Protesters plan to occupy London Stock Exchange
A group of protesters are organising an occupation of the London Stock Exchange to bring attention to what they see as unethical behaviour on the part of banks, following a similar demonstration on Wall Street.
In a Facebook group called Occupy the London Stock Exchange organisers call on crowds to march on the exchange's headquarters at Paternoster Square and fortify it with tents and barricades "for a few months".
"Beginning on October 15, we want to see at least over 20,000 people flood in, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy the London Stock Exchange for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices," reads the description of the protest on Facebook.
According to the group the protest will begin on Saturday October 15 and run until 11am on December 12.
The event currently has 225 confirmed attendees, with a further 121 tentative yes's, despite the site failing to list any aims or objectives for the event, or exactly what is being protested.
The event takes its cue from a similar protest on Wall Street in New York, first proposed by Adbusters magazine, which began on September 17 with around 1,000 protesters. That protest is still going on, with more than 80 arrests taking place on September 24 alone.
One of the organisers of the protest, James Alexander Fancourt, said the protests were focused against "increasing social and economic injustice in this country".
"Since the financial crisis the Government has made sure to maintain the status quo and let the people who caused this crisis get off scot-free, whilst conversely ensuring that the people of this country pay the price, in particular those most vulnerable," he said.
"What we have in common is that we are the other 99pc, that we want People over Profit, that we are making our voices heard against greed and corruption and for a democratic and just society. And we are doing that in a non-violent and peaceful way."
Because Paternoster Square is private property the group are considering other nearby areas where they can stage a long-term presence, but denied that they were trying to stop the exchange from operating "as this would cause more harm than good".
"Rather than make the situation worse we wish to highlight the injustices and bring important issues to light."
Half hour before official assembly and then march beginning hour later very large crown at Liberty Park in NYC....and the weather is good. Lookin' like a very promising day!!!!
You can watch it live here.
HUGE CROWD and getting larger! :popworm:
Hard to tell, but maybe up to 8-10 thousand attending and while not great speaches - adequate and with the right messages. 13,000 are watching the feed on just one possible internet outlet. Next, they are all going to march back to the Liberty Park encampment. If the Police are going to make trouble, it will be at that point....
More so, because they just called to march ON TO and OCCUPY Wall Street - which the Police will NOT allow!...stay tuned! :captain:
WRH continues to have extended coverage....
Meanwhile:
October 6th, 2011Via: Andrew Gavin Marshall:
While I fully endorse the efforts and actions of the Occupy Wall Street protests, now emerging internationally, there are concerns which need to be addressed and kept in mind as the movement moves forward.
The process through which a potentially powerful movement may be co-opted and controlled is slight and subtle. If Occupy Wall Street hopes to strive for the 99%, it must not submit to the 1%, in any capacity.
The Occupy movement must prevent what happened to the Tea Party movement to happen to it. Whatever ideological stance you may have, the Tea Party movement started as a grass roots movement, largely a result of anti-Federal Reserve protests. They were quickly co-opted with philanthropic money and political party endorsements.
For the Occupy Movement to build up and become a true force for change, it must avoid and reject the organizational and financial contributions' of institutions: be they political parties, non-profits, or philanthropic foundations. The efforts are subtle, but effective: they seek to organize, professionalize, and institutionalize a movement, push forward the issues they desire, which render the movement useless for true liberation, as these are among the very institutions the movement should be geared against.
This is not simply about "Wall Street," this is about POWER. Those who have power, and those who don't. When those who have power offer a hand in your struggle, their other hand holds a dagger. Remain grassroots, remain decentralized, remain outside and away from party politics, remain away from financial dependence. Freedom is not merely in the aim, it's in the action.
The true struggle is not left versus right, democrat versus republican, liberal versus conservative, or libertarian versus socialist. The true struggle is that of people against the institution: the State, the banks, the central banking system, the corporation, the international financial institutions, the military, the political parties, the mainstream media, philanthropic foundations, think tanks, university, education, psychiatry, the legal system, the church, et. al.
The transfer of power from one institution to another does not solve the crisis of our institutional society,' whereby a few have come to dominate so much, to concentrate so much power at the expense of everyone else having so little. True liberation will result only from opposition to the institution' as an entity. Placating power from one institution to another renders resistance ineffective. The power structures must be discredited, and power must be distributed to the people, through voluntary associations, communal groupings, and people-powered (and people-funded!) initiatives.
In order to survive as a movement, money will become a necessity. Do not turn to the non-profits and philanthropic foundations for support. The philanthropies, which fund and created the non-profits and NGOs, were themselves created to engage in social engineering': to manufacture consent' among the governed, and create consensus among the governors. The philanthropies (particularly those of Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller) fund social movements and protest organizations so as to steer them into directions which are safe for the elites. The philanthropies are themselves run by the elite, founded by bankers and industrialists striving to preserve their place at the top of the social structure in the midst of potentially revolutionary upheaval. As the president of the Ford Foundation once said, "Everything the foundation does is to make the world safe for capitalism."
