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About 130 occupiers from Occupy Chicago were arrested early in the morning on October 23 by Chicago police for violating a curfew in Grant Park. The occupiers were trying to setup a permanent base again and were blocked from setting up a camp again. (Full report and video of the arrests here.)
Occupy San Jose was raided last night at 3 am PST. The police woke occupiers who were sleeping in tents up and arrested them for being in the park. Their tents were confiscated. They did this very early in the morning on Saturday too.
Occupy Cincinnati participants have been arrested for “criminal trespassing” for being in Piatt Park past the 3 am curfew. They had an encampment weeks ago but the city is no longer willing to allow the occupiers to have a permanent site.
Members of Occupy Orange County were arrested in Santa Ana after refusing to take down their tents. And, the city of Oakland has decided to no longer allow Occupy Oakland to have a tent city in Frank H. Ogawa Plaza (which they renamed Oscar Grant Park). The city now claims the encampment is a “violation of the law.”
The vitality of the Occupy movement depends on finding ways to establish a permanent base and win the right to remain in public space. The ability of occupations to rally supporters to take on the city and face down police is critical to sustaining this movement. And, there is a battle over framing that must be won in order to succeed. The occupiers need to make it clear they are not “trespassing” or violating curfew like some vagrant or group of hoodlums. They are asserting what they believe is the people’s right to be in the space twenty four hours a day to assemble, demonstrate and dissent against government that has become entirely subservient to corporate and special interests.
Firedoglake’s premier live blog continues. Here is <a href=”http://twitter.com/#!/kgosztola/occupy-everywhere”>a Twitter list</a> to follow for the latest updates (now has 235 followers).
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10:25 PM Critical piece of writing by Douglas Holtz-Eakin in Foreign Affairs magazine but rests on a flawed premise: that the occupiers want to destroy capitalism. There are very few occupiers in this movement that are purely anti-capitalist or that stand tall on hold signs that say smash capitalism. They just are tired of a capitalist economy that serves Wall Street and the richest 1%.
10:21 PM Sean Lennon & Rufus Wainwright visit Liberty Park for a jam session. Lennon dedicates a song to Ben Bernanke.
10:17 PM Video of Occupy Melbourne being evicted (featuring Jamie Kilstein)
10:11 PM Occupy Chicago reports on what it has been like for occupiers in jail:
They still haven’t released the nurses who were arrested last night…Most of those of us who were in jail were not even allowed a phone call even though we asked for one repeatedly…Two of the people who did get a phonecall report that the bondsmen were playing videogames instead of working on our paperwork…We were given no food until noon today after yelling for hours they gave us a bologna sandwich…An epileptic girl needed her meds. We yelled for an hour before anyone came and then they ignored for another hour…This protester asked different police officers 86 times politely to make a phone call. Ignored all night…One of the holding cells with about 30 men had no working sink. Their requests were ignored for 5 to 6 hours…None of the men were given toilet paper for the past twenty hours
National Nurses United plans to picket Rahm Emanuel’s office tomorrow at 10 am.
5:20 PM Background on Occupy 38 Greene Street in lower Manhattan.
5:19 PM Occupy San Jose ambushed by SJPD
5:18 PM Barbara Ehrenheich on being homeless in America and Occupy Wall Street
117 Comments
Happier news on that front:
http://occupysydney.visibli.com/share/QZ82Yl
I finished my weekly search of news article from Occupy Wall Street movements in the South in yesterday’s liveblog. New ones: Lehigh Acres, FL; Myrtle Beach SO, Murfreesboro (MTSU), TN.
And Macon GA was out for a second week.
What was noticeable was the lack of news coverage in more Republican areas, the Democratic response being given only by members of minority caucuses (especially folks with experience in a civil rights movement).
There were articles about splits in general assemblies in Charlotte especially. The Occupy Charleston and Occupy Columbia general assemblies are engaging in a joint Occupy South Carolina project (which is reported as a merger).
