Occupy Everywhere - Sept 17th - Day of Rage Against Wall Street and what it stands for!

[Peter Lemkin]

We have a project in the pipeline that we really need YOUR help to achieve.

One person in isolation cannot hope to stand against the behemoths that are the Mainstream Media.

But together we can enable those willing and able to be the eyes and ears of the online communities to do so.

2012 will be a big year in UK for many reasons; the Olympics and the Queens Jubilee, both triumphant events that showcase the elite.

We are already seeing crackdowns on protestors through various means including usage of draconian legislation brought in specifically to create a police state during this year.

We know mainstream media is corrupted. This will be even more prevalent during 2012. We cannot rely on MSM for any sort of reliable, unbiased reportage.

This is where together we can create a new era of Occupy information exchange.



I have created and been involved in such a project before, which had both great truimphs but unfortunately great sadness.
I met somebody called Mohammed Nabbous from Benghazi, Libya. who was struggling to get the message out about what was taking place in both his hometown and country. Together we took his livestream from a single laptop to a multicam system which then grew to an outside broadcast facility that showed the people of the world how his people were suffering. His broadcasts made his channel the hub for news, supplies and communication among the people of Libya and the world. Mohammed was shot and killed on the 19th of March 2011, hours before the UN no fly zone.
Mohammeds mantra was 'A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.'

Nul.

This is what we are requesting of you; Light our candles.

The online Occupy community in the UK has and always will remain strong. We believe now is the time for the Occupii global community to extend directly into the hearts and minds of both commited occupiers and those who don't realise yet they are just like us.

We wish to put together a dedicated livestreaming team comprised of 2 elements: one 'on the ground' team of 4 people with 3 independant livestreaming backpacks, allowing us to bring you footage from many events and many angles of same events, creating the link between the events and the online communities.

The other element is an 'online' team of producers, editors, graphic designers, writers and 'support' team for the 'ground' crew.

Most of the elements are in place, we have the people, we have the aptitude and abilities, we have the infrastructure, we have a motorhome (RV) for the ground team to work and live in, however we dont have all the necessary equipment to build the backpacks.

The total cost of the 3 backpacks is about £1700 ($2740)

If we shared this cost amongst us as a community it wouldn't hurt any of us financially to enable this to happen.

This is where we invoke 'Operation:QuidProQuo'

We ask that each member of Occupii.org donate a 'Quid' (english slang for a pound) to this fund, ONLY up to the costs of the backpacks and no more (£1700 or $2740).

Whilst we are not naive enough to think that all or even a half will donate, we are asking those who can, to please do so, and if you are able, maybe donate more to help make up for those that cant.

This money will ONLY be spent on the backpacks, if the total is not reached and we personally are unable to make up the deficit ALL monies will be reimbursed.
Nul
On behalf of Occupii,

http://occupii.org/ [here you can contribute...or just look around.]

[Peter Lemkin]

Wall St. Protesters Lying on Sidewalk Are Arrested
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
kstr3l via Youtube Video of Friday's protest near the New York Stock exchange.

The police arrested a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters who were lying on a sidewalk at the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street on Friday afternoon after one demonstrator announced that the law allowed them to do so as a form of political protest.

Organizers said that the eight people who were arrested were trying to draw attention to statements made by police commanders over the last few days that protesters were not allowed to lie on the sidewalks.

The police also arrested two other people on Friday afternoon. One man, holding a camera and a tripod, was arrested while standing on a sidewalk at the foot of the steps of Federal Hall. A second man was arrested moments later as a wedge of police officers walked east on Wall Street, pushing a crowd of people ahead of them.

Kevin Jones, an Occupy Wall Street protester, said that a wave of officers had passed when an officer trailing behind shoved a man in the back. The man stumbled forward, Mr. Jones said, and fell into the officers walking ahead of him. He was then arrested, Mr. Jones said.

An e-mail message to a Police Department spokesman seeking comment was not immediately answered.

On April 9, protesters began sleeping on sidewalks near the New York Stock Exchange, saying that a ruling in 2000 by a federal district judge allowed them to camp there as long as they took up no more than half the sidewalk and did not block building entrances or exits.

On Monday, the police told protesters they could no longer sit or lie on sidewalks. Since that time, protesters have established a near-constant presence on the steps of Federal Hall, which is controlled by the National Park Service. The police responded by placing metal barricades around a section of those steps.

Protesters have complained that officers have since then sometimes cited obscure regulations while making arrests. One night this week for instance, a man who gave his name as Lawrence Rockwood walked past the barricades surrounding the steps and shouted that no city ordinance requires people to sit behind a cage. A few moments later, officers arrested him, saying that he had violated a noise ordinance.

On Friday afternoon, more barricades appeared as police blocked some sidewalks near the stock exchange and appeared to be limiting those who were allowed to pass.

