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Hello, fellow revolutionaries! Athena1 here. I have been honored by a request from Jane and Kevin to host a regular round-up of the Occupation activities happening across the nation and the world, here at the Dissenter at FDL.
Some of the biggest news of the day was a protest in DC, where the October2011 group dropped a banner from the Senate building balcony that read “TAX THE RICH”, while the group chanted “Tax the rich! End the wars!”
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Over in NY, @allisonkilkenny on twitter reported:
Lots of guerrilla ads for #ows around the city. Example: saw this on the subway.
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OccupyColleges.org reports on almost 100 colleges across the country preparing for #occupywallstreet solidarity actions on Thursday, October 13, and invites you to organize one at your school and add that name to the list.
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After having been threatened with eviction from Woodruff Park (renamed Troy Davis park), the occupiers in Atlanta peacefully held their ground overnight and marched on everyone’s favorite Zombie Bank (BoA) today.
Occupy Atlanta today:
via Amy Wenk
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OccupyDC held a dance party in Constitution Avenue:
via Dustin Slaughter
The Occupation will be Livestreamed! To help support our continuous coverage and efforts, please consider a $10 (or more) donation.
52 Comments
Welcome Athena1!
Thanks!
Last night Olbermann tweeted:
We really are the the new media. All of us. We don’t need those corporate news outlets anymore.
What an exiting time to be a leftie!
athena1. Goddess of the keyboard!!!! A well-earned top billing.
Thanks for helping out athena1. I’m in Chicago and on the bus today, the young woman sitting next to me was talking on her cellphone and venting to her friend about the raise she just received, which was a 12 cents per hour raise. She had been there less than a year, accepted the job for less than she requested and apparently had been working hard to try and prove herself to be a valuable employee. Her raise was “pro-rated” to her term of service and she felt totally cheated and disrespected and who could blame her? I was hoping she’d get off the phone before I reached my stop, because I wanted to make sure that she made the connection between how she was feeling and the feelings of the people taking part in the OWS protests. I was also going to gently suggest that perhaps she might be interested in taking a walk to the downtown area where the Occupy Chicago protests are taking place. I gathered she worked in some phase of the medical industry. She mentioned that some of her co-workers were excited about getting their raises, which amounted to 25 cents an hour for them. Apparently her co-workers are buying into the 1% meme that lowly serfs should be happy for whatever crumbs they get. This woman’s plight is exactly indicative of the corporate cancer that has spread through our country.
Seattle (last night)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cnphoto/6233189517/
[congrats Athena]
Thanks for the congrats! FWIW, I’m still 100% volunteer. I don’t even have the money to be a real member at FDL (although many members have offered to provide a membership for me). I was raised libertarian, and found my “authentic self” leftie.
Reminds me of a security job I had in my early 20′s. I got a bonus of $15.00 for the entire year. I thanked my boss, but couldn’t help but do the math. 15 bucks divided by 52 weeks x 40 hours/week = .72 cents per hour. I think I was getting paid $3.25 per hour, so this amounted to .2% of my wages.
My boss told me that I was looking at it the wrong way. He said that “It’s $15.00 you didn’t have, before.”
Well, that’s a positive attitude, actually. But the real value of that bonus is it’s conversational value. It still brings a smile to my face. Not that people living on such meager wages, and without at least a strong medical safety net, is something I wish on anybody.
I understand that “positive attitude” completely because for quite some time, my own motto toward any money I can generate has been “It’s better than zero.” But when you see the inequity (not to mention immorality) of someone getting a 2% raise or less, and individuals at the top of companies raking in bonuses alone that are more money than they could practically use in a lifetime, and certainly more money than any human being is actually worth, you know that the system has to change.
Good morning, athena1. Looks like it was a very quiet night. I guess everybody needed a rest. Hope you got some, sweetie.
Great work athena1 and congrats!
So where is Kevin going to be today?
Good morning athena1. Good summary. Is the liveblog continuing, or is this the new format?
Athena1, Thank you for the summary.
Congratulations, athena!!!
Now, to read the post.
Seconded.
Glenn Greenwald rebuts the idea that the Dems and Obama can co-opt OWS into being a campaign arm for the election, by rendering, in his usual meticulous fashion, a summation of the history that shows how deeply the Dem tongue has been inserted into the Wall Street ass these last few years. Tried to link it last thread, but pasted the entire text in error, so I’ll just recommend the post in trust that y’all can find it if interested in re-marshalling the relevant facts.