And the Mayor of Tampa fessed up that he does not want to do anything with Occupy Tampa that might set a precedent for how the City handles the Republican National Convention. No doubt the mayor of Charlotte shares that view with respect to the Democratic National Convention. So watch these two places carefully because outside DC and NYC they might be the most likely to have infiltration.
Energies are flagging and numbers are dropping as a result. It is difficult to maintain anger as a motivating factor for a long period of time. And the curiosity seekers have all left.
Also, authorities are giving budget cuts to security forces as an excuse for not allowing prolonged encampments.
That’s the way to do it.
Occupy Bradenton (FL) photo set
Occupy Columbia has been building interest through teach-ins on various issues related to the influence of money on politics.
“Energies are flagging and numbers are dropping as a result. It is difficult to maintain anger as a motivating factor for a long period of time. And the curiosity seekers have all left.”
This was my sense of things yesterday at OccupyAtlanta. as well. And the thrust of some of the concerned comments by myself and others here the last few days. We have all been hoping that the brilliance of the original phase will continue into the next phase, but I saw nothing to encourage that view after spending six hours talking to actual occupiers here. I wish I could report otherwise.
Some places are growing:
The Memphis camp has been growing, too.
But yeah, novelty is wearing off.
Being in the trenches for an extended period of time is rough. Most new arrivals out of the middle class haven’t had that experience before. And there is definitely some political weirdness in the Occupy locations that a lot of folks have not experienced before. And might terrify them to be associated even by presence at the same event. Example. How many folks do you know in Georgia would show up at an event if they knew in advance that one speaker, only one among tens of speakers, would be openly recruiting for the “Revolutionary Communist Party”? In Atlanta? In Georgia? Yet that two-minute pitch is stuck on Occupy Atlanta’s UStream site when they were supposedly streaming. And it was not intentional; it was the result of one of the quirks of UStream.
And new places are sprouting. It’s an issue that requires more self-conscious attention from general assemblies. In reading the news coverage and the FB pages and watching the livestreams, it seems that the growing sites have certain characteristics: (1) They don’t overreach; (2) They are meticulously transparent and smoke out hidden agendas; (3) They gain control quickly over the media that speaks in their name and that includes livestreams and lets them know that they can’t except as an individual opinion; (4) They rotate representatives who deal with the media; (5) They do stuff besides protest (6) They don’t go out of their way to bait the police. (7) Their self-image is as a community that is operating in the ruins of failure instead of as a protest, although regular protest with coalitions is part of what they do.
If this movement was easy, we would have won in 1968.
Schwall Reverses Own Eviction Order, after Task Force Appeals
Occupy Atlanta contributes to a victory. This had to do with the possible eviction of a homeless shelter from a Peachtree and Pine location.
If you haven’t read this yet, you must. Fascinating use of network studies.
The 147 Companies That Control Everything
Like the media, the government cannot with not having leaders to talk to aside from the group, leaders to co-opt. Man from Wasichustan on dKos describes how permitting is a strategy for co-opting a group and controlling its behavior.
Man from Wasichustan: OWS: “No Leaders” + “Permits” This Sounds Familiar+
Ha! I’d never thought about the Rainbow similarities, and I used to live with the RF.
Thanks for that link, saved it for further research. I agree with your preceding comments, and am not surprised at what we’re seeing, human nature is human nature. But understanding it is not helpful toward finding a way to overcome the loss of momentum and move into a vigorous new phase. At this point, I have no answers, only questions.
The AFL-CIO march today was great! I wrote out a whole diary over the last 45 minutes and inserted a bunch of photos but the photos were too big and I don’t have it left in my tonight to size them properly and re-upload them.
So here’s the link to my wife’s album.
We marched down Lavaca from the AFL-CIO Headquarters to City Hall, circled City Hall (the site of the Occupation in Austin), and then marched east to the Wells Fargo Center. We held a rally there where Union members spoke, then marched back to City Hall.
It was a great day. Check out the photos, there’s some good stuff.