"It looks like they are going by appearances," said Zak Solomon, an Occupy organizer. "They are stopping people who look like protesters and letting through people who look like tourists."

Still, about 100 protesters were able to make it to the area around the stock exchange on Friday afternoon. There, they chanted slogans and waved placards in the air before leading a march to Zuccotti Park.

Some stayed behind, maintaining a presence on the steps of Federal Hall.

Later. back on Wall Street, federal park police distributed a six-page packet that listed rules for Federal Hall.

The rules designated part of the steps as a "First Amendment assembly area" and placed limits on the size of signs and other objects allowed on the steps. Federal officers kept count of the number of protesters there. Up to 25 protesters at a time were allowed on the steps, while others beat drums and and danced on the nearby sidewalk.

[Peter Lemkin]

[URL="http://gothamist.com/2012/04/20/feds_tells_ows_to_vacate_federal_ha.php#photo-1"]Strict Rules For OWS On Federal Hall Steps Make It "NYC's Most Exclusive Nightclub"
(John Del Signore/Gothamist)
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Earlier today the National Park Service clarified where Occupy Wall Street protesters may assemble on the steps of Federal Hall: an exclusive "First Amendment Rights Area" on the right side of the stairs. But for a few hours today it seemed the feds and NYPD were about to forcibly remove everyone at Federal Hall. At 6:24 p.m., Ryan Devereaux Tweeted, "Financial District locked down w/ #ows on the steps of Federal Hall. 'They're about to all be arrested,' says a cop."

OWS had been sleeping on Wall Street last week, but after police blocked that action, they began assembling on the steps of Federal Hall, which is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. The NYPD and the Park police soon barricaded the protesters into an area on one half of the steps, and today officially dubbed it the "First Amendment Rights Area." Late this afternoon, Park police handed out one copy of the rules of the steps, listed in a document five pages long. Protester Amelia H.M. Tweeted a photograph of the new rules on the steps"Here's the gold. On demonstrations & "1st Amndmnt Area" max. 75ppl" and also noted "At 6 pm a new rule at Federal Hall prevents noise over 60 decibels. What does that sound like, you say? Normal conversation. #sleepOWS #OWS"

According to the rules, if there are more than 25 protesters on the steps, they require a permit, or face arrest. So the protesters are now working it like a nightclub at capacity, by having one protester enter the "Free Speech Cage" whenever one exits. Protester Max Braverman told us, "We're the most exclusive nightclub in NYC" Here's a livestreamand that's why there currently seem to be more protesters outside of the barricades watching the protesters who remain on the steps:

[Keith Millea]

Downpressor Man..The Next Generation


The Trifecta Resista drone protest at Whiteman Air Force Base 04-15-12. The woman speaking on the blowhorn is three time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly.

[Peter Lemkin]

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Danny Schechter
News Dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel1.org. He is the author of The Crime of Our Time.
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[TD="class: articleTitle"] The inequality that ate American democracy [/TD]
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[TD] We can all expect to lose because economics (and inequality) guides and trumps politics, says author.

Last Modified: 25 Apr 2012 06:53 ck








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[TD] Although activists have spoken out, the inequality gap in the USA is becoming deeply institutionalised at a time when America has its most nominally progressive president in decades [AFP]


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[TD="class: DetailedSummary"] New York, NY - In July of 1936, Langston Hughes, the great black American poet first published in Esquire some lines that have never been forgotten.
Among them was this: "Let America Be America Again", a salute to the American dream that had, until then, left poorer Americans and minorities behind.
So memorable was his phrasing that, in 2004, John Kerry adopted it as a campaign slogan in his failed bid for the presidency, Not to be outdone, none other than Rick Santorum used a variant on his website - "Fighting to make America America again".
'The Great Recession'
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Sadly, the reality of the disappearing dream Hughes was challenging at the height of the depression is still relevant in this age of the Great Recession. According to two French economists, Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Pikettyn, who study inequality worldwide, America is back at Depression levels.
Reports the New York Times, "their work shows that the top earners in the United States have taken a bigger and bigger share of overall income over the last three decades with inequality nearly as acute as it was before the Great Depression."
Financial journalist Max Keiser, a former stockbroker, who now does hard-hitting financial shows on TV says deep inequality has been building for many years but has not been acted on:

...the inequalities in the US have been building up for decades, just recently they've reached really outrageous proportions - but you have to understand also that there's the inequality between the 1 per cent and the 99 per cent, but within the 1 per cent there's an inequality between the top 1 per cent of the 1 per cent and the bottom 99 per cent of the top 1 per cent and they're also at each other's throats trying to change laws and pass legislation to make it easier for them to make more money. So it's not really the 1 per cent, it's not there are a millions of people in the 1 per cent - you only need an income of something like $500,000 or $600,000 or $800,000 dollars a year to be in the 1 per cent.

