To occupy Wall Street, occupy the internet first

From Reuters:        NEW YORK | Tue Oct 4, 2011 6:00pm EDT             By Ben Berkowitz

(Reuters) - In 2011 in America, what passes for a revolution is a frightening tangle of wires, power strips, routers and gas generators underneath a canopy in the center of a park.

That fire hazard of a mess is at the center, literally and figuratively, of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The protesters who have disrupted lower Manhattan since mid-September have assembled the means to blast out their message -- if they can agree on what they fighting for.

"Whoever controls the media, the messages, controls the culture," read a ratty cardboard sign that Connor Petras held at the corner of a major downtown intersection.

But Petras, juggling his BlackBerry and an apparently stale wheat bagel while also trying to hold the sign, acknowledged the protesters did not have their rallying cry figured out.

"There's not really a main focus point ... and I think that is a problem," the 18-year-old New Jersey native said.

Higher taxes on the wealthy, more equitable treatment by banks, easier financial terms for higher education, better care of the environment -- all are on the agenda at Zuccotti Park, a concrete island in the shadow of the rising World Trade Center, and yet none of them top the list yet.

HASHTAG TO TUMBLR

Occupy Wall Street is movement, but it is also a Twitter hashtag, a Facebook page and a Livestream event, which means the protest does not even need a physical home. By one estimate Tuesday morning, "Occupy" events were happening in 147 cities, and much of that is the result of social media being used to recruit the young and the computer-literate.

"OccupyWallStreet is a hashtag revolt," Jeff Jarvis, a professor of journalism at the City University of New York and author of the blog BuzzMachine, said in a recent post. "A hashtag has no owner, no hierarchy, no canon or credo. It is a blank slate onto which anyone may impose his or her frustrations, complaints, demands, wishes, or principles."

On a cold and gray Tuesday morning, with rain imminent and many of the protesters huddled half-asleep on the ground, there were plenty of subtle signs of technology's influence, such as Twitter hashtags on printed maps, five-day weather forecasts on a status board and a core of computer-savvy volunteers.

Whatever you call it -- data center, media hub, post-production studio -- it would be the envy of a lot of IT departments in corporate America. Laptops, webcams and cell phones vie for precious space with cigarettes (Marlboro Lights are a popular choice) and coffee cups (to the consternation of the "technical staff" worried about spills).

It is anarchy, and the people like it that way.

"It all happens very quickly and every aspect of the media supports every other," said Luke Richardson, 25, of the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. Richardson satisfied the protester stereotype in some ways -- goatee, blue kerchief around his neck at the ready for tear gas -- and yet not in others, like his Green Bay Packers beanie.

He said he wasn't worried about the uncontrolled spread of the message: "I'm not concerned with trying to control it too much."

WIDE REACH

There has clearly been some fragmentation. On Facebook, the Occupy Wall Street page has nearly 22,000 "likes." Yet there are another 9,000-plus for the Boston page, more than 13,000 in Los Angeles, over 6,600 in Philadelphia, and on and on. It is not clear how many of those overlap.

The movement's official Twitter name, @OccupyWallSt, had nearly 39,000 followers. The "Global Revolution" Livestream channel had nearly 4,000 viewers.

On Tumblr, page after page is tagged with the protests, whether it be pictures of protesters' signs, quotes from speeches or personal observations of the young and old, famous and anonymous who went to the park themselves, like tourists, to see what it was all about.

For sheer impact, little has topped "We are the 99 Percent," a Tumblr site on which people share their personal stories of financial pain, hand-written and held up to a camera for the world to see. The site already features more than 600 personal stories, some of them written by and featuring the sad faces of children.

More than anything else, that has drawn huge attention from the mainstream media. Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein devoted a column Tuesday to why the blog itself justified covering the Wall Street protests. "These are not rants against the system. They're not anarchist manifestos. They're not calls for a revolution. They're small stories of people who played by the rules, did what they were told, and now have nothing to show for it," Klein wrote. (here)

No matter how ragged or how young, most everyone in the park has some kind of internet access, usually via smartphone (Research in Motion's Blackberry for the most part, as Apple seems out of favor somehow with the crowd).

