In 30 days no one in particular demanding nothing in particular has made everything in particular very interesting. The future looks much better and apparently we have no one to thank except everyone.

Kevin will begin his livestream in the next few minutes. Just setting up.

Thank you for all that you have done on this Kevin. You have done great work getting and keeping this story up front since Day 1

kevin seems MSM is pushing hard to frame this. Chris with mother jones and howard from huff post framing movement as the left and O’s answer. how he is taping into it, and he needs to be careful, but he can run on their messages. How OWS makes it hard for Romney and repubs because they are for big money and can Obama show they are against those repubs who have worked for the banks.

Are these people out to lunch. Does Chris think he can still spoon this BS. That the people don’t realize that O is owned by the same people as Romney. How Chris and his s called panel sleep at night, beats me. They are just bought and paid for shrillls

Kevin, this has been your beat from day 1 and you OWN this story.

You work has been insightful and thoughtfull. This is new media at its best.

Great work Kevin I applaud you. As a side note Occupy St. Louis had a fantastic march on Friday. It seems this satellite movement is gaining steam as well. Keep up the good work we are all following your reporting.

Occupy Charlotte, NC has a glowing report from the Police.

http://fwix.com/charlotte/share/1a44ccd544/charlotte-mecklenburg_police_absolutely_no_problems_with_occupy_charlotte?referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2F

Wow! One month already. Time flies when you’re having fun. Great work, Kevin.

Invisible-Hand-of-the-Free-Market-Man to the rescue!

Listen, Democrats and reporters are ONLY going along because they think it will help them in the election 2012.

The minute, if and when, it appears it won’t help, OWS will be dropped faster than you can blink your eye. “Where did they go?”

I mean the guys who enabled Wall Street to keep living high on the hog supporting OWS? Are you kidding me?

All this is fine and I applaud it, but at some point the movement is going to have to articulate specific goals. If you want the system to change, you need to specify how you want it to change. Otherwise you simply open the door for other groups with vested interests (esp. Dem party and affiliates) to propose watered-down change and present it as some great response to the outcry.

Somebody awhile back proposed that one specific demand be reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. I agree, that would be a good start. But it must be absolutely clear that the demand is Glass-Steagall, word-for-word. Otherwise you get something that is presented as the equivalent of G-S but it’s not, and has all the loopholes and “regulations to be written” bullshit of Frank-Dodd.

Other specific demands could be passage of a Constitutional Amendment limiting right of personhood to real living people. And one for public financing of campaigns. (That one would have to be carefully written to be lock-tight and not “circumvent-able”.) The Constitutional amendment stuff would be relatively easy to do (if Congress were so motivated). The bills could be passed in the coming session and be out to the state legislatures for ratification in the fall of 2012. (Wouldn’t that make for an interesting election season?!)

Democrats needn’t count on anything. I could count the number of democrats I’d consider voting for on one hand and none of them has expressed any interest in running. I won’t vote for a repub under any circumstances, nor will I vote for Obama. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have choices!

May I jump on the bandwagon too. Great job Kevin. Sometimes, SOMETIMES, I think, with enough people like you and David, we might, MIGHT be able to turn this country around. Being from Texas, We don’t normally “cotton to” yankees. But (in my best Foghorn Leghorn impression) we applaud their determination and persistance.

(Did I spell those words correctly???”

I have one specific demand that I’ve been articulating for well over two decades – Cut Executive Salaries!

I disagree with your assertion that “at some point the movement is going to have to articulate specific goals”. Specific goals have been articulated over and over and there are so many of them, they cannot be boiled down to talking points for the illiterate and disinterested masses. Any time anyone tries to say to me what you just said, I point them in the direction of Alan Grayson’s pwnage of sub-human pj o’rourke on Real Time, 2 episodes ago. That’s about as boiled down as it’s going to be.

If you want more specifics, here’s another:

Slash interest rates on credit cards to match the 1970s. In the 1976 film Fun With Dick And Jane, the title characters went to a loan shark as a last resort before embarking on their bank robbing spree. Jane (Fonda) was shocked to be offered one year at 18% and replied, “Isn’t that illegal?” Obama’s first piece of legislation passed FAILED to cap interest rates at 30%.