CBL took a bunch of pics that are more ‘us’ centric. Pictures of us with our signs, etc. Hopefully she’ll be along with those shortly.
This was a place that had a conflict with someone who was posting Facebook posts about things the GA hadn’t said.
I like the size of the crowd in those pictures.
That’s awesome!
Update from OccupyCincy:
http://www.occupycincy.org/
I took some supplies to Atlanta Saturday while expecting to see the local Unions there I did not see any Unions repersentive there. The Unions in Atlanta have given everything away after 1976.
I don’t remember Occupy Atlanta reaching out to unions yet. Surely not all of the locals are still co-opted. After 35 years, one would think there are some young members of the unions asking what co-option got them.
#occupysf
Great video.
I’ve been fretting over the difficulties presented by these permit issues, and although I was never a Constitutional litigator, much less a First Amendment expert, I came up with an idea that I want to throw out for everyone’s consideration and feedback.
We all understand that the First Amendment rights of speech and free assembly are being delimited by the time, place, and manner restrictions represented by the various permit regulations. The case law in that specific area is not encouraging, so I’ve been trying to come up with a way to attack legally from a completely different direction. The Supreme Court has, in recent years, culminating with Citizen’s United, done everything it can to expand the free speech rights of corporations. They now sit at an historically liberal extreme, for corporations. Those of us who consider corporate personhood a fraud and a travesty, nevertheless know that we are unlikely to get the Supremes to reverse themselves as to the power of corporate speech.
So, my thoughts have turned to the equal protection clause, which emanates from the same 14th Amendement as the corporate peron fiction. How can it be that we expand the free speech rights of fictional persons, while we simultaneously tolerate the arbitrary impeding of the speech of actual persons? If regular, non-wealthy people’s free speech rights are to have any meaning, one must concede that showing up and engaging in free assembly is the only means for them to directly express their political voices. If the speech of corporations is expressed with money, and is unlimited, per Citizens United, then is it not a violation of equal protection to permit unequal limitation of the speech of actual persons through these permit laws? How is a mass of regular people to express a comparable volume of political speech as the corporations are allowed to do through their unlimited money and ability to use that money speech without comparable restrictions. What do you guys, and particularly the lawyers among you, think of this argument?
Union Thug
In 1976 a union job in Atlanta was all Union.In 2002 I took a job where the General Contractor was Union with maybe 4 carpenters that were union and the sub contractors were none union.I would guess it was a 5million dollar job.6+- floors half city block.
This is cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MSsejI7PR40
That’s makes sense to me but IANAL.
Another consideration is the permitting process seeks to make legally liable an individual arbitrarily chosen from and unincorporated and loose association. That person cannot have control over that group nor can that person act on the group’s behalf.
And then that legal liability can be used to co-opt the actions of the entire group. The permit is used as a regulation of the content of speech and the terms of assembly even when it is granted.
How much of that had to do with things like the Davis-Bacon act, or was it just the power of the locals in Atlanta?
Anti-American Banner of Choice
Tunisia had their election for Constituent Assembly today. An estimated 90% of eligible voters turned out. And Argentina re-elected Christine Kirchner.
And they were happy for the chance to vote
I’m not sure what the Davis- Bacon act is.Go to my profile I wrote a comment today to Tortoise this might give you some background.People sell out there brothers for upper middle class.I’ll look up Davis-Bacon Act now.I was close to Traders at one time.
LOL!
OCCUPY GAINESVILLE Pride Fest 2011
Yes, I read the article you linked to and that represents the cutting edge of my present knowledge re the permitting issues. That became the take-off point for my thought process that led to the equal protection argument. There are minimal restraints on fictitious “person” speech, thru the fiction that money is speech, and all these restrictions on the actual speech of actual persons, and it seems blatantly unequal and incongruous to me that both sets of conditions can be permitted to exist at the same time without it being construed as a denial of equal protection of the laws to the more rights-limited class of persons. It’s a bit of legal jiu-jitsu, to argue that real persons should have the same rights as fake persons. I am coming to these issues without background expertise, so I hope others will give me feedback.