I love having conversations like that with people. Just out of no where bringing them back to what is happening in the world and relating it to something bigger. =)
Finally, today I will be in SF and I plan to drop by #occupy. There will be a march today at 7:30 a.m. through the financial District (I’ll be waaaay too late to join).
Athena1!!!!
Well done. Your hard work over the last few weeks has earned this. Now we need to find a forum for TarheelDem and Mzchief and we’ll be good to go.
Great roundup. I love the gorilla ads on the subway. I’ve seen some other pics over the last few weeks of ads/tags/photos scattered around NYC. It warms my heart.
#OCCUPY that mother fucker!
YES!
You should try to connect with some of the other firedogs in the bay. I know there are quite a few.
I talked to marymccurnin about going together a while ago, but my schedule is so horrifyingly unpredictable and busy it’s hard to plan anything. Sadly, I forgot to bring my firebagger T shirt, so I won’t stand out.
It’s surprising that in this bastion of leftie activists, only a couple hundred peeps are showing up for #occupy.
Put together a diary when you get back! Take pictures.
(says the guy who didn’t do a diary after #OccupyAustin last Saturday…)
Hey, I think I have a compact video camera somewhere…
But to be honest, 99% aspiration 1 % operation. Heh.
sf 4close (bank)
http://twitpic.com/6z9pm8
http://lockerz.com/s/146521332
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/10/11/live-blog-for-ows-day-26-occupy-boston-raided-by-police/#comment-19068
Congrats, athena 1!!!
Well-deserved recognition, indeed, and a most-excellent addition to The Dissenter.
;~DW
No question that the system has to change.
BTW, the “inequity” doesn’t bother me, per se. I’m not bothered by the fact that there’s a rich class. What bothers me is that those at the top are so callous that they don’t care about people’s needs. IOW, they don’t care whether or not people make enough money to have a reasonable quality of life. This is spiritually perverse, to say the least.
You might say that I’m a redistributionist, but not an egalitarian one.
It also bothers me that they corrupt the system for reasons of greed. We’ve been “trickled on” since Reagan, and I don’t see where that’s made for a better quality of life. From ALEC revelations, we know that some of the plutocrats are conspiring basically in secret.
So, they’re not only greedy, but they’re morally cheats. They’re smart enough to make their cheating legal, or else corrupt the executive branch sufficiently that applicable laws are not enforced. Either way, they’re ethically challenged.
They’re also not patriotic. They’re what I call “economic traitors”. It’s a good thing for citizens of the US to care about less fortunate citizens overseas. But when some rich dude ships your job over to China, pockets the difference in wages, and really couldn’t care less about the Chinese worker, either, who now, happily, has a job, his/her actions are not motivated by a brotherly love and concern of foreigners.
On this count, if the citizens ever achieve getting control of their government, I’d like them to consider revoking the citizenship of the worst of the economic traitors. (Assuming that’s constitutional.)
1. It’s super early there on a weekday.
2. You’re thinking of SF before the dot-com boom. Post dot-com-boom, it’s now tech geeks, the usual assortment of yuppies (finance, banking, lawyers, etc.), and socially liberal indie kids (are barely left and/or are too cool for protests). The activist types in that region have shifted to Portland over the past 10-15 years since it’s much cheaper. You can see that in the massive march Portland had a few days ago, with possibly more people than any of the OWS marches in NYC.
Go Athena!!!
I’m off to be a good citizen. Jury duty selection is in a little while.
We’ll see if I’m selected this time. First time I got jury notice I was on call for all of November and December holiday season, checking in by phone on Monday mornings and never called. Second time, I went for jury selection and was dismissed by the judge (I couldn’t convict someone on minor drug possession for a number of years jail time).
I’d actually like to see what it’s like being on a jury.
Later.
Oh, yáll are over here. I’ve been hitting refresh in the comments from yesterday’s liveblog and wondering where my peoples had wandered off too. lol
Some are reporting that the numbers in SF might be as high as 2k. Somebody’s liveblogging it, too:
http://sfist.com/2011/10/12/occupy_sf_protesters_block_wells_fa.php
That’s great, athena1! Best of luck!
Just an update from @Occupy_OKC – we are still occupying Kerr Park downtown. Appears they got a little wet last night (not down there myself, this is a desktop). I’m day-shift on the twitter acct.