Money from philanthropies will organize the movement into a more professionalized entity, will direct its efforts around the promotion of legalistic reform, making slight changes to the system's symptoms, promoting particular legislation, rallying around very specific issues removed from their global historical context. The effect is to turn anti-system revolutionaries into legalistic reformers. With such funding, movement organizers are drawn into the world of NGOs, international conferences, international institutions, aid agencies, and mainstream political participation. The leaders of the movement become professionalized and successful, both in prestige and finances. Thus, their own personal position becomes dependent upon promoting reform, not revolution; on maintaining the system (with minor changes to the aesthetic), not moving against it. The movement itself, then, would be institutionalized.
Posted in Dictatorship, Economy, Elite, Resistance, Social Engineering | Top Of Page | 1 Comment »
Fox crew maced, beaten
Reports of arrests.
UPDATE 9:35 - Reports of batons used. Mounted officers are present at Liberty Square. Barricades are set up on Liberty and Broadway.
UPDATE 9:48 - Reports of our medics treating several pepper sprayed protesters.
UPDATE 10:09 - At least twenty arrested.
UPDATE 10:33 - Liberty Square is kettled.
UPDATE 10:40 - Liberty Square is still barricaded on all four sides but police are now allowing protesters in and out.
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Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Reflections on #OccupyWallStreet
If yall havent noticed, theres an interesting situation going on in New York City's financial sector. Since September 17th, a group of folks has been camped out in Zuccoti Park a couple of blocks away from Wall St, protesting everything from corporate greed, foreclosed homes and the bailout. Organized via social media and the internet, #OccupyWallStreet has caught the attention of the world. The world is watching mainly because last Thursday, about 100 folks were arrested and many more brutalized. Numerous videos of NYPD's brutality have gone viral, especially one of peaceful female protestors being maced by a ranking NYPD official. Thursdays protests happened after a Troy Davis memorial march met up with Wall Street Occupiers who had marched and met up in solidarity. The result was the NYPD once again brutalizing peaceful people with batons, mace, and unnecessary violence. Since then, the movement has picked up strength and received mainstream media coverage, along with visits from celebrities like Cornel West, Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon. Out of curiosity we visited with the RDACBX team after a meeting and the result wasnt the greatest. Besides being stared at and looked at as if we were invading their space, the predominantly young, white and liberal Occupiers sent over one of the few African American men over to talk to us. When we asked them why they didnt approach us themselves and build with us, they replied that "they thought we would get mad because they were white." The situation was pretty bizarre as a woman started ranting incoherently about Nazi symbols being seen over the skies of California, and another man from the Media Team repeatedly offering us the chance to perform if we spoke to the Arts and Culture team. He didnt seem to get that we werent there to perform, rather we were there just to build. After being mean mugged for taking a free slice of Pizza, we decided it was time to leave the hippie fest.
Our intention is not to dismiss it as just this, but the gut feeling was that there is a serious disconnect down there. We left with mad questions! Where was the hood? Where was the poorest congressional district in the USA, from The South Bronx at? Like we say in Hip Hop, where Brooklyn at? Could it be that perhaps the working class couldnt afford to just leave work and the responsibility of bills and family survival to camp out in a city park? Did folks from our communities not know about this? If people of color were occupying Wall St would we have lasted this long? All in all the questions remain, yet with time and reflection , we refuse to just dismiss it. Its a historic time in the world in which general assemblies are starting to happen all over, as cities across the US are also now having "occupations".
Our analysis on whats going in Wall Street is that its very similar to the Syntagma Square uprisings in Greece, and other city squares like the ones in Madrid. In these movements, there is no central leadership, its about something, but then again not really, because the demands arent clear. What is clear is the identification of the common enemy : the greedy banks. The Occupiers are organized thru new means of communication; the internet, social media like Facebook,Twitter and U Stream. We can now see the occupation live 24 hrs a day, folks are tuning in directly from all over the world. There is an obvious access to some privilege as the MacBook Pros and coffee seem to be part of the growing everyday scenery. The revolution attempt here has made sure to hash tag itself just as #Jan25th did in Egypt. #OccupyWallStreet seems to be a new phenomenon in that we are witnessing a first generation in which massive numbers of young white people are no longer experiencing the economic benefits of the capitalist system. Their working class parents have had their homes foreclosed, their school loans cant be paid because they too now are unemployed or underpaid in the shrinking job market. Their reality has gotten closer to what black and brown folks have lived for many many years. There is a blatant economic inequality in this country and it is a result of corporate Wall St greed. The middle class is almost extinct as most people nowadays are working merely to survive and pay bills. We encourage folks to support the occupations and see them for themselves. Perhaps the topless nude activists, or the drum circle may not be for you, but the idea of having a national dialogue sparked about these greedy bankers and their abuse of the people is important and needed. We plan on going back with more people!!
All Power to the People!!
RodStarz of Rebel Diaz
Posted by RodStarz at 11:23 PM"
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[TD]OWS, and ADBUSTERS are set up by Socialists tied to The Tides Foundation, Acorn and George Soros. You have to ask yourselves why this group is organizing the silent majority. I just don't trust this "group movement", anyway, just saying:
got this from a link on godlikeproductions (which I don't trust either, but came up in my google search).
