to me).

The argument was futile -- I couldn't even discuss credit default swaps and derivatives. About the only thing on which we agreed was the absence of protesters in front of the White House and Congress -- the men who passed the laws and did business with these crooks, he said. I really couldn't say anything but a mumbled "yes" because he's right.

For those of us who grew up in the long sunset of organized labor in this country, it's difficult to counter the argument that unions became a racket too. As wages and benefits shrank in the private sector while unions still fought for theirs, the unions lost the battle AND the war. There's no winning it again.

long thread, don't know if this has already been posted.

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/315060_10150325821162479_674072478_8044429_1437994208_n.jpg

Ha!

dude i'm backing on Kickstarter sent this with a project update today, said it was taken at OWS this morning:
http://i.imgur.com/HM4Nf.jpg

Occupy Wall Street pick-up line: Is that a rolled up copy of The Communist Manifesto in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

yeah that woman was doing that all morning

big action day tomorrow, coordinated marches among occs

dc committee launched to start an occ newspaper

we do not have a paper with "dc" in the name to detourne like wall st or boston

though "the occupy washington post" is under discussion but eh

there was a dude making waffles earlier

gonna sleep in the park tomorrow night

#cheah

yeah I'm going to sleep but again times sq 5 pm tomorrow nyc see u there, I think it will be a big one?

yeah that woman was doing that all morning

― iatee, Friday, October 14, 2011 5:34 PM (10 minutes ago)

is she wearing rollerblades?

crisp thrift store suit.

lol

hey iatee & wall st ppl

i land in NY late weds for a thursday conference, will stay at least through friday, maybe the weekend. i've been looking for a room near my conference on air bnb, but those options are thin and i must admit it's madly tempting to just sleep at liberty for four nights instead.

as near to the park as you are, does this seem advisable.

etc.

PS

my man bear, longtime homeless resident of mcpherson square & enthusiastic anarchist occupier of DC, turned 70 tonight

i love this motherfucker a lot

http://yfrog.us/0ijg1z

crisp thrift store suit.

ok i am 100% for ppl becoming aware of the social & economic significations & uses of dress and yeah thrift stores are fkn rad but idk if the general assembly has the funds to buy any crisp suits at nyc thrift stores fo real tho

larry lessig doing a teach-in at DC on tuesday

i'm reading two of his books right now, so that kind of rules for my brain

nypd whiteshirt clocks a girl in the face apparently unprovoked, kicks her while she's on the ground

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxZ8_JdKm0Q&

Face book indicates that Stevie D is at OWS, and HOOS is on his way...

I'm there this weekend, friday / sunday afternoon

http://i.imgur.com/tyxex.jpg

I'll be there at least Friday, haven't bought a return ticket yet and don't have to be back in DC til Monday morning.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-18/bofa-said-to-split-regulators-over-moving-merrill-derivatives-to-bank-unit?category=%2F

^^ better summarized here: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/bank-of-america-deathwatch-moves-risky-derivatives-from-holding-company-to-taxpayer-backstopped-depositors.html

that is to say

Bernanke approves B of A's transfer of trillions of dollars worth of derivatives from Merrill Lynch division into FDIC-backed B of A banking division

The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position.

seriously fuuuuuuuuuuck all of that

btw i've been doing hard pushback on this shit all day today, nobody buy it wheverever you see it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/18/occupy-wall-street-planning-convention_n_1018570.html

occdc media has "the occupied washington times" forthcoming aaaaaaaand me and staff of same discovered & debunked this last night. i had met the reporter's editor that night at the park, so i reached out to her with the evidence that this guy was autonomous and didn't speak for the NYGA even though he claimed to. the reporter did his update, didn't acknowledge me at all via any of the channels through which i contacted him, and disapprovingly mentions "the debate over whether or not to even have 'demands'" while linking to my alarum on the OWS forums about this guy.

also dc has counterprotestors coming tomorrow to hand out job, military & college apps. just happened to catch one of them advance-bragging on twitter & found the fb organizing page where it's clear they're coming to antagonize us. in a sympathetic media piece on it they were quoted as saying they're 'trying to add to the 1%' (ugh) and offering a resume workshop, but fb language & comments ("will you be filming?" "hell yeah we will") makes it clear they're there to provoke. last two nights we warned our GA they were coming and i've tried hard to organize a welcoming committee with snacks & the resumes of our employed occupiers so that they walk away with none of the footage they want.

also the DC media tent is now running on solar generator.

and I'm on the way to wall street. i had a busy night.

i was on this guy's show on monday as an occupy pdx "representative". "do you respect capitalism at all?" was like question #2.

i know one of you is going to get a kick out of this:
http://www.examiner.com/jewish-culture-in-philadelphia/jewish-exponent-fetes-loserpalooza-aka-occupy-philly-ignores-anti-semitism

well you got 'palooza'd, Loser! Stopped reading at "there is a worthwhile article on Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com"

did you read the part where i'm "outed" as a radical leftist cheerleader?

well, duh!

No one showed up to my job hunting workshop, but it was in the smaller tarp yurt behind the library tent and held at the same time as a talk on NYC surveillance of protestors.

Oh well, I'll try again this weekend

that is the kind of stuff that is needed here imo, u are awesome kingfish.

2000 person march in Eugene, largest ever. now we're trying to figure out what to do with the horde of lowbaggers who have latched on to the occupy zone b/c of the free food.

DLH why the fuck did you actually go on the Lars Larson show of all things? Did you pull any of Grayson's lines on him?

they wanted an interview and it was my turn at the plate; i'd never actually heard of him. it went ok. he asked what our future plans were and i said that we discussed plans for weekly demonstrations every tuesday night at the GA and that he should come down. "would i get a vote?" "of course you'd get a vote, lars." that was probably the high point.

he sure did like changing the subject.

Yeah, he'll do that a lot. Did you keep count of the number of strawmen he served up?

Noam Chomsky is confirmed to speak at Occupy Boston on Saturday (time TBA)

ha i wonder if the timing will conflict with the Maryanne Amacher tribute at MIT

oh tough call. it'd be inspiring to see chomsky speak to an engaged crowd, but he'll also undoubtedly be youtubed.

the sound of the human microphone has reminded me of several experimental music pieces from the 60's for chorus in which the sound is carried forward by individuals taking over and holding the notes / sounds of the people they hear standing near them. several of pauline oliveros' 'deep listening' exercises, and cornelius cardew's 'the great learning (paragraph seven)', which atomizes a text by Confucious into a drone of rolling syllables: "The solid cannot be swept away as trivial. And nor can trash be established as solid. It just does not happen."

Confucious / Confucius

yeah i see the pauline oliveros link maybe but not really Cardew -

the politics of 'the great learning', and the sonic experience of 'paragraph 7', doesn't match for me to the human microphone at all

the call-and-response reminds me more of e.g. Hindu chants, where someone sings a line and then the crowd repeats that line verbatim, and it goes on and on

here is the Daily Show take on the human microphone

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-october-18-2011/the-99-

hilariously, the guy at the Daily Show who put this segment together - i just sold him an Eno record

They've occupied my local sort of space that used to be a city square but is now just sort of a space with some cafés and no banks.

I spent the last few evenings sitting and reading with a "'end the fed' people are right wing nutjobs, FYI" sign propped up against me. it's pretty wet and gloomy tonight so there are relatively few people.

i got to introduce larry lessig yesterday btw which was pretty badass!

MTV's 'The Real World' is casting from the Occupy Wall Street movement

http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/the_real_world_27/2011_Oct_19_casting-occupy-wall-street

haha awesome iatee xposts

police have taken a man into custody who was apparently arguing with protestors and flashed a handgun at occupy portland. not much detail on this yet.

hell.

@OccupyOregon Man w/ a gun began taking pictures of girl changing in her tent. He was verbally confronted and brandished his weapon. Police took action.

@OccupyOregon The man with the weapon who was arrested last hour was not associated with #OccupyPortland

so it was a scary creep, not a scary wingnut. still, scary.

video a friend's son made at occupy chicago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKLHJZLU-UQ

http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/318683_10150321553161780_505906779_8237714_1247544806_n.jpg

btw did you guys see this?

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/he-made-it-on-wall-st-and-used-it-to-help-start-the-protests/

Robert S. Halper, a retired Wall Street trader, spends time each day in Zuccotti Park talking to protesters about politics and their thoughts on reforming the banking system.

But Mr. Halper, a 52-year-old Brooklyn native, never reveals two facts about himself: he is a former vice chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange and the largest single donor to the nonprofit magazine that ignited the Occupy Wall Street movement. “The whole thing is very surreal to me — the fact that I spent my whole career right across the street,” he said in an interview last week on a marble bench near the park. “It makes me a little anxious, to tell you the truth. It could go anywhere. I just pray that it ends peaceful.”

