Protest in NY: "Occupy Wall Street"

[televator]

I've tried to come up with a good explanatory article, but a google search turns up a handful of obscure articles that lack much substance about this protest or can be taken as "one-sided".

It also seems there's media blackout on this. I just barely found out about it myself and I fucking live in this regressive country!

Here's some coverage by Pooka:





Some of the few details I have managed to gleam is that attendance numbers are everywhere. Some up to 50k, others say a couple hundred....I have no idea what source to trust on this. Either way, it doesn't excuse the lack of coverage as most tea party rallies have been rather small in attendance, but you'll often see that major media outlets all over that like white on rice. Also, police had to use some outdated law about more than 2 people wearing masks at a party to arrest/remove protesters from some area. It also appears that this protest has been going on for days and is expected to keep going.

 

[Dean]

A-HA! Thank you for posting this. I'm glad someone else noticed. It's ironic that despite the fact of the protests on Wall Street, whose coverage is being suppressed and downplayed by the press (and hashtag reports of it not being trended by Twitter.) Mainstream information on it is hard to come by, not even on Huffington Post, oddly enough, at least until the 19th September. It's difficult to see what the real story is over in the good ole' U S of A...

ABC News: Protesters Begin Effort to 'Occupy Wall Street'

CBS News: Protestors in NYC Blasts Money In Politics

What scarce mainstream information was found, such as ABC and CBS, mostly gave preparatory notice or incipient reportage, then blogs and news mills seemed to be the only sources. Conflicting accounts have been disseminated: there was no event, there was an event; hundreds turned out, thousands turned out (even in the tens); the event was shut down, the event is on-going, etc.

In keeping with the likes of CNN (tucked away in their money section), CBS and ABC, Al-Jazeera's produced a cryptic stream that dried up and BBC's reportage appears non-existent. The best exposure I got was from a RT News clip. I still have no idea how to put together the scant coverage means, short a lingering sense that there was the tacit collusion of a media blackout, for what happened on Wall Street can't exactly be called a non-event by journalistic standards, despite its disappointingly low attendance.

For an opposing view, see Zombie's post on it: http://zombietime.com/day_of_fail/

Here is a truism that you may enjoy:

 

[televator]

Here is a truism that you may enjoy:

Seeing the eclipsing effect of corporate media against inconvenient truth, I'm afraid I find myself agreeing more with that sort of posturing now... Being civil only means that the bullies can push you aside so that they may continue their criminal acts. Being civil works if the laws of the land are behind you, but the law is now bought along with everything else.

People might say that civil protest worked in the old days...well yeah, before ALL the news outlets were lap dogs to the establishment.

 

[Welshidiot]

You guys should really have a riot about it,....it worked really well over this side of the pond. :facepalm:

 

[ImprobableJoe]

You guys have to understand that Fox "News" and CNN are both official sponsors of "Tea Party" nonsense, even though the "Tea Party" is a corporate- and Republican-funded and organized non-movement of the same old shithead racist right-wing Republicans who supported Bush until he embarrassed the party.

 

[televator]

You guys have to understand that Fox "News" and CNN are both official sponsors of "Tea Party" nonsense, even though the "Tea Party" is a corporate- and Republican-funded and organized non-movement of the same old shithead racist right-wing Republicans who supported Bush until he embarrassed the party.

Yes, but this is definitely the clearest example I have seen of just about all the networks truly working in unison. This isn't just fox news and CNN. The coverage on this is a pitiful display across all networks.

You guys should really have a riot about it,....it worked really well over this side of the pond. :facepalm:

Yeah, you're right. Angry mobs are hard to control. Too much misdirected violence. Still, I can't help but think that it may just come to that anyway.

 

[Dean]

You guys have to understand that Fox "News" and CNN are both official sponsors of "Tea Party" nonsense, even though the "Tea Party" is a corporate- and Republican-funded and organized non-movement of the same old shithead racist right-wing Republicans who supported Bush until he embarrassed the party.

I suppose that would serve as an explanation of the evident black-out (nearly so) of Media at this point ...

 

[kenandkids]

Well, now that Teafucks have shown up it is actually getting some attention...

After a full week the protest is finally getting media attention... What is wrong with the world when wingnuts like the tea party are the only cover-able people or stories?

http://www.freewoodpost.com/2011/09/23/tea-party-crashes-occupy-wall-street-protest-finally-brings-press-to-event/

 

[televator]

If I had a bus paid for by corporate shills willing to drive my ass out to NY, I'd go there too...