That’s an excellent comment.
The Davis-Bacon Act requires (required?) contractors for federal projects, including construction projects, to pay union scale. Beginning with the Reagan administration, it and its implementation have been under attack as a means of weakening unions.
h/t Chico David RN on dKos
Don’t you just love the narrative: “Rahm Emmanuel arresting nurses.”
What else is he going to do to “reform health care”?
Around 1977 I saw a lot of sons takeing the place of there fathers in management and our unions.The differance was the sons were all about there success even at the cost of there brothers and there childerns well being.Now the betrayal is showing big time.It’s not all the top 1% it also that upper middle class and want-a-be’s upper middle classes that been schooled in Two Faces.
Weeks weather forecast: going to get colder across much of nation esp. Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes – snow forecast for Denver…
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/weather-pattern-more-active-week-ahead_2011-10-23
Occupiers going to need to bundle up…
News article about Occupy Albany NY:
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/occupy-wall-street-albany-albany-protesters-capitol-protests-132411203.html
Somehow I think they’d be getting a harder time if they were also protesting the NY state legislature redistricting shenanigans…
Heard about this on the radio on way to work today; just HAD to find the story:
“Awkward! Goldman Sachs pulls out of fundraiser after learning it’s honoring … Occupy Wall Street”
https://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/10/22/2011-10-22_awkward_goldman_sachs_pulls_out_of_fundraiser_after_learning_its_honoring__occup.html
Here’s another account of it with more details:
http://www.correntewire.com/goldman_withdraws_sponsorship_of_working_class_credit_union_that_supports_ows
very interesting post from the comments thread there..
“Here [audio here at 20:50] is Greg Palast on KPFA’s Flashpoints 18 October 2011 (it appears that Palast actually broke the story) [my own transcript]:
The Lower East Side Credit [People’s Federal] Union, the community bank, which is the big not-for-profit bank that serves all of New York’s low-income community—80% of their customers are below the poverty line—and they’re the only people who will give out little loans for little businesses in the barrio in New York—and so they decided to honor Occupy Wall Street but there was a price to be paid.
They had received for their annual meeting dinner a donation, so-called, from Goldman Sachs—from “the…occupiers of Wall Street” who occupy the upper floors. Goldman Sachs sent this little community credit union $5000 to cover the cost of their annual dinner and to put their names on their little invitation. So it’s “Goldman Sachs presents the honoree Occupy Wall Street.” So Goldman, believe it or not, went frickin’ ballistic, insane, nuts, mad. And…basically, they threatened this community bank and basically want the word to go out that any not-for-profit banks, community banks, credit unions that dare associate with Occupy Wall Street will be financially punished.
This is very scary for these little banks, OK? ‘Cause they don’t get any—they get no TARP money, they get no backup from the federal government, they get nada. The community banks are owned and controlled by the communities themselves. So Lower East Side just said, told Goldman “We’ll give you back your money” and Goldman said “You can’t honor anyone without our approval,” as if they were the owners of the community bank.
Now here’s the thing: it wasn’t a generous gift of $5000. And let’s not forget that Goldman’s top managers earned $50 billion. Let me repeat that: $50 billion. They give $5000 to [this] community credit union but it wasn’t out of the generosity of their heart. It was required by law. It was part of their Community Reinvestment Act requirements. They have a Community Investment Act compliance.
When Goldman Sachs—this is very important to know how the 1% makes their money, they’re not ‘job creators’—this is what the ‘job creators’ did for us. When Goldman Sachs brought the world economy to its knees with crappy fixed mortgage securities, they turned to the federal government to give them $20 billion in bail-out money and to do that, they had to turn themselves from an investment bank, which is really a fancy casino, into a commercial bank, which takes usually years. They did it in 24 hours at the command of ‘Timmy’ Geithner.
So Goldman Sachs was turned instantly, like a fairy godmother poof!, from an investment bank into a commercial bank and a commercial bank is supported by you and me. Then they got their TARP money. But if you’re a commercial bank, the law requires you to invest in your local community.