He readily admits to being a member of the so-called One Percent — the top slice of American earners, who have been vilified by the protesters. Mr. Halper said his conversations with protesters had made him think a lot about what should be done. “If there’s pain, it should be shared,” he said. “The people who have money — they should pay something more, whether that’s in taxes or somewhere else.”

also mentions that he maxed out supporting romney because health care is his #1 issue. \0_o/

also lol @ "halper"

he is doing much halping

Sooo, guess what happened when Victoria Jackson decides to show up to OWS?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA1py9erpVk

Uploaded by patriotupdatereport on Oct 9, 2011

I spent two days with the "Occupiers." Most were college students and uninformed but passionate. Many were "high." The improv comedienne/radical environmentalist had never heard of Ian Plimer. The M.D. likes Obamacare but has just changed professions. An angry black woman shouted about "Troy." Union people marched by with identical T shirts and signs. Free food and medics were provided. (By whom? Soros?)

Although the "Occupiers" and "Tea Party" have one thing in common - we don't want the government to "bail out" corporations - the two movements are completely opposite. The "Occupiers" are being controlled by Saul Alinsky radicals who are 'transforming' America from a free country to a communist one, and the "Tea Party" is controlled by 'grassroots' folks who uphold the Constitution, worship the Creator and are fighting to keep America a free country.

Category:
News & Politics

Tags:

victoria jackson censored topless protest wallstreet conservative liberal new york city Wall Street New York City nyc manhattan crazy Manhattan communism marxism hippies today huffington post entertainment weekly

from that HuffPo:

She dove right into her particular brand of hateful commentary early, pointing out Ground Zero from her car window and saying "some Muslims flew in to" the Twin Towers.

Once Jackson got down to the protests, she began interviewing both the protesters and those that happened to be passing by. She began by asking what they were protesting, then seizing on their responses. She often brought up President Obama's connection to GE, calling him a Marxist and socialist.

"Right now, 50 percent of people pay taxes and 50 percent do not. So if everyone gets free stuff, who is going to pay for it?" she asked one protester, who said the government "should end the wars and tax the super rich" to end the deficit. Her response? "Class warfare is Marxist."

Continuing her argument with the same protester, she said, "If you want everyone to be equal, how are you going to make them equal in good looks and smart brains? Everyone's not created equal." She later called Van Jones a communist, and then said, "So you don't think Obama is stirring up racial and class warfare, and it's straight out of 'Rules for Radicals' written by Saul Alinsky?"

1) I love the fact that some free food implies the backing of a BILLIONAIRE

2) I love the fact that I have seen the phrase "straight out of 'Rules for Radicals' written by Saul Alinsky" in at least three different Republican columns lately, all, I'm guessing, by people who have never read Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. (BTW the first time I remember seeing that smear was in a book bashing the Clintons, and I mean while Bill was president. Is it in some GOP playbook or something?)

The newfound fame of Rules has always struck me as funny because when I read it in high school as a burgeoning Marxist I (goofily) rejected it out of hand because I thought of Alinksy as a half-assed reformist!

Misc updates from Taibbi, Gawker, Pareene, et al:

http://gawker.com/5851328/the-rnc-jumps-on-the-occupy-wall-street-is-anti+semitic-bandwagon

"The RNC Jumps on The ‘Occupy Wall Street Is Anti-Semitic’ Bandwagon"

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/18/why_andrew_breitbart_cant_grasp_occupy_wall_street/singleton/

"Why Andrew Breitbart can’t grasp Occupy Wall Street
-
The conservative provocateur tries to take down a movement he doesn't understand by quoting a few harmless emails"

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-occupy-wall-street-is-bigger-than-left-vs-right-20111017

"Why Occupy Wall Street Is Bigger Than Left vs. Right"

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-rush-limbaugh-is-freaking-out-about-occupy-wall-street-20111018

"Why Rush Limbaugh Is Freaking Out About Occupy Wall Street"

The conservative provocateur tries to take down a movement he doesn't understand by quoting a few harmless emails"

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-occupy-wall-street-is-bigger-than-left-vs-right-20111017

these "occupy dc emails," btw, aren't the k street occupation at all. they're a separate old left protest group who's been getting us nothing but bad press from day 1. they were the ones who stormed air & space, provocateur or not. they were the ones in these innocuous emails, and they're the ones with the npr host being tarred as "spokeswoman." i'm doing my best to defend them from specious bullshit while maintaining the clarity of separation between us, but it's taxing on my fucking nerves.

Hillary wrote her college thesis on Alinsky (I don't think she ever actually worked with him or anything) so the GOP started using that to attack the Clintons early on.

Glenn Beck recently spoke about the protesters, telling his listeners, "Capitalists, if you think that you can play footsies with these people, you're wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you ... they're Marxist radicals ... These guys are worse than Robespierre from the French Revolution ... They'll kill everybody."

ayo hoos lemme know when we get to this part and i will TOTALLY start coming to occupy k st all the time

(guillotine yourself accordingly) does not play footsie w/capitalists!!!

http://loureed.com/

i feel like i've entered a new planetary system

haha lou reed totally managed to go w/o anyone noticing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=5O_Ao9w1u7c

^ will start airing soon

I kinda hate the whole 99% thing

it's a better narrative than anything the democratic party has come up with in decades

I went last Sunday to the LA one. As noted earlier pretty much no police presence at all - I saw two on the city hall balcony for a while, but none walking around or stationed on the fringes. Tents were set up on the three sides with lawn, very little ground was unoccupied. Was there for a 5 pm meal time, pretty meager, just a sandwich (white bread and some kind of meat) and a rice cake with nothing to put on it. I saw a play performed - Waiting for Lefty - a Depression era union-themed work that was well-acted (if one dimensional). They do allow amplified sound, and there was a stage with PA for people to perform on, don't know if there was any formal sign-up process. A rock trio played there later. Also saw some wandering bands, amplified and not. Only experienced one mic-check thing, at a Sukkah where they did a kind of blessing.

From Saturday's march:

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/313436_10150327750476596_681036595_8679618_2146507301_n.jpg

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/293400_10150327753866596_681036595_8679670_416554774_n.jpg

http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/296555_10150327750611596_681036595_8679620_1976407343_n.jpg

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/298955_10150327751886596_681036595_8679639_25161707_n.jpg

i'm having trouble finding the info; can someone dig up how large the tea parties were? i don't remember them being remotely the size of OWS or the supporting protests, and I'm kind of wishing that was getting some play in the media, i.e., the tea party was a fairly small, somewhat regional thing while occupy is global and comparatively enormous?

my favorite sign has been IN CORPORATE AMERICA BANKS ROB YOU!

oh hey, dlh! i've been a bit ill since i saw you last, but am still planning on coming down to support everything when i'm able. hope everything's going well for you down there!

oh no problem; i've been a bit trying-to-get-other-things-done-in-my-life so i've been down there a lot less this week myself. infrastructure's as good as ever and the community likes us again as far as i can tell. trying to figure out Where To Go From Here. come down whenever!

tax tired vs. tax tiered

my favorite sign has been IN CORPORATE AMERICA BANKS ROB YOU!

<3

these "occupy dc emails," btw, aren't the k street occupation at all. they're a separate old left protest group who's been getting us nothing but bad press from day 1

Yeah, now i see what you were talking about hoos. Ugh.

Meanwhile, I've been helping out with a fact checking venture. There's a petition for professors to express support going around that has over 1,400 signatures (after only a few days, and including Chomsky and others) but we're going through the list first to make sure the signatures are actually professors. So far, most are legit, but about 1 in 10 are just normal people.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-18/bofa-said-to-split-regulators-over-moving-merrill-derivatives-to-bank-unit?category=%2F

^^ better summarized here: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/bank-of-america-deathwatch-moves-risky-derivatives-from-holding-company-to-taxpayer-backstopped-depositors.html

that is to say

Bernanke approves B of A's transfer of trillions of dollars worth of derivatives from Merrill Lynch division into FDIC-backed B of A banking division

― Milton Parker, Wednesday, October 19, 2011 3:14 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is pretty disturbing. I can't decide if I'm more upset by the potential taxpayer bailout element or the potential second financial crisis element. Of course, some of the counterparties who would lose money are likely pension funds and such, so it feels very damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't

i'm having trouble finding the info; can someone dig up how large the tea parties were? i don't remember them being remotely the size of OWS or the supporting protests, and I'm kind of wishing that was getting some play in the media, i.e., the tea party was a fairly small, somewhat regional thing while occupy is global and comparatively enormous?

Nate Silver tried to do this kind of comparison: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/the-geography-of-occupying-wall-street-and-everywhere-else/

that article (the one Milton Parker linked to) is honestly too confusing for my graphic artist brane to understand what it's about.

that nate silver thing is kinda cute. he notices that western cities got larger turn outs, and then scratches his head a little bit, floats some ideas about race, tech-savvy, and finally political ideology, ignoring completely that standing around outside is much much more pleasant/less likely to kill you if you're doing it in california.

mpls probably has as many "liberals" of the type he identifies as anywhere, but with highs in the 50s and overnight temps in the 30s, taking to the streets requires a little extra effort

like obv weather isn't the only reason ppl turned out in places like arizona, but it seems about as plausible "tech-savvy"

ha I was thinking that too

it's like Occam never even had a razor

Occam's Unpleasant Beard

CNN:

As the Occupy Wall Street rally stretches into its fifth week, inspiring similar demonstrations across the country and around the world, protestors have yet to coalesce around a single set of demands. They are clearly united, however, by their concerns about growing inequality and corporate excesses.