Kevin, a request: when you’re panning with the camera, please go slower. Right now, when you do that, what we get is a blur. I’d love to actually see what you’re panning on. Thanks.

I have one specific demand that I’ve been articulating for well over two decades – Cut Executive Salaries!

You’ve just given a classic example of an inept demand. “Cutting executive salaries” isn’t a demand, it’s a wish. For it to be a demand, you have to specify how you propose to do it.

Do you want salaries for upper level execs capped at a multiple of the average employee’s wage? If so, what multiple? Do you want salaries capped based on some matrix of stock price, average employee salaries, annual profits, etc? If so, specify the components and their weight in that matrix.

Let’s say that another goal is to break up the TBTF banks. Okay, how do we do that? Where do we set the new limits? Percentage of national deposits? Limit the number of states they can do business in, and make those states have to be contiguous so the banksters can’t just select out the big states?

If protest leaders don’t present government with VERY specific demands that are in “legislation-ready/no amendments/take-it-or-leave-it” form, then the lobbyists will gut any reforms.

Capping executive salaries to the wages of their lowest paid employees can work (until it’s overturned). I’m afraid simply taxing the rich more is not going to help much. A corrupt government just uses that tax money for war and corporate bailouts, corporate welfare. Capping exec pay (and profits ?) should force them to pay their employees more and pay for more employees (jobs). They can’t just hoard all the money while the staff among the 90% keep getting robbed. Really we need a complete restructing of what a company is. This top-down tyranny model is a failure and undemocratic.

Is this for real…? Occupy Wall Street’s Plans For A National Convention… They’re saying ‘delegates’ from all over will convene on July 4th, ’12…!

To paraphrase Isaac Asimov, Insults are the first refuge of the ignorant. Roseanne Barr long ago proposed a MAXIMUM wage of $100,000 per year. Nobody needs more than that. I’m old enough to remember a time when it was extremely rare (and considered outrageous) for anyone to make more than the president of the united states. Look at username’s comment right below your response to me for a clue.

I would add: one from each of the 435 congressional districts, to meet up in Philly…!

I noticed that Roseanne didn’t follow that advice when it came to how much money she got paid.

And a $100K limit is absurd. $100K may be big money where you live, but in lots of high cost of living areas it’s a joke. And are you talking gross or net, because if it’s net, how do you handle the self-employed small businessman? Guy owns a hardware store, has a gross business income but then he’s also got a net personal income after expenses. So how does he make certain he doesn’t earn more than $100K net? Are you advocating that the government takes 100% in taxes of any income over $100K? Because in that case, you’re not limiting what a person can earn but only what they can keep.

ETA: And I noticed that you still didn’t specify how you would accomplish your goal of limiting exec salaries. (BTW, you’ve used the terms salaries and wages, as if everyone’s income is derived from those two methods. What about rents? Capital gains? Inheritances? Gambling winnings?)

Kinda sounds like history repeating itself, huh?

Maybe they will form a Union.

It might read something like: FOR the People and BY the People.

It probably won’t have anything about Citizens United unless the terminology has been reworked and removed a SC law. Harrumph!

I am almost certain that in school I was told that the SC just made sure the laws were upheld and that Congress made the laws. Heck, they might straighten that out in Philly too!

Philly would be the perfect place – all those Fathers writing that Constitution thing about freedom and stuff.

It’s also the Obamanible 1000th day (he asked, rather than 100, to be judged upon); even now, With 0 To SH0W!

This article showed up first on the 14th at another site, then on the 15th (same author) – it is now the 17th. Both claim a “massive GA” meeting “tomorrow.

I too posted this in a forum a few days ago, and the eminently sober TarheelDem pointed out that if such a thing were true, it probably wouldn’t be going out as a press release like that anyway, given that such a complex idea would be subject to a great deal of consensus building across the GA’s around the country. (Not a direct quote, but that’s the meaning I took.)