Domain
Name:OCCUPYWALLSTREET.ORG
Created On:09-Jun-2011 18:25:48
UTC
Last Updated On:09-Aug-2011
03:50:12 UTC
Expiration Date:09-Jun-2012
18:25:48 UTC
Sponsoring
Registrar:GoDaddy.com, Inc. (R91-
LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE
PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:CR85243141
Registrant Name:Kalle Lasn
Registrant Street1:1243 7th West
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Vancouver
Registrant State/Province:British Columbia
Registrant Postal Code:V6H 1B7
Registrant Country:CA
Estonian Socialists: Estonian Communists, Jaan Anvelt, Johannes Vares, Kalle Lasn,
Idel Jakobson, Salme Dutt, Vladimir Hütt, Viktor Kingissepp
[link to books.google.com
snip
The Adbusters Media Foundation (AMF) is a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist
organization founded in 1989 by author/activist Kalle Lasn and wilderness
cinematographer Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Foundation
describes itself as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters,
students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist
movement of the information age.
According to journalist Aaron Klein, the September 17 New York City protestswhich
ultimately drew about 1,000 participantsapparently represented "the culmination"
of a campaign by Wade Rathke, founder of ACORN and president of an SEIU local in
New Orleans, who in March 2011 had issued a call for "days of rage in ten cities
around JP Morgan Chase." Rathke's efforts were supported by Stephen Lerner, an
SEIU board member and radical-left organizer who candidly aims to "destabilize the
folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement"; "bring down the stock
market"; "bring down [the] bonuses" of executives in the financial sector; and
"interfere with their ability to ... be rich."
Between 2001 and 2011, AMF received $176,500 in grants from the Glaser Progress
Foundation, and $309,773 from the Tides Foundation."
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1.00pm: Another big day for the Occupy Wall Street protesters is drawing to a close. Thousands of protesters with conservative estimates putting the number at around 15,000 marched through Lower Manhattan, bringing the area to a halt. Numbers were swelled by support from unions and students. The mood was largely festive, but tension built up when the march pushed down Broadway towards Wall Street.
Questions are once again being asked about police tactics video footage shows officers beating some protesters with batons. Despite the march having a permit, and the roads being closed, police funnelled protesters onto the sidewarks and into tightly-penned areas. This appears to have led to the frustration: police say they made about 12 arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct when a group of protesters tried to push through a barrier.
Most of the Occupy Wall Street protesters have returned to their base at Zuccotti park and the area now appears to be quieter. The park is reported to be "packed" and that a mini "general assembly" the protesters' main discussion forum, is taking place.
Police officers have erected extra barricades around Zuccotti park and other streets in Lower Manhattan. The streets in the Financial District are now largely quiet.
A senior New York police officer swings his baton to try and stop protesters from entering Wall Street. Photograph: Craig Ruttle/AP
We'll be back with more live coverage tomorrow, starting with a roundup of developments overnight. Thanks for reading and for commenting.
10.49pm: More video footage has emerged of a Broadway flashpoint, showing a white-shirted senior officer beating back protesters with his baton.
YouTube footage shows a senior police officer beating protesters
This footage will be pored over in the morning, with police tactics once again under scrutiny. Many protesters are asking why the actions of the police seem to lead to confrontational situations, which the organisers of the Occupy Wall Street movement are so desperate to avoid.
9.10pm: This video, uploaded to YouTube by the citizen journalism website wearechange.org, shows scuffles breaking out between police and protesters. The location isn't identified, but it's clearly one of the intersections at the south end of Broadway.
Video from the Wall Street protests
It shows officers drawing their nightsticks, beating some protesters and making a number of arrests. There are also dark-suited officers in plain clothes who appear to be directing the action.
Towards the end of the video, a protester claims to have been pepper-sprayed. I've seen a number of reports of pepper sprayings, but I've not had a reliable first-hand account yet.
8.37pm: Police on horseback have moved in and barricades have been deployed on Wall Street proper, according to Salon writer Justin Elliot on the scene. He tweets this picture from Broadway and Cedar, where police are preventing people from crossing the street, and another that shows tensions between police and protesters there.
8.30pm: This is Matt Wells taking over from Adam Gabbatt. The situation at the Wall Street protest is becoming increasingly tense. There's a flashpoint on the intersection of Broadway and Cedar Street, with reports of a number of arrests. Police have deployed orange netting to contain protesters. Subway trains have been ordered not to stop at Wall Street station.
6.59pm: Paul Harris queries: "How do you fit 15,000 people into Zuccotti Park?" The answer? "You can't. Streets jammed in Manhattan."
Others are tweeting that the rear of the march is still backed up onto Broadway.
6.33pm: The demonstration has returned to Zuccotti, according to the Guardian's Paul Harris. The park "now feels like kind of a NYC neighbourhood. Library, cafe, lots going on. Not temporary," he adds. The New York Observer's Adrianne Jeffries says the march is "perambulating" around Zuccotti now presumably due to a lack of space.