Few companies embody such excesses in the public mind more than Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), which released its third quarter results on Tuesday and announced its second loss since going public in 1999.

Yet while the so-called vampire squid's profits are down nearly 75% for the first nine months of this year, its compensation expenses have only dropped about 25%.

lol

'the so-called vampire squid' is totally the name of my new band

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/the_security_firms_protecting.html

Protection doesn't come cheap. One bodyguard can cost $200 an hour, but that's the very low-end stuff. For a full surveillance system at your home, it can run you up to $1.5 million. But some people still want more.

One executive contacted Insite requesting help planning his escape from the United States in the event the federal government was overthrown, said Howard A. Shapiro, Insite’s chief technology officer. The executive wanted to know how much gold to keep on hand and how to escape the United States by submarine in the event of a major incident.

“He was spending the majority of his wealth on security,” Mr. Shapiro said. “We don’t encourage that.”

nate silver thing annoys me because the media figures for times sq were way off. it was easily 20k+

have we talked about this 'occupy museums' thing happening in nyc?

http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2011/10/19/occupy-wall-street-movements-declares-war-on-nyc-museums-as-temples-of-cultural-elitism/#more-3783

i'm...not so sure about this

um

feel pretty comfortable ignoring "occupy museums"

though i suppose if they protest momas ridiculous ticket prices im on board

also the new museum deserves to be protested it sucks

lol okay reading the "manifesto" makes me think that some ppl just got bored and are looking for a justification to go to some museums

like if yr gonna protest the art market shouldn't you be protesting in chelsea? and why not stand in solidarity with the locked-out art handlers union against sotheby's?

i totally would've protested 'skin fruit'

(mostly because it blew)

i dunno i think the new museum is a pretty fair target of protest if the corrupt art economy is yr main enemy

they should protest the building too, that is just a horrible place in general

the schedule is hilarious

Day 1:

3:00 Meet at Liberty Park
Teach-in about the museums we are going to occupy

4:15 Livestream- read document in front of 5000 viewers.

Occupy the 4 train

5:00 Occupy MoMA
hours: 10:30-5:30
11 W 53rd street New York, NY

Occupy the M3 Bus

6:00 Occupy Frick Collection
hours: 10:00-6 PM
1 East 70th Street, New York, NY

Occupy the 6 train

7:00 Occupy New Museum
Thursdays 6-8 free
235 bowery

the frick doesn't make sense at all, unless it's some kind of 'down with elitist old-white-guy culture' thing, because i don't really think baroque and rococo works are driving the art market these days

i wonder if theyre not protesting at the met cause its technically free

MoMA's single-admission prices are aimed at tourists, they expect a membership out of people who come 6+ times a year.

maybe its cause frick himself was such an asshole

so oppressed by the art world i can barely stand it

it's lunchtime for me, should I go occupy Burger King or Wendy's

yeah i have a membership morbs but that doesnt mean i dont oppose the admission price on principle!

new museum has free admission tonight, as well

coincidentally, i wonder if occupyLA has cottoned to the fact that bank of america is one of pacific standard time's presenting sponsors

ooh I forgot my favorite sign from Saturday:

"MARCH LIKE AN EGYPTIAN"

anyone can create a ridiculous event like 'occupy museums' btw and it's prob just like 3 people

so basically what you are saying is "DJP OTM"

I would have Occupied ILX last weekend but it was broken.

Wow, the art market stuff above is just really, really incoherent. I get the ire for art-as-investment and the MFA-industrial complex and all, and it's annoying that MoMA is expensive, but I don't really see how any of that hinders art from being "for everyone."

I mean if the art at the MoMA is so elitist and investment-driven anyway then why do you care what it costs to go to the MoMA, for one thing?

plz don't overthink this

dudes i was the one complaining about momas price, not them

I kind of feel like removing the concept of "elitism" from artistic endeavors devalues them

I also keep misreading "momas" as "momus"

I waited in line for six fucking hours to sit in front of Marina Abramovich and then James Franco cut me in line right before the museum closed. I am the 99%.

-h

I have to endure my primary care physician hanging fake Impressionist paintings in his waiting room. I am the 99%.

To paraphrase Ian MacKaye, don't make your art to spite the art industry, make your art in spite of the art industry. There are gazillions of alternative channels for learning, making and displaying your art. If you want to be paid handsomely without having to go through the industry, that's tougher. But it's not the MoMA's fault -- push for more govt arts grants, I guess?

you have now officially thought about this for longer than the people who created the event

well lookit that:

http://hyperallergic.com/38739/occupy-wall-street-sothebys/

Good. Far more helping out unions, plz.

boston mayor tom "civil disobedience doesn't work here" menino now in support of occupy? huh? i'm guessing this is some sort of superficial appeasement of the protestors but hey idk

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/10/20/menino-supports-occupy-boston-calls-for-congressional-hearings/

“The Occupy movement is an alarm ringing, and like a fire alarm, it can be noisy and disruptive. We can’t just keep on pointing at the alarm. We need to think for how to save the building,” said Menino.

Jefferson agrees: "this momentous Occupy Wall Street movement, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror."

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/occupy_animal_farm_the_organiz.html

RIP heaven needed a smelly drum circle

pretty fascinating article

also some classic hippie lols of course

“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music," said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia.

I just don't get how they don't get bored after like 6 minutes... I'm pretty ADD tho

BTW, pet peeve: the misuse of the term "civil disobedience" -- "People are being wrongfully arrested just for committing civil disobedience" "We have a constituitonal right to take part in civil disobedience" etc.

OWS organizers should start leaving 11/11/11 boadrum fliers around the area where the drum circles are

Hooray!

http://awwccupywallstreet.tumblr.com/

“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music,"

dude, music IS structure. that's why it's music. but whatevs.

"People are being wrongfully arrested just for committing civil disobedience"

LOL

i think that actually comes from the totally bowdlerized version of the civil rights movement taught in american high schools.

"you mean to say that dr. martin luther king jr BROKE THE LAW????"

The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting."

jesus

"percussion tax" :D

"WHY ARE YOU ACTING JUST LIKE MY DAD?"

"you mean to say that dr. martin luther king jr BROKE THE LAW????"

"Obama would've mentioned that!"

ha

on my way to zuccotti today!

at my ~social innovation tech conference~ yesterday i was pleasantly surprised and by the end of the day blown away to discover that a good 40% of the breakout sessions people dreamed up & worked on were occupy related. the free network foundation, the guys who built & run a free wireless tower in zuccotti & in austin, won one of the $10,000 grants (provided by Pepsi, lol).

also me and about a half dozen guys from other occupations (montreal, new haven, la, boston) are gonna get to work in the coming week on something i wanna call Occupedia, which I think is pretty self explanatory?

haha occupedia, that's pretty brilliant hoos

In the corporate-art discussion, not sure if anyone linked this (or the Village Voice column this week that mentions it):

http://wallstreetoccupennial.tumblr.com/

hey hoos, could you explain what "stop the machine" is, and how it's related to #occupy?

what do people think of the "machine" metaphor? i think it has some merit considered on its own but the optics of it are just so bad.

tom morello kind of fucked that one up for everyone.

hey hoos, could you explain what "stop the machine" is, and how it's related to #occupy?

― elmo argonaut, Friday, October 21, 2011 2:23 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

totally separate anti-militarist protest movement whose organization process started back in the spring so that by october they'd be ready for the 10th anni of the start of the afghan war. put together by various old guard left organizations, primarily run by bigwigs in various socialist parties, has attempted to glom onto the momentum of occupy.

this piece in city paper outlines the diffs b/w their occupation of freedom plaza and our occ of k st pretty well:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2011/10/20/want-to-hold-a-revolution-dont-do-it-in-freedom-plaza/

so, melbourne

http://video.heraldsun.com.au/2157468584/Occupy-Melbourne-protest-chaos

thx hoos, i can see how ppl not following closely could get these confused, must be v frustrating

and what's more, because occupy is leaderless, StM (which is old school and has party-style hierarchy) all over is working to "fuse" with occupy so that they can become de facto leaders of occupy. i'm hearing from occupy media people all over that their local StMs are repeatedly claiming to be one and the same w/occupy, insisting that their camps unite, etc. on top of the superficial similarities they're also actively working in the media to erase the distinction between the two groups, and i spend half my time on twitter doing pushback against it. endlessly frustrating, and moreso because i can't openly call them out about it--they then accuse K St of being "divisive" etc

just had to respond to an email this morning from huffpo asking for a response from an StM spokesman who said "there are those on K St who spend more time trying to divide this movement than they do fighting the 1%"

the nymag thing is interesting but hasnt alex klein been writing those "whats wrong with occupy wall street" pieces for weeks now

I see there is a march w/ the contractless Verizon workers at 5pm, but I can't make that

trying to divide this movement

A+ trolling there

oh man hoos, that is some bullshit!