He didn’t respond when I asked if he, then, thought the claim about the “massive GA” was a fabrication – but I see he didn’t have too. “Tomorrow” passed twice already, the last one being yesterday.

I thought it was a nice idea, too – but somebody’s playing with our head.

I would also add that as someone who has worked in the entertainment industry for decades, IIRC Roseanne made about $100K PER EPISODE of her hit show. So please, cite someone with more credibility when making your argument.

BTW: I’m not disagreeing with you on the principle of limiting exec compensation. I just think that whoever proposes this in principle has to accompany it with a specific, enactable legislative model. (Which I firmly believe can be done.) And in fact, I’ve been working on some model Constitutional amendments to deal with Citizens United, the Fed, etc.

What matters is happening in local communities, not what Mother Jones or HuffPo thinks. I have seen Democratic attempts to co-opt general assemblies shut down, Tea Party attempts shut down, and a few frustrated Ron Paul supporters. Folks on the ground are very clear that the division is between the 1% and the 99% and that the current government is mostly irrelevant because they are doing what their owners tell them. I smell some third party anxieties that they won’t be able to co-opt the movement either. Not the Greens, not the socialists of whatever stripe, not the anarchists or whatever stripe, not the Coffee Party, Working Families Party. None of them will be able to co-opt because none of them are geographically everywhere.

We’re long overdue for a Con-Con…!

That’s a mighty broad brush you have there. Probably does apply to the majority of Democrats and reporters. Folks like John Lewis and some others have been here. They’re likely to hang in for the long term. Reporters will last until the next big story comes along–most of them.

I’d love to see it discussed in all the Occupied GA’s, it truly is a brilliant idea, and, I’d only quibble with some of the small details…!

Yep. It is also home to the original Liberty Bell.

What you are asking is for 100 million or so folks to come to a consensus on their vision, proposals, and actions. That happens one community at a time. There is no movement outside of the grassroots up general assemblies. Really. And if someone tries to short-circuit that they will likely fail. But if they succeed, the movement collapses.

It does look interesting, in a patriotic “Founding Fathers” kinda way. I have a feeling that this creative OWS bunch may end up frying even bigger fish, and am not going to try to second-guess them. They’ve already astounded me, multiple times, in this past month.

Btw, folks…! I was totally bummed when Occupy Hilo called off today’s protest…! 8-(

I had my sign, FDL tee, and flipcam all set to go…!

And what TD said at @32 about one-community-at-a-time & grassroots is important, when looking at the resource challenges that the human race in general is facing. This could be a copacetic conflation of political concerns, and the needs to come to face with the waning opportunity for the glib long-distance transportation for food & people, to which we have become so accustomed.

*heh* Mahalo, indeed…!

If protest leaders don’t present government with VERY specific demands that are in “legislation-ready/no amendments/take-it-or-leave-it” form, then the lobbyists will gut any reforms.

There are no protest leaders except for those who take responsibility to enable the process through pulling people together, facilitation, or logistics. And likely there will be no demands. There likely will be a call to action or a statement of what the movement is going to do.

This is not the sorts of actions that you have been used to. Closest approximation is some of the activities of groups like early SNCC in the civil rights movement. But a lot of thinking and experimentation in participatory democracy has happened in the past 50 years. But this is unprecedented in its envisioned scale.

The fundamental requirement is a separation of corporation and state. Everyone knows that and that is the underlying problem that is being discussed in its many complex ramifications.

Success for this movement makes lobbyists and the Wall Street media irrelevant in government. And large parts of the government bureaucracy that is captive to corporations.

Hmmm… Not sure if it worked…

Mahalo…

That’s one group’s proposal. It is not real until a whole lot of general assemblies recommend it. The logistics are such that I doubt anything can be going by July 4, 2012. All of this big picture stuff is way premature as to where the movement is at the moment.

Each Congressional District has 600,000 people. Would you trust someone that you had not met and vetted to be tinkering the the foundational document of American government?

The idea of a Constitutional Convention scares me to pieces. Imagine what the Tea Baggers and their fellow travelers could do.