Former Wall Street executive, and, briefly, President Obama's "Car Czar", Steven Rattner, goes even further, writing "New statistics show an ever more startling divergence between the fortunes of the wealthy and everybody else, and the desperate need to address this problem."
"Desperate" is not a term that pops up in most writing about the economy.
"Still more astonishing," he adds, "was the extent to which the super rich got rich faster than the merely rich... The bottom 99 per cent received a microscopic $80 increase in pay per person in 2010 after adjusting for inflation. The top 1 per cent whose average income is $1,018,089 has an 11.6 per cent increase in income."
It is a deplorable situation, agrees Shamus Rahman Khan of Columbia University who says, "We're at levels of inequality that we haven't seen since the end of the gilded age. We're about as unequal as we have ever been."
Institutionalised inequality
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Ironically, this inequality gap is becoming deeply institutionalised at a time when America has its most nominally progressive president in decades. Barack Obama has spoken out against economic inequality but appears to lack the commitment or political means to reverse it.
The folks at Occupy Wall Street are no doubt saying, "I told you so", but even they may not appreciate how intractable the inequality is, and how it is fundamentally changing our society.
First, it is impacting on our politics where the super rich are controlling SuperPACs that, in turn, are dominating elections through extensive and expensive media buys.
Secondly, it is distorting the structure of the economy where a new form of serfdom is trapping millions in debts they will never crawl out of.
Third, it is changing the contours of the dominant consumer society. Economists used to brag about all the choices it offered, but today it is bifurcating into a world of pricey upscale shops versus the 99 cent stores.
That's the real 1 per cent - 99 per cent divide that sustains the inequality.
Ad agencies and corporations increasingly recommend marketing to the super affluent because they will pay more for luxury items, thus, allowing manufacturers to retain more in profits.
Class analysis
Marketers used to talk about a category called "mass affluents". Now they talk about "class affluents", urging companies to upscale products and advertising.
A recent report in Ad Age, "The New Wave of Affluence", reveals that the wealthiest Americans now drive nearly 50 per cent of all spending. No wonder they are catered to, while the majority gets poorer and marginalised.
Karl Marx and his followers would be shocked to learn how class analysis has caught on more among the rich than workers
Report editor David Hirschman sums up, "Simply put as the discrepancy between rich and poor becomes more stark, a small plutocracy of wealthy elites derives a larger and larger share of total consumer spending."
The marketers see this as calling for a "massive reset" in thinking, recommending a disproportionate focus on luxury brands. A study by Digitas concludes that the threshold for being considered affluent is now $200,000 a year.
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So, even as many rail at the way big money is taking over politics, it seems to be a logical outgrowth of structural shifts that have been years in the making and reflect a "new America" where the rich rule.
In that sense, Mitt Romney is a perfect representative of a rising oligarchy that puts Russia to shame.
The haves want to keep their economic and political power, whatever rhetoric they may use to disguise their interests; the have-nots are ignored.
Moreover, in age of globalisation, as Chrystia Freeland explains in the Atlantic, a new super elite of "hard working, highly educated, jet setting, meritocrats have more in common with one another than their countryman back home".
So say goodbye to democracy, as an ideal, political process and culture. This avaricious and self-absorbed elite has little use for it.
In this world, acquisitions matter more than issues. It sad to think that whoever "wins" our next elections, we can all expect to lose because economics (and inequality) guides and trumps politics.
If you can afford it, keep those acquisitions high. If you can't, keep your expectations low. While you shop, they will drop.

News Dissector Danny Schechter blogs at NewsDissector.net. His new book is Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street (Cosimo Books) and his latest film is Plunder, about financial crime. He hosts a radio show on Progressive Radio Network. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

Follow him on Twitter: @dissectorevents

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[Keith Millea]

Coming Up.............Tuesday!

[Keith Millea]

Electeds, Press File Federal OWS Suit Vs NYPD, JP Morgan Chase

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Yetta Kurland 917 701 9590
Leo Glickman 917 582 1405
Wylie Stecklow 917 576 6727

Elected Officials and Members of the Press File Civil Rights Suit Against NYPD and JP Morgan Chase For Arrests Related to OWSFederal lawsuit alleges civil rights violated by NYPD and private entities including JP Morgan Chase and Brookfield Properties asks for federal independent monitor

New York, NY. April 30, 2012 -- Lawyers on behalf of 5 elected officials and over half a dozen members of the press filed a major lawsuit today in federal court alleging the City of New York, the MTA, the New York Police Department, Brookfield Properties, JP Morgan Chase and others are in violation of numerous civil rights, including First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. The suit seeks redress for police misconduct in arrests made during the "Occupy Wall Street" protests and asks that a federal independent monitor be appointed to oversee the NYPD in order to safeguard the public.