Taibbi on the Merrill Lynch "creative accounting" ripoff and yet another Obama dipshit move re Sarbanes-Oxley:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/occupy-wall-street-washington-still-doesnt-get-it-20111021

I've read that BoA thing in like 3 different places and it still barely makes any sense to me? Taibbi is p much the only explainer of math I grok.

Otherwise it's like I see the words "derivatives" and "collateral" and my eyes glaze over.

Agreed, though I would be interested in reading a novel written in the style of that bloomberg article.

the bank of america corp, which just got another credit downgrade and is in kind of a nosedive, is moving a bunch of assets that they're afraid their creditors might all want their collateral (sorry i know) back on at once from merrill lynch, where such a run would mean that shareholders lose a bunch of money, to bank of america (which takes deposits from normal people and is thus insured by FDIC), where a run would mean that the u.s. government uses taxpayer money to cover the losses and shareholders are fine.

max I am naive for sure but I'm not sure why occupy* can't just put out the same message you just did

we're leaderless, StM isn't, we don't hate them but they're not us. i think people will get that.

?

Taibbi on the Merrill Lynch "creative accounting" ripoff and yet another Obama dipshit move re Sarbanes-Oxley:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/occupy-wall-street-washington-still-doesnt-get-it-20111021

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Friday, October 21, 2011 11:32 AM

nice. can't create jobs without fraud!

I'll try to simplify the Bank of America thing:

The govt created something called the FDIC a long time ago, which basically insures the money in your bank account (up to, I think $250,000). So if you have a $249,999 bank account at Chase, and Chase suddenly goes belly-up, the government has to cover the loss.

Now, Bank of America the big mega company owns Merrill Lynch, which is an investment bank, and Bank of America the bank, which is where ordinary folks put their money in bank accounts. They're legally separate although owned by the same company.

Merrill Lynch has all these investments in it that might go bad -- just think of it that way and don't try to worry about derivatives/collateral/etc. And Merrill might not have enough funds to cover them IF they go bad. So BoA the megacompany is going to take the investments that might go bad out of the Merrill pot and put them in the BoA pot, which has all these extra funds in it, namely the money ordinary people deposit in their accounts. Then if the investments go bad, BoA can use depositors' money to, essentially, pay off the debts, and the government has to refund the depositors their money.

Again, slightly simplified, but that's the gist.

max -> hoos

I'm going to read hurtin's explain very very slowly and carefully. cad, u know i <3 u but that explanation still assumes that I know more than I do! Like why shareholders would lose money, what collateral IS, things like that.

Excellent description, Hurting.

WOW OKAY I get it, I think!

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/rob+Peter+to+pay+Paul

Or as I described it to a friend, "I drink your milkshake, and the government has to refill it"

You may have a future in this explanations thing.

things not going so well in Oakland

The chaos was sparked after about 100 Occupy Melbourne demonstrators, who had camped out in the City Square for a week as part of global protests against corporate greed, defied an order to leave by 9am (AEDT) on Friday.

By about 12.30pm (AEDT), a huge police contingent, including the riot squad, began dragging protesters out of the square and cleared the area within 10 minutes.

The protesters have called on Premier Ted Baillieu and Lord Mayor Robert Doyle to back an independent investigation into the use of excessive force by police and Melbourne City Council on Friday.

They said dozens of police officers were not wearing name badges, in breach of regulations.

"More than 20 statements have been taken from individuals who have experienced police violence, including eye gouging, kicks to the groin, punches to the face, knees to the face and arbitrary pepper spraying, including of minors," said Occupy Melbourne spokesperson Erin Buckley.

"One incident involved an elderly woman with a walking stick who was pushed to the ground by riot police."

Protesters are calling on the city council to compensate them for the 17 truckloads of personal property - computers, cameras, bicycles, tents and cooking equipment - that they say was removed and destroyed.

good luck australia

I'll try to simplify the Bank of America thing:

The govt created something called the FDIC a long time ago, which basically insures the money in your bank account (up to, I think $250,000). So if you have a $249,999 bank account at Chase, and Chase suddenly goes belly-up, the government has to cover the loss.

Now, Bank of America the big mega company owns Merrill Lynch, which is an investment bank, and Bank of America the bank, which is where ordinary folks put their money in bank accounts. They're legally separate although owned by the same company.

Merrill Lynch has all these investments in it that might go bad -- just think of it that way and don't try to worry about derivatives/collateral/etc. And Merrill might not have enough funds to cover them IF they go bad. So BoA the megacompany is going to take the investments that might go bad out of the Merrill pot and put them in the BoA pot, which has all these extra funds in it, namely the money ordinary people deposit in their accounts. Then if the investments go bad, BoA can use depositors' money to, essentially, pay off the debts, and the government has to refund the depositors their money.

Again, slightly simplified, but that's the gist.

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Friday, October 21, 2011 11:18 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark

damn thank you. i had read that article on naked capitalism and it left my head in a total fog. this is clear.

Oh look: Alec Baldwin

Yeah, and just as a caveat, the part where I say "bad investments" is really the oversimplification and isn't exactly accurate, but I thought it would be easier to get the big picture (i.e., what is scary and infuriating about the whole thing) by simplifying that part.

Alec Baldwin thinks OWS should propose legislative programs, so they can be disposed of before he becomes mayor.

actually he has already ruled out running for mayor cause he would rather be going on vacation and banging his young gf all the time

I gave the same reason.

I missed "gf" in that post at first

lol

Look for Mayor Set o' Steakknives in 6 years.

actually he has already ruled out running for mayor cause he would rather be going on vacation and banging his young gf all the time

― iatee, Friday, October 21, 2011 1:34 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

can't really argue w/ this IMO.

Oh, just one other thing I might add about BofA (without, hopefully, muddying the water) -- what they're doing is not bad merely because they're taking risks with depositor money. Banks do that all the time, it's what they do -- they make loans and investments with your money. In a world where banks are operating the way they're supposed to, they do this in a measured and calculated way that should earn them a nice profit and you a little interest as well without too much chance of going belly-up. What they're doing here is shifting MASSIVE risks, not to earn money on your money but to shield themselves.

so how can I monetize this explaining thing?

blog w/ ads

catsexplainingcomplicatedshit.tumblr.com

the oakland thing doesn't surprise me since the bay area is incapable of running a protest that doesn't wind up with homeless and mentally unstable people involved, because there are just so many of them here. it sounds like an attack by a crazy person spurred this and now the city is freaked out.

#occupy Berkeley is some funny ass shit, I think we have one tent. granted there is no financial center in berkeley.

I'll try to simplify the Bank of America thing:
The govt created something called the FDIC a long time ago, which basically insures the money in your bank account (up to, I think $250,000). So if you have a $249,999 bank account at Chase, and Chase suddenly goes belly-up, the government has to cover the loss.

Now, Bank of America the big mega company owns Merrill Lynch, which is an investment bank, and Bank of America the bank, which is where ordinary folks put their money in bank accounts. They're legally separate although owned by the same company.

Merrill Lynch has all these investments in it that might go bad -- just think of it that way and don't try to worry about derivatives/collateral/etc. And Merrill might not have enough funds to cover them IF they go bad. So BoA the megacompany is going to take the investments that might go bad out of the Merrill pot and put them in the BoA pot, which has all these extra funds in it, namely the money ordinary people deposit in their accounts. Then if the investments go bad, BoA can use depositors' money to, essentially, pay off the debts, and the government has to refund the depositors their money.

Again, slightly simplified, but that's the gist.

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Friday, October 21, 2011 11:18 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark

thanks for the explanation! very helpful.

am I also right in assuming that this doesn't happen if glass-steagall is still in place - that glass-steagall created a barrier between commercial banks and investment banks, so that the cash pools were separate. now investment banks are kind of free to play with ALL the chips and put not only their own capital at risk, but also people's deposited money at risk as well?

I am fairly sure that you are exactly correct about that. I only know the basics of what Glass-Steagall meant, but my guess is that Credit Default Swaps are exactly the kind of thing that an ordinary bank would not be allowed to do under the old rules.

And, yes, that's exactly the point -- investment banks shouldn't be playing with your money.

catsexplainingcomplicatedshit.tumblr.com

I feel like maybe you are onto something

You better hurry up, Lindsay Graham beat you to the milkshake thing.

okay cannot get the image of Lindsey Graham singing "Milkshake" out of my head now

http://www.ontheissues.org/pictures/Lindsey_Graham.jpg

Damn right, it's better than yours!

he looks like Vicki Lawerence!

Wait, he did? Link?

It's quoted in the other thread. Get over there.