OccupyDurham Occupy Durham
We’ve taken a side trip to City Hall to talk to the City Atty and City Manager about our tents. Stay tuned! #occupy #occupyDurham #occupync
16 minutes ago

I totally agree it is somewhat premature, but, We need to aim high…! It should definitely be presented at all the GAs and discussed openly and diseminated widely…!

As I said. “at some point” the movement has to articulate specifics. And as for the 100 million or so who would have to agree:

My bet is that if a properly worded demand was composed, two things would happen:

a) The MSM would be caught over a barrel. First they criticize the movement for not being specific, then when it is, they either have to ignore that fact or they have to discuss the proposal.

b) Poll after poll has shown that most Americans favor things like higher taxes for the rich, breaking up TBTF, national health care at affordable prices (or single payer) etc. Therefore I posit that when a properly written specific proposal comes forward from the Occupy movement, the public will galvanize in support of it.

Herman Cain is only partly nuts with his “no bill longer than three pages” idea. It may be unworkable and impractical for most bills, but not all. (See our supreme laws, the Constitution, for examples of laws that are embodied in as little as one sentence.) You want to break up the TBTF financial institutions? Not too hard to draft that bill:

“No institution offering loans, credit, stocks, insurance, or other financial instruments, or paying interest or dividends on deposits, shall do business in more than six states, all of which must be contiguous with each other. The Attorney General shall be empowered to take, and shall take, such steps as necessary to enforce this statute, or be subject to impeachment and criminal prosecution for failure to do so.”

What do you think we’ve already been doing for the past 200+ years, eh…?

That’s why you have to have something like lots of general assemblies acting as a check on any hijacking. The cat that has to be belled is the “corporations as persons” doctrine. There are some other reasonable things as well, such as incorporating the doctrine of government in the first section of the Declaration of independence into the Preamble. And having strong protections for equal rights and civil liberties in a new technological environment.

But the concern about Tea Bagger applies to any factional group–and especially to the 1%.

Success for this movement makes lobbyists and the Wall Street media irrelevant in government. And large parts of the government bureaucracy that is captive to corporations.

How so? How does this movement intend or plan to make changes occur? Not to be sarcastic, but at some point is Tinkerbell going to appear and sprinkle magic fairy dust?

Lobbyists regularly not only tell Congress and state legislatures what they want, they actually write the relevant sections of the bill and give it to the legislators. So what makes anyone think that the Occupy movement is not going to have to do the same thing? Are you imagining a scenario in which a Congressional committee meets to draft legislation, brings out a sample draft and asks the GAs all across the country, “Is this what you want?” Given the ability of lobbyists and jurists to parse phrasing into loopholes big enough to drive a train through, I suggest that the opposite tactic — telling the legislators WHAT we want — is far more efficient, and far more likely to achieve the desired outcome.

when a properly written specific proposal comes forward from the Occupy movement,

The sticking point is who does the writing. The wisdom in the movement’s process is that the document is carefully and fairly crowdsourced through face-to-face meetings that allow for informed discussion and investigation.

The logic is something like this. Let’s stop business as usual as much as we can, sit down and talk through thoroughly what needs to happen. No sound-bite thinking, no hidden agendas, no conformist intimidation. No confrontational dialog. Just focus on what needs to be done. And how to do it. And then go do it.

And how has that worked for you?

This statement of yours:

“$100K may be big money where you live, but in lots of high cost of living areas it’s a joke.”

proves that you cannot relate to me nor can you really relate to OWS. I live in Chicago and I would consider myself rich if had an income of that size. Eight years ago, when I was still in cubicle land, I made $41,000 a year and I had plenty of money. PLENTY!

As for Roseanne Barr, sure she was going to take everything she could get from the bastards because she knew she was just a commodity to them and they were using her to reap huge profits of their own. Roseanne has publicly stated she would take NO salary for being president of the united states. Since you seem to be just the type who would scoff and scorn this, I’ll happily tell you right now that I intend to vote for Roseanne Barr For President, even if I have to write in her name.