Well, Goldman Sachs has no local community—they’re on Wall Street—so the Federal Reserve said, Well, go find a community. So they found the Lower East Side, which basically encompasses Wall Street, by the way, and so they said they’ll give money to this community bank. Now normally you make available $100 million in capital, a few millions dollars. Goldman came up with five [thousand]—because there’s no law which says exactly how much. Citibank put up, made available $1 billion for community reinvestment. Goldman Sachs $5000.
The host Dennis Bernstein: “That’s what these guys spend on a bottle of wine.”
Every apathetic citizen is a silent enlistee in the cause of inverted totalitarianism.—Sheldon Wolin”
This raises an interesting point about the seeming paradox of growing inclusiveness and the rise of economic elitism over the last few decades:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/social-inequality-and-the-new-elite.html
maybe the occupy groups should incorporate then they might have some rights since individual american citizens seem to have lost theirs
“Top candidates happy to take Wall Street’s money”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/23/MNA91LJVIB.DTL
The only hope any politician has of of ever getting any traction with OWS supporters is to refuse Wall Street’s money… which they won’t do.
I think I’ll be watching #OccupyMaine tonight …
See #OccupyMaine Facebook page here for press release/statement.
Can’t provide a more graphic example of how money controls the mission of NGOs and “charities”.
Mat Sloughter, The Daily Gamecock op ed: ‘Occupy Columbia’ illustrates fine points of democracy
OccupyRadioAustin
Occupy Columbia Blog
An Occupy Columbia participant’s liveblog of their experiences—with photos.
This is a local video newscast report that I missed last week. It’s about Occupy Auburn AL and Occupy Columbus GA.
WRBL: ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Goes Local
Being visible in South Georgia and southern Alabama is a radical act. It is direct action against the fear factor. Non-Southerners don’t realize how intimidating just showing up in a group that is doing something new is for folks is more rural or small town parts of the South.
Think Progress Occupy Huntsville takes their questions to GOP Rep. Mo Brooks
Do you, or anyone else, have a contact number for the lawyers that are representing OWS re these permit issues? I’d like to contact them directly and share my “equal protection” argument with them.
You might see if you can organize some green hats in Atlanta or connect up with them.
Officer Roland RPD
That was last week’s crew
The mood of the state cops is changing in Columbia SC.
Thanks, TD.
You might also talk to the ACLU or the Georgia office of it.
I’m going to try to connect with someone who is directly dealing with the issues. I assume they will communicate to others within the network if they think my argument has merit.
Liz Tracy, Miami New Times: A Night in the Life of Occupy Miami: Snoring, Politics, and Dead Can Dance
A World Beyond Borders: The Rise of the Occupy Insurgency, The World’s First Internet Revolution #OWS
Joel Olson, libcom.org: Whiteness and the 99% – Joel Olson
David O. Friedrichs, MarketWatch: Occupy Wall Street does have a clear message
I just spoke with someone at the NLG in NY, and sent her an email detailing the argument. I hope they find it helpful.
Occupy the Pasture
One person in rural Nebraska weighs in.
Chris Hedges, truthout.org: Occupiers Have to Convince the Other 99 Percent
OT– “A little jazzy waltz for the #Occupy all-ers“
Democracy Now: Occupy Louisville: Voices from Social Justice Encampment in the Hometown of Muhammad Ali
OCCUPY CHARLOTTE MEDIA STATEMENT: Thomas C. Shope Part 1
Kinda a precedent. A public statement from a general assembly.
Nov 6: Mark Ruffalo’s Call to Action
LS – Atlanta reports that Mayor Reed has called a 4pm press conference.
#Occupy Atlanta live stream:
Suggestions are great but those already here are swamped. Got an idea? Then come down here to the #Occupy and get busy.
For orientation/reference: OccupyAtlanta.Org and General Assembly Guide.