Going to try to host another workshop this weekend. Am hoping the schedule is not too full up.

we fed 1000 people at the Eugene site yesterday, damn.

the occupation was just moved to another location, we had a space conflict with the local Saturday Market which is going on for two more weeks, so people moved. Hopefully we'll move back to the original site later on, it was very central.

so what's the status on Oakland? that takedown is particularly sad to me, was just there yesterday morning and they had so many cool things coming up

Stopped by the pdx ga for the very first time tonight. Interesting experience, but CHRIST did I keep having the thought "you fucking hippie do you not know how anything actually works are you you that functionally illiterate".

Also the fucking crusties openly smoking and rolling on the camp benches pissed me off.

Still nice to visit the camp at night; winter is going to come very, very hard unfortunately.

we're leaderless, StM isn't, we don't hate them but they're not us. i think people will get that.

?

― lukas, Friday, October 21, 2011 4:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

this is basically what i've been saying for two weeks and it's starting to catch on, but it's been a battle. StM's camp is slowly emptying as their people come over to K St, which is heartening in its way--our beef isn't with the activists, it's with the leaders, and the activists are starting to share said beef.

I thought this Salon piece was really interesting, and also summed up the Situationist movement more concisely than I've ever seen (and I tried to get through The S of the S years ago based on Lipstick Traces just like probably 50,000 other people, and failed almost spectacularly).

notes from zuccotti--

-fresh sign post alec baldwin visit read HEY ALEC & CAPITAL ONE, KISS MY (anarchy sign)SS

-surprised at the prevalence of crusties, the whole thing feels like a crusty carnival or fair.

-GA last night ran to 5 hours with lots of emotional outbursts over points of process

-at 3am a dude asked me "what is your deepest wish?" and i said "to occupy everything and never give it back." he said "in 20 minutes, your wish will come true, you'll never have to give it back." then he climbed the big red sculpture at the head of the park and said he would "not come down until bloomberg stepped down." 3 hours, a half dozen emergency vehicles, a lot of angry parents (who were there for the inaugural Kids' Night (!!!) camping out) & an aborted attempt at an occupation-based resolution to the problem (no idea how that would have worked) the guy was brought down in a cherrypicker and taken into custody. he's canadian, so the concern is he'll be deported. at first the word in the park was that nobody knew who this guy was and there were lots of mutterings of "provocateur" (oh now all the saturday morning news crews get the CRAZY PROTESTORS shot instead of the "families together at the occupation" shot how convenient), but medical team tells me they'd dealt with him for a couple of days and he seemed unstable.

-occupyhalloween.org

-lots of ny people coming down to dc, lots of contact info traded. ows medics wanna come down and give us street medic training, also they're really excited about the prospect of my occupedia project. the guys who set up the free wireless towers at OWS and occupyAustin won a $10,000 grant at the conference i was at on thursday and they want to use it to seed and expand and come down to dc and talk with our tech team about an even-lower-cost prototype tower.

-the degree to z seems to have become a tourist attraction/anarchist petting zoo as vs. organizing space is kinda annoying? idk.

just thoughts.

When I went there I didn't stay long because there was nowhere to go! I didn't go there to DO anything in particular and there was nowhere to sit, tourists and people just constantly walked through the one-person-sized walkways left by mattresses and other groups of people, felt like everywhere I went I was in the way of something else, and when I stepped back on the sidewalk to get some distance from the crowd, a policeman told me to keep moving. O_o So! Yeah.

yeah i mean like, its weird to me that the people's mic came out of this space because it hardly seems to work in the park at all with traffic and the buildings around us--there's a 'mic check!' met with a 'mic check!' and then effectively silence as people within earshot stop repeating.

I think the people that started it had done GAs in other situations before OWS. so it's not like it was invented to suit the park.

ah

summed up the Situationist movement more concisely than I've ever seen

just read Vaneigem's "Revolution of Everyday Life" - way more readable than DeBord

haha I have evangelized about my disgust for debord before on this board - glad to see someone shares my abhor of debord on this board in jorts

johts

yeah i mean like, its weird to me that the people's mic came out of this space because it hardly seems to work in the park at all with traffic and the buildings around us--there's a 'mic check!' met with a 'mic check!' and then effectively silence as people within earshot stop repeating.

it started much smaller, people's mic has sorta reached its limits for usefulness w/ current crowds

-the degree to z seems to have become a tourist attraction/anarchist petting zoo as vs. organizing space is kinda annoying? idk.

this is true but you gotta remember this whole thing started as an anarchist carnival and the organizery types came later

tho also I feel like earlier the crusty population was probably more politicized and now the crusty population is just everyone in the northeast who's heard about it

how long will the occupations last

ny at least another month

I mean they have 300k (prob more now? I dunno) in the bank and you don't really need *that many people* to sleep outside

GA last night ran to 5 hours with lots of emotional outbursts over points of process

OK, who has a voice left after that?

this is going to lead to a national political system controlled by people w/ superhero-levels of patience

I mean they have 300k (prob more now? I dunno) in the bank and you don't really need *that many people* to sleep outside

― iatee, Saturday, October 22, 2011 2:45 PM (22 minutes ago)

300k what?

dollaz, apparently 450k according to some wsj article I just read

Pdx ga last night having a bit of fuss over creating a budget comm to go along with the finance one, so you don't overload the fund-raising guys with additional duties, but this apparently caused plenty of consternation.

So I guess I haven't visited the site in a little while, but I notice that now the Adbusters logo is prominently at the top of occupywallst.org, and I find that slightly weird.

Whoops, sorry. Rather the domain "occupywallstreet.org" takes you to an adbusters page, as opposed to "occupywallst.org" -- maybe it's old news

what are crusties exactly?

crust punks

Crusties are all over the Portland camp; they're the ones openly dealing.

Per amon's posts upthread on Occupy Melb (and as of last night, Sydney went pearshaped too). I'm ... of two minds as to Australians running with this movement. Doing so simply in solidarity is one thing, but we dont have the direct and urgent problems the US (or say, Greece, etc) do. We *have* universal healthcare, decent welfare for the poor, a reasonably good employment rate right now, etc etc

So unfortunatrly, the protests here have been slightly hijacked by other focus groups such as aboriginal land rights, Socialist Alliance and deliberate provocateurs too (prob cops or feds who knows).

Its been hard to discuss it with ppl here like my workmates. Theyve been all "hahah look theyre shoving the hippies around, man I wish I had nothing better to do than go sit in a tent", they dont seem even very well versed in the US situ like I feel I am from these awesome, informative threads.

Worst of all, is thr arrogant NIMBYism of our cockpuncher of a City Lord Mayor, who orchesteated forcefully shoving them all out of City Square. Among other things he's said "you've had enough time now, please return the square to the people of Melbourne" (!? What are the protestors if not those very people). Today hes quoted with such gems as "the mindless shriek of protest" and:

"''These are very selfish, duplicitous people … We had an actual assurance from them during the course of the week from continual negotiations with our officers and police that if we gave them reasonable notice they would pack up and go. We acted in good faith.

''They bleat about their rights. What about the rights of the 800,000 people who use the city?''

Fucking overpaid fat cunt.

Also, erstwhile former ILX poster mikeybidness has been down there daily reporting on it for his blog/the ABC website... and he got caught up in the kettle and punched in the ear by a cop.

it's more crusty hippie/deadhead than crust punk. this is the same crowd you get at Dead lot/Rainbow Gatherings

how do crusties differ from the hippies of yore?

this street kid thing grew out of that early '70s back-to-the-land, travelling side of hippie culture, which was perpetuated through Rainbow Family (where all the different elements of American road culture come together), and the Dead scene (which became the jamband/festival scene in the '90s), but it's evolved a lot over the years I guess. it still shares some values with late '60s/early '70s counterculture, but the scene and style has definitely changed a bit, going all rasta/crusty in the '80s, and new schoolers getting really into hip hop and rave in the '90s. kind of blends together all the different heady/crusty elements

Teenagers/ex-teenagers wearing lots of black leather/denim, Crass patches, dreads, tatts, and piercings. Usually always with a dog wearing a kerchief in tow.

http://rlv.zcache.com/crust_punk_fan_hat-p148043534450372033qz14_400.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UIr_aqNecQ&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bcTVbK2xUk&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB-gtdfX2oU&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIHa8QyU2Ok&feature=related

in my day we just called those folks 'hippies'

hippies are commies, crusties are anarchists

haight st = crusty
golden gate park = hippie

there was a really annoying crusty who was trying to get money for beer

(this guy sat down next to me) I was like 'you can get free food right over there. you can get free cigarettes right over there.' and he was like 'yeah man but why is it so hard to get beer, I just want a case, why can't someone just hook me up.'

hippies don't shout at people on the streets cause they want free beer.

I was trying really hard not to tell at the crusties for consuming contraband in public view in the camp.

What has been the consensus of what happens of when mission creep starts setting into the camps? As in, when temporary protest camps become permanent homeless/feral teenager camps?