Baby corner outside Wells Fargo in SF:
http://twitpic.com/6zb0kq
I wrote a spin off piece based on some obeservations I made about the the Center for American Progress this morning after reading Glen’s article.
Have a read …
http://my.firedoglake.com/freeman/2011/10/12/john-podesta-and-the-co-opting-of-the-occupations/
Oh and super congrats Athena !
Your posts about the occupation seem to make you a natural as host for this forum .
Read it, good post, good on you, freeman. The wannabe co-opters will be with us always. Only defense is to be alert and push back with the facts of their own history.
http://twitpic.com/6zba77
http://yfrog.com/nxcdpjaj
A website that I am signed up for that helps me find scholarships for college had this as one of their “Top News” articles today. Thought you all might like to take a look. Just to show some of the coverage that the Occupy Movements are getting. Students walk out.
I like this comment, you lay it out pretty well.
I would only add that the use of anything that includes “distribution” is an easy target for an opponent. Redistribution of wealth!!!! i wish people would realize that ROW has been massively vacuumed upward. In addition, wealth or money is always in circulation whether up or down. I would like wealth to go in circles as in a healthy circulatory system.
Quick glance at some other occupations:
Occupy Houston
Civil disobedience is taking place. Arrests soon. Good jobs great houston is putting pressure on the system. #SitIn twitpic.com/6zc2u7
@OccupyDenver OccupyDenver
Check out the #OccupyDenver statement in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples cot.ag/pEwewh
23 minutes ago via CoTweet
@Occupyfresno Occupy Fresno
Please not the political Q&A 7 mins in @cbs47 Noted, She could not get an answer,youtube.com/watch?v=1vVdWA…
@OccupyLA #OccupyLA
So beautiful to see hands in the air shaking in agreement @ LA City Council Meeting! GA in the City Council! Watch Live lacity.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.ph…
14 minutes ago via web
@OccupyPhilly Occupy Philadelphia
#occupyphilly marching on Wells Fargo and City Hall at the same time! Multi-task protesting at its best!
7 minutes ago via Facebook
@OccupyBaltimore OccupyBaltimore
Here comes the rain. #occupybaltimore folks jamming out on drums&upright bass – others making art regardless of sprinkles. bring umbrellas!
8 minutes ago via web
@OccupyEville Occupy Evansville
I am at Willard Library in the park out front and I have flyers if anyone wants to come get some – I’ll be here… fb.me/1f3qMOTa6
2 minutes ago via Facebook
It has been quite interesting to read about the six cities that impeded OWS via police yesterday all at about the same time (yet in different time zones).
Sounds worthy of a FOIA filing in each city.
Certainly did have the feel of an experiment, didn’t it? Best defense is a huge turnout this weekend.
I missed *every last bit of action* in SF. My visit was literally a drive-by since I was running late, as usual. I didn’t even get a chance to whip out my video camera. No one was left lingering around the bank, and only a handful of peeps were on Market St. at the #occupy site. The block was divided from the street on all sides by metal stansions and there was a police car on site.
My first impression was that we need peeps to occupy immediately. Whatever action happened at the march this morning (at least 12 arrests according to local radio), it was long since finished.
http://twitpic.com/6zcqhn
http://yfrog.com/ob3nitj
http://yfrog.com/kh65ptaj
The thing about that “extra” $15 is that it’s your money to begin with.
Work has value. By working, you are generating wealth. Employers make money by taking the wealth that you generate and only giving you part of it, keeping the rest for themselves. So when your boss gives you a $15 bonus and tell you to be glad you got anything, what they’re really saying is “be glad I didn’t fuck you harder”.
The conservative narrative is fond of the idea of workers earning their money, but ignores the fact that much of what they earn is stolen from them before they ever see it (which is mighty curious, since they have no problem accusing the government of doing the same thing through taxation).
Hi Athena! Just wanted to say thanks to you and everyone here for keeping us up to date. I went down to OccupyAtlanta on Sat. to add my body. I can’t stay there, but I’m going back to bring food and supplies tomorrow. I met some lovely people there.
http://yfrog.com/nzwn7ij
http://twitpic.com/6zcxv0
@OccupyCincy Occupy Cincinnati
Approaching 12:30 PM today, a group of around 50 protesters marched to the courthouse to contest the citations… fb.me/yrgGEjWV
2 minutes ago via Facebook
off to work soon but Twitter lists:
https://twitter.com/#!/kgosztola/occupy-everywhere
https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyTogether/occupy-together