Providing the backbone of the network are portable WiMax hotspots from Clearwire, powerful enough that more than 40,000 people a day can tune in to live streams. If Clearwire and Research in Motion stay in business, and the sun shines long enough to power the soon-to-be-erected solar panels, there is a sense the protests could go on indefinitely.

Even the weather is covered by technology -- 24-year-old Queens native Nicholas Isabella, a trained meteorologist, plots five-day forecasts from a laptop in the center of the park, tweeting and broadcasting them on Livestream.

"People go on the marches, I can tell them to bring a poncho," he said.

(Editing by Claudia Parsons)

(http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com)

Occupy Wall Street's Official General Assembly Statement

Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street - this statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square: Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

"As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive." 

Matt Taibbi Speaks About Occupy Wall Street With K. Olbermann

Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi appeared on Current TV'sCountdown with Keith Olbermann to discuss the "Occupy Wall Street" protests. "The movement is growing organically," Taibbi says, "because people know there's something to protest now." He adds that Occupy Wall Street could spur reformers and legislators to act because "the public won't take it anymore." Watch Taibbi and Olbermann talk about the protests below.

James Howard Kunstler on Occupy Wall Street

Here Come the OWSers!

By James Howard Kunstler
on October 3, 2011 8:24 AM

(Click the link above to read comments from his readers.)

     All last week across the media landscape, in pod, blog, flat-screen, and crunkly old newsprint columns, fatuous professional observers complained that the Occupy Wall Street marchers "have no clear agenda" or "can't articulate their positions." What impertinent horseshit. I saw a statement on one OWSer's sign that said it all:

$70,000 College Debt

$12,000 Medical Bills

I'm 22

Where's My Bailout?

     What part of that is unclear to interlocutors of what we called "the establishment" back in the day? That would be the day of the Vietnam War and the Aquarian Upsurge. One difference being that in 1968 we at least had some solidarity in the older generation coming from figures of gravity like Senators Robert Kennedy (bumped off), Eugene McCarthy, J. William Fullbright, George McGovern, Rev Martin Luther King (bumped off), and even one US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark. Today, the entire "establishment" is a clueless, hopeless blob of self-interested, craven opportunism. Even the arty fringe - the people who pretend to be anavant-garde - are nothing but narcissistic self-branding operations masquerading as culture leaders.

    

 The worst offender this past week was the prating empty vessel Nicholas Kristoff at The New York Timeswho affected to offer the OWSers his own tidy agenda of nit-picky, arcane tax reforms (e.g "Close the 'carried interest' and 'founders' stock' loopholes") and limp-dick banking regulations (e.g. "[move] ahead with Basel III capital requirements"). David Plotz and his Gen X sidekicks at the Slate Political Podcast were equally mystified. I have some heartier suggestions: bring the full weight of the RICO act and the federal anti-fraud statutes down on Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, Brian Moynihan, Angelo Mozilo, and a host of other impudent schmekels still at large in their world of Escalade limos and Gulfstream vistas. Or, if that's just too difficult, how about a handy lamppost and about 40 feet of stout nylon cord?

    

 It is cosmically ironic, of course, that the same generation of Boomer-hippies that ran in the streets and marched through the maze of service roads around the Pentagon has become a new "establishment" more obtuse, feckless, greedy and mendacious than the one they battled with over 40 years ago. I guess they just don't see that their time has come to get right with reality - or get shoved aside and trampled. The essence of the OWSer's argument is pretty simple: they've got a raw deal; somebody dealt them a bad hand; someone ran their society into a ditch and not a goddammed one of the older generation will set in motion the machinery to correct the situation, or even acknowledge it.

    

 At the apex of this new establishment is the Baby Boomer's moral trophy president: Barack Obama, whose election made the Boomers feel good about themselves - while they preceded to loot the national treasury's accumulated capital, and then reach forward a few generations to rob their legacy, too. I haven't heard Nicholas Kristoff (or any of his colleagues at The New York Times) complain about Mr. Obama's stupendous inattention to the crimes of Wall Street, or to the dereliction of his proconsuls in the SEC and the Department of Justice. I'd at least send somebody to hold a mirror under Eric Holder's nostrils to see if he is actually alive.