Also, how much freeloader action have people seen in their respective spots?

hippies are commies, crusties are anarchists

― iatee, Sunday, October 23, 2011 12:13 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

that's not really true (the first part).

commies short for "commune-dwellers" in that sentence obv

in florida we called them "drainbows"

hah, yeah 'drainbow' is actually Rainbow Family slang for people who don't contribute anything. re: hippies and crusties: eh it's hard to easily categorize the 'good' and 'bad' ones, particularly as being hippie or gutterpunk... there are really political, well-read ones, spiritual/religious ones, people that just want a swig of your beer... generally I have noticed crust punks seem more content to just sit along some sidewalk for months and get drunk, where the more deadhead-y/Rainbow crusts tend to travel more, go see music, involve themselves in protests, and create things, but there are plenty of freeloaders and hedonists in their crowd. Rainbow Gatherings have, in addition to pagan camps and christian camps and whatnot, camps with names like Barbarian Camp and Death Camp for the feral runaway types, and I remember people complaining about Barbarian Camp kids stealing things from their tents. Phish/Dead tour has problems with this amoral/scam artist element too (which they call "wooks"), and you really can't do a tour without seeing some fucked up shit. with such a free philosophy/free space, you're really going to get all kinds, idealistic/active, and hedonistic/lazy

Or just plain nihilistic

I was trying really hard not to tell at the crusties for consuming contraband in public view in the camp.

yeah we have a couple of crusties in camp who insist that their decision to smoke in the open is an act of civil disobedience in line with the occupation itself, which i think is total bullshit--when your personal decisions put the rest of the occupants in immediate danger of eviction your freedoms are infringing on the mission itself, and fuck that.

What has been the consensus of what happens of when mission creep starts setting into the camps? As in, when temporary protest camps become permanent homeless/feral teenager camps?

we're really settling in for the long haul and trying to turn it into a community space that stands for a set of positive values and against greed. i try to make sure we send out squads for mic checks at the other parks where homeless congregate so we can announce meal times &c. the guys who previously lived in the park have joined the community and are actively involved in a committee or two, using tents donated to us &c. as far as feral teenagers are concerned, i already have a hard enough time telling them apart from the crusties, so why not?

at the NY GA last night (last night? fuck. i'm back in dc and it feels like a week ago) a fight nearly broke out because theft has been on the rise and one particularly outspoken guy was sick of being accused/followed by "your goddamn thugs in security." i did think it was interesting that almost nobody says "de-escalation," and when i asked about it a few times the response was "yeah that's what we're supposed to call them, but nobody does."

200+ arrested in chicago fwiw

My friend Catherine got arrested at Occupy Melbourne (on Friday when the police forcibly broke up the protest), and then wrote a good piece on how it went down:

http://iamtheblob.blogspot.com/2011/10/today-i-was-arrested-at-occupy.html

HOOS, I woulda come down Friday eve if I knew you were leaving so soon.

Melbourne vids:

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/10/brutal-cops-at-occupy-melbourne.html

Somebody gets pissed off at a smug 53% post by a college student, goes line by line thru it:

http://persephonemagazine.com/2011/10/dont-even-get-me-started-mythical-bootstraps-college-student/

And the crux of the main argument:

Two big problems underlie this Facebook photo sharing campaign: 1) If people want to believe something is true, they often will, even when the belief is baseless, and even when faced with extensive evidence to the contrary (this is a crazy scary phenomenon; the University of Michigan did an interesting study on it). 2) We’re susceptible to self-serving bias, which means that we want to attribute our successes to internal or personal factors, even when external factors, like family support, economics, and privilege actually play a major role in those successes. In other words, most people tend to think of themselves as folks who’ve “pulled themselves up but their bootstraps” and obtained everything they have through grit and determination – when, in reality, very few people fit that narrow profile. Similarly, people who’ve succeeded expect more from others than they do from themselves. A person without resources and support is expected, by the bootstraps myth believer, to achieve the same amount of success through sheer hard work as the person who achieved those things through, sure some hard work (probably… or at least, hopefully), but also a lot of inherent advantage – like the parents they were born to, the neighborhood they grew up in, the schools they attended, good health, looks, etc.

well written piece that.

it is, but it could have been even better. as some commenters point out, the fact that she even has a scholarship (even if it is not 90% as she asserts) suggests that she did not "do it alone."

but even more broadly, she is attending a _public_ university -- that is, a university set up and subsidized by _the state_. paid for by _taxes_ (in large part, anyway). so she is benefitting from the public trust in a huge way that she fails to acknowledge.

would like to point out that every student at a public university is guaranteed 90% scholarships

90% of tuition in scholarships I should say

also i think much of what is on these signs is at best half-truth, at worst a baldfaced lie. people tell lies about themselves all the time. how many people did you know in college who owned up to how much their parents were giving them every month?

hey kingfish here's an AP article written from Portland about the homeless/occupy crossover, touches on Eugene a bit as well.

http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27065974-41/homeless-protest-protesters-occupy-camp.html.csp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mLVmWWpACM&feature=player_embedded

bill came to visit

Not sure how much you guys have covered Occupy Chicago itt, but they keep trying to set up a permanent base in Grant Park and keep getting kicked out and arrested at the 11 PM curfew.

how many people did you know in college who owned up to how much their parents were giving them every month?

My roommate argued one night that she hadn't received any family help in college.
I didn't point it out, but her parents still own the condo in Austin they bought so that she and her sister could live there during college.

http://greg.org/archive/2011/10/23/occupymarkdisuvero.html

interesting

it's frustrating watching bill maher make sense & speak truth after you've seen him bullshit & bray with tom friedman for the time it takes for anyone outside of the choir to switch channels

fuck that asshole that climbed the sculpture

he scared the kids and families asleep right under it and they all had to move so fd could set up the bounce house in case he fell

and then all the morning camera crews got shots of CRAZY PROTESTER instead of "families enjoying their time in the park"

also worth pointing out that he climbed the sculpture in full view of 4 nypd officers less than 30 feet away. they let the sleeping parents try to stop him and otherwise kept their hands in their pockets.

we need to submit a 'no canadians' proposal to the GA

he actually told me and apparently a half dozen other people in his crazy voice (about 10 minutes before he climbed the sculpture) that he was about to climb it and that his demands would have to be met "because they won't let a canadian die on this soil"

i'm gonna spend a few days at the occupy montreal site. i am sort of worry i'll flip out @ some zeitgeist zigoto, Lyndon LaRouche followers or other NWO conspirationist. even the venus project guys... they don't use conspiracy theories to recruit members so I'm cool with them i guess, it's just that fresco's designs don't impress me that much when it comes at creating a bright green future.

I met some of the Montreal guys in NY! Suresh and a couple of others--Suresh tends to wear weird hats, you'll know him when you see him.

Also talked to some other Canadians that were like "we DO need to occupy our space, but we've got our ~own~ bullshit to be protesting--they don't need to piggyback on what the americans are doing"

Tory MP misses the point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3gkYfedUhg

Man those 53% photos just keep getting more and more depressing

So I finally made my first, somewhat touristic fly-by visit to OWS today. It wound up being toward the end of a long and hungover day so I wasn't so energetic by that time.

I definitely felt like the 'loudest' and most prominent things about it were not necessarily representative of what I would really want OWS to represent -- the 9/11 truther, the Ron Paul guy, the annoying button/t-shirt sellers, and OY the drummers. I can't really compare to earlier points in time, since this was my first visit, but there was unfortunately a somewhat touristy, haight-ashbury-past-its-peak quality (which of course I was contributing to a little by coming to 'see' it).

I was also struck by how small the park, and hence the camp is, but it occurred to me that this is a protest that exists more in the internet than it does in physical space in some ways, even if it emanates out from that physical space. And also that the message of the protest in some ways is less important therefore than what it gets people talking about outside the park.

http://www.occupypolice.org/
http://www.occupymarines.org/

it will probably take another 10 years of experience with social networks before we can assemble in a way that matches our fantasies of fair and full employment and budget humanization

funny ringtones

thanking u

from wall strit

I definitely felt like the 'loudest' and most prominent things about it were not necessarily representative of what I would really want OWS to represent -- the 9/11 truther, the Ron Paul guy, the annoying button/t-shirt sellers, and OY the drummers. I can't really compare to earlier points in time, since this was my first visit, but there was unfortunately a somewhat touristy, haight-ashbury-past-its-peak quality (which of course I was contributing to a little by coming to 'see' it).

this feeling reached its peak for me around midday at the height of the 'anarchist petting zoo' thing, but by 1am when its people talking and banjo players and committees finally out of the GA and ready to talk specific strategy it can still be a heartening thing.

Portland police are looking for the person who threw a chemical bomb at the Occupy Maine encampment in Portland during the early morning hours today.

Sgt. Glen McGary said police responded around 4 a.m. today to an explosion in Lincoln Park at Congress and Pearl streets.

Though no one was injured, McGary said the homemade bomb, which consisted of chemicals poured into a plastic Gatorade container could have caused serious injury.

Last Friday, a group of Occupy Maine protesters stood outside the Bank of America Branch at One City Center to demonstrate against big banks and corporations.

from wall strit

― ⚓ (gr8080)

lol

that bomb thing is fucked up, glad everyone was okay.

yo kingfish, dlh, any other occupy portland people:

one of my best bros is performing with his "anarchist folk band" on saturday afternoon-- tell mike i say whats up!