The sticking point is who does the writing. The wisdom in the movement’s process is that the document is carefully and fairly crowdsourced through face-to-face meetings that allow for informed discussion and investigation.

You’re right and wrong, Tarheel…! It doesn’t matter who writes or proposes an idea, as long as it is ‘carefully and fairly crowdsourced’…! *g*

Roseanne made that statement long after her television series was off the air. You may think she has no credibility, but apparently Amy Goodman does since she devoted half an hour of Democracy Now to Roseanne just a few weeks ago.

And how does money, or lack thereof, equate credibility? Does Dr. Cornel West have no credibility since he undoubtedly makes a large salary as a professor as well as from book sales? Did his credibility wax or wane when he was arrested on the steps of the Supreme Court over the weekend?

You needn’t bother to answer any of this because you’re just some anonymous someone who wants to argue and I promised myself I wouldn’t argue with such non-entities on the internet any more. All the best to you.

Damn. Beat me to it.

Occupy Columbia SC: We are the 99% portraits

*heh* I might have to head back to Canuckistan if it gets any uglier here…!

Ding!

Justin Elliot at Salon posted about this photograph. He doesn’t know who the person is, and he also doesn’t know what was really happening when the photo was taken. The photographer, Andrew Burton, doesn’t either. Burton said that he’d taken a lot of photos at a fast clip and didn’t know what he’d gotten until they were processed. The photo was published on the front page of the Washington Post, and it was claimed by the Post that the guy in the photo was tackling the white shirt cop in the photo. But there is really no proof of what was happening. So, I’m posting it here just in case anyone can identify the person, or to ask if anyone here knows something about what was really happening when the photo was taken.

Here is a link to Justin Elliot’s article, followed by a link to the photo standing alone.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/17/occupy_wall_streets_struggle_for_non_violence/singleton/#comments

http://media.salon.com/2011/10/OWS_protestor-460×307.jpg

Where and when was it supposedly taken?

From Salon…

UPDATE II: There has been some speculation among commenters that the Tackling Man protester did not actually tackle the police officer, but rather was captured falling. He appears to be visible at the :23 mark in this video trying to help Felix Rivera-Pitre, the protester in the green shirt who was punched by a cop…

I would attempt to save a fallen comrade from harm’s way…!

OccupyRaleigh Occupy Raleigh
Very productive meeting tonight. Things are happening in Raleigh!
12 minutes ago

This certainly piques one’s curiosity:

OccupyHouston Occupy Houston
Next Saturday at 9am we will be doing #OpCleanSweep to clean all of Houston. More details to come. 70 people needed to make it go smoothly.
6 minutes ago

Woohoo…! Larry O’Donnell just featured an awesome clip of an Iraqi Vet going off on NYPD…! “They’re unarmed People…” “You want violence, go to Iraq…”

According to the photographer it was taken in Manhattan on Friday morning. You can read more detail at the link I posted in reply 57.

Excuse me, sweeping the protests under the rug will not make them go away or minimalize their impact. There are serious groups within the movement that have definite very Constitutional aims, aims that would reinstate the Glass Steagall standard to the banking industry, and reclaim the sovreign right to our own US currency issued in accordance with Article 1 Section 8.
Another goal is to invoke the 25th Amendment Section 4 rights of citizens of the US when a sitting president demonstrates himself to be unfit to remain in office, when signs that his mental capacity is not up to the challenges of the times. We are facing the complete collapse of the oligarchical monetarist system, which has been fostered by the US Adminstration, the Treasury secretary in conjuctionwith the head of the FED and has placed the US in a situation whereby our sovreign republic will cease to be sovreign, because our future is being determined by a foreigh power, i.e. the FED is working to prop up the British Oligarch’s and their bankrupt banking system, by looting the citizens of the United States. The protesters are victims of this looting, by way of the fact that they cannot find work, many of them have families who have lost their homes, and the prospect of having their and our future, dictated to us by an unconstitutional SUPER CONGRESS is outrageous. Thanks to Maxine Waters, at least a bill is being put forward to repeal the SUPER CONGRESS but that is only one case. We are putting up with constant violations of the Constitution that have led us to attack innocent women and children in many places on the globe with unmanned Predator drones and under the guise of NATO untol atrocities are being committed in Libya. Because our Adminstration is now empowering itself to assassinate US citizens at will, when will they deploy drones on us? If the protesters are not all of them up to speed with everything that is going on that is abhorrent, then given them a break. We know what the problems are, and if not, the information is out there all over the internet if you take the itme to read what’s actually going on. Instead of critising the protesters, who are doing everything they can to highlight the fact that the oligarch’s system DOESN’T WORK, then all power to them. The Congress should be doing the job of upholding our Constitution, and we should be emailing them, tweeting them and doing whatever else it takes to do the right thing.
HR 1490 THE RETURN TO PRUDENT BANKING ACT introduced by Marcy Kaptur D Ohio would be a good place to start, followed by the NEED ACT of 2011 introduced by Denis Kucinich for seconds. Get on the bank wagon if you are a true patriot and make WAVES!!!!!!!!