#Occupy Atlanta live stream ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) going to the Atlanta’s mayor press conference at City Hall with religious leaders now. Security just tried to obstruct the live stream camera person.
LS – Atlanta
Mayor’s news conference is reported with religious leaders.
LS crew is going to city hall at 4:08pm. Mayor might already be speaking.
Homeless sleeping on benches in front of city hall.
Security check at front door. LS off to go through the scanner.
From #Occupy Atlanta live stream ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) :
LS in the press conference. Connection issues (intermittency) so hang in there, viewers.
34 viewers so far.
LS – Atlanta
Mayor is 30 minutes late and counting.
From #Occupy Atlanta live stream ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) : LS still in the press conference. LS up & down w connection issues (some buildings are just Faraday cages. Any one with a Qik.com or Ustream.Com app-patched smart phone?).
{ LOL } from the Twitter stream with the LS:
PSA:
Following Twitter stream with the LS ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) as no press conference video stream yet:
Following Twitter stream with the LS ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) as no press conference video stream yet:
Following Twitter stream with the LS ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) as no press conference video stream yet:
Following Twitter stream with the LS ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) :
Following Twitter stream with the LS ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) :
In Phoenix, AZ:
Following Twitter streams with the LS ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) :
Following Twitter streams with the LS ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) :
Nice to get a crowd size report from the mayor. I looked like less than that.
Bottom line: I’m the mayor, dammit. I have power.
LS up ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) on outside of Atlanta City Hall.
A Twitter stream with LS:
LS ( http://www.livestream.com/occupyatlanta ) outside Atlanta City hall:
People in front of City hall say they don’t know who the clergy are that the Mayor wants to negotiate with and that those clergy do not speak for them. They are making comment on the lies and misrepresentations of them and the situation spoken in front of their faces at the press conference. Look for a video to be put up shortly regarding this.
From http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23occupyatlanta :
Why do so many of US city officials don’t recognize that the 1st Amendment is constituents’ permit to #Occupy? Why don’t city officials want to deal directly with their own constituents?
Re #Occupy Atlanta from http://twitter.com/#!/TroyDavisPark :
Looks like the City of Atlanta prepping for a forced eviction to occur now:
Occupy Atlanta UStream is up.
APD put barricades around the park while the presser was going on.
Occupy Raleigh general assembly
They have 36 people tonight.
Occupy Atlanta UStream is down.
Re @OccupyCville:
The General Assembly tonight at 6pm in Lee Park has some big AGENDA items.
Dick Cheney on speaking/book tour to Charlottesville, VA, Nov. 16, 2011 (details).
Re #OccupyAtlanta, another live stream up at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/occupyatlanta :
Never has opinion polling been so much shown to be beside the point. What will those seeking to co-opt the movement make of those numbers. For pols, that’s waffle territory.
PRESS STATEMENT: Occupy Atlanta
Re New York State:
“New York cops defy order to arrest hundreds of ‘Occupy Albany’ protesters” (RawStory.Com, Oct. 24, 2011)
My wife says that the Occupy Atlanta statement should be set to music both as hip-hop and as a Gregorian chant.
Paging Black Monk (rap, Gregorian chant, beatbox & dance) …
“Requiem Rap“
The gentleman in the beret and just up on the Occupy Atlanta live stream makes a whole lot of sense.
Spanish Hip-hop Gregorian chant: “Gregorian Hip Hop” by Héroes Ocultos
OT– A different genre but this works surprisingly well.
“Occupy Atlanta will hold a press conference at 9 pm in response to Mayor Reed’s press conference held earlier today.” (Posted on October 24, 2011 by SaraA )
Re #OccupySupply Fund :
If you can help at any of the following locations, please contact occupytips {AT] firedoglake {DOT] com to help purchase and distribute goods to protesters:
WOW!:
Video: China’s Biggest Microblog, Sina Weibo, Increases Censorship (NTD TV, Sept. 23, 2011)
“Weibo, China and Japan” (The Diplomat, Oct. 19, 2011)