NYT on water supply vs farm jobs in Southern California

Do we have a water thread? Couldn't remember one but this is also being told as a story about jobs so here it goes. Farmers can now get paid NOT to water their fields, so the water from the Colorado River can go to cities for drinking.

There are 450 farmers in the Imperial Valley, but half the jobs held by the 174,000 residents are tied to agriculture. ... Imperial’s fear is that a century after Colorado River water allowed this land to be a cornucopia, unfettered urban water transfers could turn it back into a desert."

REALLY. NO SHIT? A DESERT? HOW'D THAT HAPPEN?? Bonus Salton Sea reference!

@BunBTrillOG
Bun B
#OccupyEverywhere RT @ScottGetsBusy: Just talked to hip-hop legend @BunBTrillOG at #occupyDC

http://twitter.com/#!/BunBTrillOG/statuses/128518154493243392

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Noam Chomsky at Occupy Boston on Saturday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olxp34z_Mns

aw he's somehow gotten even more boring as a speaker as he's aged. his introductory point about how it's a shame zinn wasn't alive for this is so otm

yeah I keep thinking about zinn :/

^^ read that as "Occupy Boston Market"

I read it as "1 of 13." I thought, "I knew he was a little long-winded, but jeez..."

His point about Zinn, though, very sadly OTM.

npr are such ass-covering pussbags, congratulations breitbart

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/22/npr-drops-world-of-opera-after-lisa-simeone-stays-as-host/

awwww, Grandpa Chomsky

fuck a npr.

when did journalistic ethics become this whole "you can't appear to actually believe in anything so as to appear objective" thing?

srsly

she's not even a reporter!

when did journalistic ethics become this whole "you can't appear to actually believe in anything so as to appear objective" thing?

I'm not gonna defend NPR here but they are not like other journalism outlets since they are funded by taxpayers

only partly

right but it makes them super-skittish

It's like a tiny, tiny percentage of their overall funding (especially for the national organization as opposed to member stations), but people act like it's like 90% of their budget or something. As does NPR.

TBF, it's not really accurate to say that "a tiny percentage of their overall funding" comes from taxpayers, because a lot of their funding comes indirectly from member stations who in turn receive taxpayer funding.

This is fucking stupid though -- she hosts an OPERA program, not a political program.

but she might slip anticapitalist doublespeak into her Opera program!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203752604576645480987452682.html

goldman backs out of sponsoring credit union fundraiser dinner that includes OWS among honorees

at least we know where the lines are drawn...

xpost but actually it's doubly appropriate!

http://lbo-news.com/2011/10/24/creeps-busting-brooms-stealing-trashbags-at-ows/

fuck a duck.

the revolution will be ratfucked

I was out of town for the weekend, surprised to see that liberty plaza is now tentville. this is a good thing cause it means people prob won't freeze to death. cops kinda fucked up when they backed down and allowed the medical tent - before then everyone was obeying the no tent rule.

more crazies, beggers, truthers

and shit like this

http://i.imgur.com/2BmX2.jpg

I had to wait for like 4 minutes for my phone to take that picture but I sorta had to

are those leprachauns or the kids from "village of the damned"

?

http://www.plaxo.com/directory/profile/197569889465/e13cb616/Cary/Robyn

this must be one of the dudes

I think they were trying to raise money to turn it into a movie?

The multiverse is like a great big fractal octopus.

there was a point when not every single crazy person in nyc had heard about ows but I don't think we are at that point anymore

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/americans-who-pay-no-income-taxes-eitc-edition/2011/10/24/gIQAfbzfCM_blog.html

http://nplusonemag.com/monday-night-urgent-ows-message

fucking drummers, man

they really like drumming

they are also angry that we are not buying more drums with the half million dollar treasury

that is fucking crazy. somebody needs to crack some heads, and i mean that in the most progressive and spirit-embracing way

nobody can really 'enforce' anything so even after things are painstakingly agreed upon, there's still nothing you can do w/ some angry person w/ a drum

http://www.filmreference.com/images/sjff_01_img0068.jpg

fuck a drum circle.

long day, dispirited by this and a shit ton else.

our declaration committee is embroiled in my favorite left politics game, "i feel oppressed and marginalized by this process" "no you're oppressing me by saying that i'm oppressing you with my whiteness"

Ugh, is this shit seriously gonna get taken down by drum circles?

Fuck those horrible, horrible people.

the ny one went through that pretty early in the process but it's okay cause nobody really cares about anyone's declaration anyway

just remember that all the nonsense and seed crystal and whatever doesn't matter in the big picture (except when it's making the news instead of ~the issues~)

Well, ya know, you can't have your hierarchy-free, authority-free, all-consensus-all-the-time cake and eat it too

I went down to ZP today why because girls and I left really, REALLY unimpressed. Like, my feelings about this whole thing are kind of mixed from a pure practicality POV. I also may be secretly rich and therefore idgi? I don't know. Also I have missed all the skullcrushing excitement, I think.

you have to approach zp as just this mascot-homebase for an emerging political narrative and not as some mecca for enlightened political thought

yeah that's what I basically meant in my post upthread about the protest existing more in the internet than the park, emanating from ZP, etc.

Well, ya know, you can't have your hierarchy-free, authority-free, all-consensus-all-the-time cake and eat it too

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, October 25, 2011 3:21 AM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

Indeed. Authority, discipline and hierarchy are necessary for consensus to be achieved.

you again

BANAKUPY WALL STREET

one thing that's interesting is how the crowd that turns up can be *radically* different depending on the context. at any given moment ZP is mostly filled w/ your normal flavors of crusties and crazies but during large rallies the crowd is much older, sensibly dressed and unions are very present. they (+ 'normal 20-somethings') overwhelm the zp-types in number and arrive for the important things, they just don't spend all day at the park.

yeah this is also v true at dc--reports all day of people who go at midday on a weekday coming away 'unimpressed'

well sure, you went in the middle of the day when they're just sitting around picking banjos and eating lunch--the real work, insofar as it happens, happens in GA, committee meetings, and actions, not in the act of a dude sharing a tarp with his stinky girlfriend.

Someone clever should design a sort of playful 'brochure' to hand out to OWS tourists about the whole thing, like maybe it could give ideas on how to approach it, explain a bit about the GA's and meetings, but also have a bit of an oblique strategies quality as well

haha yeah I had to explain to an orthodox dude and his family today what was going on, that would actually be useful

yes i agree/think that's what my experience 'missed' xp

I went during the GA and it seemed p meh and i did see ppls making out on stinky tarps lol

what were you expecting to see that you did not see

I saw only one human megaphone speech and it was this woman telling a rambling and not especially compelling story about her either roommate or girlfriend -- she had trouble making the bills and took a second job stuff sorta sucks etc.

what is with those die-hard drum circle folks? are they mentally ill?

If I had a drum...

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/occupy-wall-street-trademark-986531

Narcissism of small differences. Gotta stand out from all these other protestors _somehow_

lol what a doof xp

hobo bags.

otm

these hobo bags ain't gunna move themselves

JtM is a jaded mofo

^^jade expert imo

David Caruso?

http://i.cdn.turner.com/dr/teg/tsg/release/sites/default/files/assets/robertmarescaheadshot.jpg

Real non-trolly question here.

Are there hard numbers on which % of the 43% that don't pay federal income tax are poverty-stricken people wronged by the american system that we should be helping and which % are just freeloaders and criminals?

"Poverty level" for a family of four in the US is just north of $22,000. The median household income in the US is $25,000. The math is left as an exercise for the reader.

Does it really matter? I'd rather we accidentally help someone who doesn't "deserve" it than fail to help people who do need it.

theyre mostly just people with kids and/or make less than $50k

The 47% don't pay one specific form of tax. They pay sales tax, payroll tax, property tax (either through ownership or rent) etc. It's ridiculous to even draw this distinction. It's like saying "24% don't even pay the Alternate Year Joint Filers Residential Zone 12 tax! What leeches on society!"

Here’s a call that went out:

We’re in serious need of bodies here. The drumming will happen daily from 12-2 and 4-6pm, that’s OK. But that means that we need folks in these shifts:

2-4 PM: people here to make sure drumming doesn’t start

5:45–8 PM: ppl here to make sure drumming stops at 6 PM sharp and doesn’t start again

8–10 PM: ppl here to make sure drumming doesn’t start

It's also been pointed out that a significant portion of those 47% or 43% or whatever would pay some tax but for the child tax credit, which is a policy generally supported by republicans (I think it was even pushed for by them). So it's like "we believe in tax cuts, here have a tax cut" and then "hey, freeloading assholes, why don't you pay any taxes?"

whiney: it's mostly due to the EITC (earned income tax credit). and like nick said, focusing just on federal income tax is misleading because of all the other taxes that they pay.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/do_the_poor_really_pay_no_taxe.html

http://keithhennessey.com/2010/04/15/off-the-rolls/

idk why you are drawing this kind of binary - there are a lot of people who make 50k or less who are not poverty-stricken people nor criminals and freeloaders! \O_o/

and it's also been pointed out that if you further cut taxes, as republicans push for, you are going to push that bar even higher as more people's tax burden is covered by EITC and the like

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html?ref=todayspaper

But the modifiers here — federal and income — are important. Income taxes aren’t the only kind of federal taxes that people pay. There are also payroll taxes and investment taxes, among others. And, of course, people pay state and local taxes, too.

Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes. The number 10 is obviously a lot smaller than 47.

The reason is that poor families generally pay more in payroll taxes than they receive through benefits like the Earned Income Tax Credit. It’s not just poor families for whom the payroll tax is a big deal, either. About three-quarters of all American households pay more in payroll taxes, which go toward Medicare and Social Security, than in income taxes.

iow when republicans talk about cutting taxes, they are pretty much only concerned with the federal income tax, which 'disproportionately' affects the rich - people who pay a majority of their taxes in in payroll, state and local taxes etc. can basically go to hell

"why are you drawing this kind of binary" <--- a question you just asked whiney g. weingarten

i mean really

I guess I thought he was being non-trolley =(

not surprised to find out that whiney is a closet republican tho

well he is from central florida

true, and he loves korn and linkin park

iow when republicans talk about cutting taxes, they are pretty much only concerned with the federal income tax, which 'disproportionately' affects the rich - people who pay a majority of their taxes in in payroll, state and local taxes etc. can basically go to hell

― dayo, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 13:53 (17 minutes ago) Permalink

tbf, republicans in national office don't have any control over state and local taxes, so you're not going to hear them talking about those

yeah and I guess killing social security and medicare is equal to killing payroll taxes

tbf, republicans in national office don't have any control over state and local taxes, so you're not going to hear them talking about those

No, but when they make cuts in Federal spending in certain areas, that often requires states (of which 49 have balanced budget amendments) and municipalities to raise them to cover the shortfall, or to cut state and local services.

real talk drum circles are actually worse than wall street

tear gas & arrests in oakland, livestream here: http://blog.sfgate.com/abraham/2011/10/25/occupy-oakland-police-eviction-underway-75-arrested-live-stream/

good times!
http://jpdobrin.com/blog/2011/10/photography-of-police-dismantling-occupy-oakland/#.TqbJVF0v-ga.twitter

Are there hard numbers on which % of the 43% that don't pay federal income tax are poverty-stricken people wronged by the american system that we should be helping and which % are just freeloaders and criminals?

43 - [minute percentage of v wealthy that pay nothing] - unemployment rate - % under the poverty line - % ppl making up to ~50k/yr that get EITC or baby credits = % of "freeloaders" and "criminals"

can't tell if i'm disappointed or relieved to know that whiney is a closet 53 percenter

what closet

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/data/634/Veronica100100.jpg

man this occupy oakland footage is messed up

and i haven't even gotten to the eviction yet

city is threatening to kick out the baltimore one tomorrow
http://occupybmore.org/users/admin/blog/city-sets-deadline-occupy-baltimore-dispersal

Highlight/lowlight of the n+1 drummer story:

Unfortunately there is one individual who is NOT a drummer but who claims to speak for the drummers who has been a deeply disruptive force, attacking the drumming rep during the GA and derailing his proposal, and disrupting the community board meeting, as well as the OWS community relations meeting. She has also created strife and divisions within the POC caucus, calling many members who are not ‘on her side’ “Uncle Tom”, “the 1%”, “Barbie” “not Palestinian enough” “Wall Street politicians” “not black enough” “sell-outs”, etc.

Respect to anyone thrashing out all the internal disagreements and keeping things running. It must be a hell of a headache.

can i just say white ppl getting defensive about white privilege makes me want to shave my head and live in a cave

What's that in response to?

I would like to create and market an Uncle Tom Barbie

What's that in response to?

― Science, you guys. Science. (DL), Tuesday, October 25, 2011 4:51 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh nothing you said, just venting after an unproductive evening at camp last night, sorry.

Ah, I see. Sorry you've had a stressful evening.

stressed? chillax to these relaxing groovy vibrations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlIqHqg6XtY

can i just say white ppl getting defensive about white privilege makes me want to shave my head and live in a cave

odd choice of words there...

hang in there hoos. lots of bickering here as well, mostly about our location which changed a few days ago. very few people are happy with the new spot, but the original one conflicted with a local weekly craft market that has been in the spot for 40 years.

http://www.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/remy-632x425.jpg

xp

not everyone shares the privilege of shaving their head and living in a cave

has everyone read this excellent thing? http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/owss-beef-wall-street-isnt-winning-its-cheating-20111025

that's a good one, thanks - I said almost the same thing to some friends of mine - "I don't have any problem with rich people, just rich people who cheat"

we need more cheating & gambling memes in our narrative push imo

The reason is that poor families generally pay more in payroll taxes than they receive through benefits like the Earned Income Tax Credit. It’s not just poor families for whom the payroll tax is a big deal, either. About three-quarters of all American households pay more in payroll taxes, which go toward Medicare and Social Security, than in income taxes.

though to be fair, those payroll taxes are, in theory, prepayments for services they will receive in the future. And the Social Security tax is capped, such that a wealthy person with a six figure salary isn't paying it on everything he/she earns. The real disparity is that investment income - stock dividends, long-term capital gains (to be specific) - are taxed so low in comparison to earned income. It basically penalizes work.

haven't been following this thread but this was an interesting read

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html

yeah v much so, also check out the pdf of the study--rad visualizations that i wanna put up on signs

thx for that crackle

Jesus, have you seen this anti-OWS ad that Bill Kristol put out?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_best_policy/2011/10/bill_kristol_and_occupy_wall_street_his_despicable_tv_ad_tars_ow.html

fyi im no closet republican, just completely unknowlegable about with Explosions In The Credit or watever is. thyanks for the reading materials

like I said, what closet

Earned Income Tax Credit -- it is the major refundable tax credit. Most recipients where I live are single parents with one or two kids.

oic

It's also been pointed out that a significant portion of those 47% or 43% or whatever would pay some tax but for the child tax credit, which is a policy generally supported by republicans (I think it was even pushed for by them). So it's like "we believe in tax cuts, here have a tax cut" and then "hey, freeloading assholes, why don't you pay any taxes?"

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, October 25, 2011 3:49 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

^^this is the easiest way to win an argument w/ a 53%er

+2 hipster points to sarahel for casually dropping that she lives in a poorer neighborhood

please post only about music, and post about that on your twitter

+2 hipster points to sarahel for casually dropping that she lives in a poorer neighborhood

jesus christ whiney not everyone is involved in your Holy Hipster War

http://service.prweb.com/_res/u/images/article/spin-sucks.png

lol @ Explosions in the Credit

re: Oakland

"I am very pleased with the way things went," interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said at a news conference. "In the end, I think we allowed people to exercise their rights to free speech and free assembly."

ugh

dying @ whiney's trolling of sarahel

explosions in the credit a++

http://motherjones.com/files/images/big-bank-theory-chart-large.jpg

we're down to the final four! the champion gets all the money, everywhere, forever

my manz

poll

Engulf & Devour

someone do one for the record companies

Occupy Wall Street has become an event for its own sake, a destination for the aimless. It is something that occurs on countless iPhone cameras, a tourist attraction with the usual vendors, the usual zaftig young women doing the usual arrhythmic dance, somehow missing the beat of many drums. The nostalgic scent of pot wafts occasionally through the air, and I feel so much younger. This, I’m sure, will bring an end to the Vietnam War.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/where-are-the-anti-semites-of-occupy-wall-street/2011/10/24/gIQAP89eDM_story.html

zaftig

Taibbi so OTM x 10000000

the usual zaftig young women doing the usual arrhythmic dance
the usual zaftig young women doing the usual arrhythmic dance
the usual zaftig young women doing the usual arrhythmic dance

nothing wrong with a young woman being a little zaftig

"I went to OWS and all I saw were dancing fat girls"

ahem full-bodied

the usual eurythmics dance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVutrPKcGgE

the usual zaftig young women doing the usual arrhythmic dance

sounds hot

zaftig got tuchus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Q3cp3cp88&ob=av2e

"ho hum, just another day at OWS"

the usual zaftig young women doing the usual arrhythmic dance

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmvruaSz981qfexrno1_500.gif

would zaft

a little bit zaftig now
a little bit zaftig now

oakland:

"police initially said the protestors used tear gas, but later, admitted they did"

http://t.co/Xhe3OSDH

lol i heard on NPR this morning something like "tear gas was employed but it was unclear weather it was from the police or the protesters" and i was like "um..."

"less lethal rounds"

I was kind of shocked it took Taibbi some time to get behind OWS or even talk about it, this shit is his bread and butter. Dude (literally) wrote the book on it!

so tired of these protestors always teargassing those helpless cops

how long before the violence is given back to the cops in equal measure, feel like this is where its headed eventually and may even be a necessary step. just wondering which city will spark it off first