    

 For my money, the OWSers have plenty to yell about. Apart from the crimes and turpitudes of their elders, the younger generation hasn't even been prepared for the massive change in reality that these times are heaving them into. If it was me out there, I'd conclude that I'd better make up the future on my own, with no help from my parent's generation. In fact, that future is rushing toward all of us so cold, hard, and fresh even in this autumn season that it might splatter the banking establishment - and the global economy - like a bug on a windshield. The OWSers have a front row seat down there in lower Manhattan. The financial gangrene (thank you Zero Hedge) is not just seeping anymore, it's blowing through the arteries of the money underworld like fracking fluid. The damage can't be contained. Let the Arabs have spring. The OWSers of America own the fall. Rock on OWSers and don't let the "pigs" (as we used to call them) get you down.

(http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com)

Occupy Wall Street---DC

What Occupy DC wants: Less corporate money in politics

Posted by Suzy Khimm  from the Washington Post

Occupy Wall Street is still a nascent, amorphous protest movement without a specific policy agenda. But in the movement’s DC offshoot, one target has begun to come into focus: the outsized role of corporate money in politics.

On Monday, about 20 people gathered to join Occupy DC’s midday meeting in Washington’s McPherson Square, some of whom have been camped out since early Saturday morning. The group ranged from white-collar professionals on their lunch break to unemployed workers and students, one of whom was changing clothes beneath a tree in the park. Occupy DC has no defined policy agenda or demands. But when asked why they showed up, many participants could agree on one thing: corporations have too much influence over the political system

“Corporatism has become the standard, and people forget they’re part of government....it’s power that’s come for sale,” said Brian, a 24-year-old unemployed Maryland resident, who arrived with a backpack to camp out.“Our government has allowed policy, laws and justice to be for sale to the highest bidder.”

A tall, bearded man wearing a black leather vest, Brian declined to give his last name for fear of hurting his employment prospects. But he’s vocal about his desire to fight crony capitalism in the government, arguing that it has allowed deep-pocketed donors to profit from private government and military contracts. He suggested a cap on contributions and campaign spending as one solution. “There needs to be a limit on the amount of money you can spend on elections, or can contribute,” Brian said, accusing politicians of then using the money to host lavish “filet mignon dinners” for other contributors.

Others at Occupy DC echoed similar sentiments. Among the handful of liberal political operatives and policy-types in attendance was William Rice, policy director of Americans for Democratic Action, a national progressive advocacy organization. “I’m hoping to stop the power that corporations are wielding over democracy,” Rice said. His proposals? Overturning Citizens United, making corporate tax system fairer, and ensuring that budget and spending decisions “meet the needs of people rather than corporations.” Rice acknowledges that the movement is still nascent — and Occupy DC’s ranks still small — but feels encouraged. “This is a first step, recognizing there are hundreds of kindred souls. With time it will become more focused.”

But though those gathered for Occupy DC seem to have a lot to agree on, organizers are still hesitant to push forward with a policy agenda too early on. “The fundamental focus is to accumulate as many as possible to raise awareness about the fundamental issues,” said Steven Safak, a University of Maryland student who’s been camped out near McPherson since Friday night. What were those issues? I asked. “Human rights, class differences, equal representation, corporatism,” he answered, adding that there would be another Occupy DC meeting to decide which of these decidedly broad action issues to prioritize. Safak admitted, however, that his personal interest is in combating “the clout that corporations have in the political system,” as well as unequal wealth distribution.

“The first step, maybe we can do mass boycotts of certain banks,” Safak said. In fact, earlier that day, Occupy DC had marched on a local branch of Bank of America, prompting bank officials to go to the police with a security complaint. Participants proudly described the event at the McPherson Square meeting, though I couldn’t get a good sense of what their objectives were or why Bank of America emerged as a specific target. (The bank’s announcement last week of higher debit card fees may have made the company an object of particular scorn.)

If the movement continues to grow, these questions about Occupy Wall Street’s ultimate goals and objectives will continue to surface. But Drew Veysey, a 24-year-old at the DC gathering, says that the target of corporate power should speak for itself at this stage. “It’s far too early to have actual policy steps,” says Veysey, a part-time policy researcher. “We need to be stepping back and getting out of our wonk shoes.”

(http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com)