The 143 page complaint submitted by a group of civil rights attorneys including Leo Glickman, Yetta G. Kurland and Wylie Stecklow, was filed today in United States District Court in the Southern District and includes a 24 minute video which highlights the use of excessive force and selective enforcement which many have claimed has become an issue over the past 6 months during the "Occupy" protests.
The suit also addresses the City's relationship with JP Morgan Chase who donated $4.6 million to the NYPD during this time, as well as the fact that members of the press and elected officials have been arrested while observing and/or reporting on these protests.

One of the plaintiffs, New York City Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, who was bloodied and arrested on November 15, 2011 for attempting to observe the eviction of Zuccotti park stated "While my charges were dismissed, the bigger issue still remains, namely that the NYPD misused their power and did not respect my First Amendment or the NYC Charter which gave me the right to act as an observer."

New York City Councilmember Letitia James, another plaintiff in the suit, stated "this is about accountability but it is also about ensuring that we have a proper balance of powers in this City. People should not be afraid to suffer harm from the police when they express their First Amendment right to assemble."

New York City Councilmember Melissa Mark Viverito has also joined the suit. She stated "Some of us in the City Council are looking to address these issues legislatively, in the meantime we will avail ourselves of the United States judicial branch to ask for its help to ensure our police properly protect the public they are entrusted to serve."

Jumaane Williams, another New York City Councilmember made the point that this effects everyone not just OWS protestors. "We hope this suit will help all New Yorkers, as well as the NYPD. We believe officers should not be put in a situation where they are asked to act in a way which results in this type of misconduct or puts them at odds with the public."

Paul Newell, a plaintiff and Democratic District Leader for Lower Manhattan added that the police misconduct "had a chilling effect of the freedoms of speech, movement and assembly as well as quality of life in Lower Manhattan."

John Knefel, a journalist and radio show host, who was arrested while covering a protest in the publicly-accessible Winter Garden in lower Manhattan because he didn't have NYPD issue press credentials, is one of the plaintiffs as well. "It is of course concerning that the public is arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights, but it is likewise concerning that members of the press are arrested when they try to cover this."

Justin Sullivan, another plaintiff and citizen press journalist who assembled the video exhibit for the suit stated "I was arrested while covering someone else being arrested for complaining about someone else being arrested for doing a mic check'. This is not how our police should act."

Attorneys and the plaintiffs will be holding a press conference at 9:45am on the steps of City Hall on
Monday April 30, 2012. Copies of the complaint are available below and at [URL="http://www.scribd.com/doc/91818746/Rodrigeuz-et-al-vs-Winski-et-al-Complaint"]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/91818746/Rodri...-Complaint[/URL] .

[Keith Millea]

Getting a little rowdy in Oakland.

http://www.livestream.com/occupyoakland


Published on Tuesday, May 1, 2012 by Common Dreams Oakland Police Used 'Overwhelming Military-Type Response' Against Occupiers: Report


Court ordered monitors 'thoroughly dismayed by what we observed' at Oakland Police Department

- Common Dreams staff

Oakland police used "an overwhelming military-type response" to disperse Occupy Oakland demonstrators and fired at a former Marine and Iraq war veteran who was critically injured in the clashes in October, according to a court ordered report released Monday.
Members of the Oakland Police department form a line duringat Occupy Oakland demonstration, January 28, 2012. (Photo: Reuters / Stephen Lam)

The Oakland Police Department has been under investigation by third party monitors since 2003 after reported misconduct and repeated use of unlawful force. The department came under renewed scrutiny during last year's Occupy Oakland protests that saw large amounts of police brutality; Oakland police received more than 1,000 misconduct complaints during the protests.

In the most televised case, peaceful protester and former US marine Scott Olsen was shot in the head with what is now reported to be a 'beanbag round', causing severe brain damage.
This latest court ordered report now concludes, for the first time from an official source, that police did fire at and hit Olsen that evening.

"We have viewed many official and unofficial video clips of the Occupy Oakland-related incidents," the report said. "These recordings lead us to ask additional questions as the level of force that was used by OPD officers, and whether that use of force was in compliance with the Department's use of force policies."
The third party report author Robert Warshaw wrote that he was 'thoroughly dismayed' by many actions taken by the Oakland Police Department in response to the Occupy protests.

"Stagnation is troubling. After nine years, more progress should be made," John Burris, one of two attorneys who brought a civil suit a decade ago that led to court oversight, told Reuters. "We must seriously explore the next step."

[Peter Lemkin]

They waz just following orders. I'm watching the Occupy Demo building up in Oakland now....looks like later in the day we'll see more 'following of orders' to preserve disorder with police riots. :popcorn:

[Keith Millea]

Robo Cops appear in Portland.

http://occupyportland.org/