If the video of the guy in the green shirt, Felix Rivera-Petre, being punched by the white shirt cop has the man in the blue shirt in it, there is a more clear and professional looking video taken of that incident. The link is below. I don’t see the blue shirt guy in the video but…could be.

http://www.thestreet.com/video/index.html?cm_ven_int=navvideos#1218825644001

Ayesha Kazmi: Why Anti-OWS Speech Scares Me

Kevin, let me express my thanks and gratitude for your coverage. I’ve been there since Day Nine and the discrepancy between what’s really happening and the MSM’s depiction of it is disgusting.

Big Props from someone on the ground…

¡Palante!

I think a parallel democracy is a good idea, the question is what form and I think this is where we’d find problems within GA’s. The one proposed above may be one GA’s idea. It’s a good start.

I imagine disagreements would be in 1) appealing to authority, 2) structure, location, and purpose of this grand assembly, 3) whether a grand assembly of this nature is necessary or if it would be too similar to the current centralized, corruptible forms of government we see everywhere else in the world.

I think if some form of this came to fruition, and the movement was at that point massive and popular enough, they could then propose to the American public whether they wish to continue with their democracy-in-name-only corrupted government of the 1% or a new government truly rooted in democracy with checks and balances installed to prevent the failures of the previous.

Thanks for all the praise, everyone.

My reporting continues. Still in NYC. Working on getting back to Chicago, where I am based. I see Occupy Chicago is heating up. I’d like to show some support for a few days. Then, back on the road to?

Looks like I will be making a schedule and people will be able to say: Kevin is in St. Louis today, then he is in Des Moines tomorrow, then he is in Denver the next day and so on and so forth.

What pundits don’t seem to grasp is that the movement is beyond our individual shortcomings. Yes, each one of us is affected by losing their job, losing their right to bargain, disappointed in the lack of a public option in health care, the inequity of the tax system, destruction of public education. All those are reason alone to protest.

But it’s much bigger. It’s our self-worth, our intelligence, our ideals and self-esteem that have been beaten to death over the past 30 years, thanks to the GOP’s greedy over-reaching capitalism that creates 1 percent winners and 99 percent losers; and the Democratic Party’s liberal core that has sold out, given up and tried in futility to play their game.

It may come as news to some, but the Democratic Party is dead and has been since the last gasp of hope died when Obama’s actions became contrary to his rhetoric. Now it is grasping at straws again, also in futility, while the pundits once again play along, thinking OWS energy and spirit can be co-opted and turned into votes for more futility.

A corner has been turned, and a sense of real hope is returning. Here is a good column by Chris Hedges in TruthDig today that can help explain why Democrats and the liberals (forget the Republicans) just don’t get it, or refuse to confront reality. It’s time to hold a funeral service for both parties.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_movement_too_big_to_fail_20111017/

MSM is frustrated at OWS because it is interrupting their daily dissection of the Republican candidate flavor of the day. First Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry, now Herman Cain. No mention of Koch Brothers, by the way. And then we have our favorite, MSNBC, playing cheerleader again to the O’Wonder in Chief. Give us a break, please.