 

[televator]

More from Pooka:

 

[UrbanMasque]

You guys should really have a riot about it,....it worked really well over this side of the pond. :facepalm:

Non violent protesting is nothing but a circle jerk, sometimes literally. Someone in another thread told me that violent protesters cloud the issue. These are very peaceful and passive protesters in NYC getting their necks stomped and maced. BUT they DO have one solid message.. still NO COVERAGE.

Violent protests alone make you a terrorist.
Non Violent protests alone make you fodder.
They need to exist equally in order to get a point across.

Before picketing people need to ask - What is the point of my protest? What do I want to achieve - short term/long term? What has worked? What hasn't worked? and, most importantly, WHO am I trying to reach with my message?

 

[televator]

Don't like being called a fascist? Rough them up, arrest them, and spray some pepper spray at random. That'll show 'em that you aren't a fascist...

 

[PAB]

Its only when you see scenes like this or experience them, as i did in the uk with the student protests, that you really begin to understand the essential function of the police and the state.

"The second distinguishing feature is the establishment of a public power which no longer directly coincides with the population organizing itself as an armed force. This special, public power is necessary because a self-acting armed organization of the population has become impossible since the split into classes.... This public power exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men but also of material adjuncts, prisons, and institutions of coercion of all kinds, of which gentile [clan] society knew nothing...."

The police exist above all to protect private property and the interests of the ruling capitalist class.

"Because the state arose from the need to hold class antagonisms in check, but because it arose, at the same time, in the midst of the conflict of these classes, it is, as a rule, the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class, and thus acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class...." The ancient and feudal states were organs for the exploitation of the slaves and serfs; likewise, "the modern representative state is an instrument of exploitation of wage-labor by capital. By way of exception, however, periods occur in which the warring classes balance each other so nearly that the state power as ostensible mediator acquires, for the moment, a certain degree of independence of both...." Such were the absolute monarchies of the 17th and 18th centuries, the Bonapartism of the First and Second Empires in France, and the Bismarck regime in Germany.

- quotes by Engles ( taken from state and revolution by lenin)

 

[televator]

IDK if anyone really cares to know (I'm a little disappointed in the lack of activity in this thread), but to clarify in that last set of vids I posted, there was a girl inside of one of those orange police nets that was shouting "Fascist!" at the police. That's all she did. One of the Officers really had his feelings hurt by that, (must've been on a 'roid rage that day) so he pulls her from behind the net very aggressively and arrests her. After he deals with her, he comes back, and -- with out any provocation -- maces the other non aggressive, 90 pound, girls that were just standing next to the girl who was shouting "Fascist!" and leaves them there. I think he also maced a couple of other cops in the area.

"To protect and serve" ...or some kind of bullshit like that right? One cop sprays the girls and the others just stand around and ignore them. That's some service there...

 

[kenandkids]

Also, the cops details have been released to the public by anonymous.

http://thedailyattack.com/2011/09/27/anonymous-leaks-personal-details-of-cop-who-pepper-sprayed-wall-street-protesters/

 

[televator]

While corporate media makes fun of the "low turnout" in New York, occupations are starting up in other cities now.

http://occupytogether.org/

Like I said about the corporate backed buses of the tea baggers, these demonstrators don't have that luxury of being able to gather in greater numbers in one specific area because of that.

 

[UrbanMasque]

(I'm a little disappointed in the lack of activity in this thread).

As am I, especially given the amount of dialogue generated by the G20 summit.
I take the lack of activity as people acknowledging the situation for what it is and finding it harder and harder to rationalize peaceful demonstration.

While corporate media makes fun of the "low turnout" in New York, occupations are starting up in other cities now.

I hope they plan on doing more than occupying, or else we can plan on seeing a repeat in police response. Or maybe a preemptive police presence given how "popular" this movement might become.

 

[Prolescum]

The lack of activity in this thread, at least from me, is because they aren't protesting anything concrete so I don't see why I should give a fuck. Standing around saying bankers are teh evilz doesn't exactly endear me to their plight. The police always treat protesters as criminals, so there's no surprise there, ergo no desire or need to comment.

While it may be de rigueur for many sophomores and local hippies at the moment, the aimlessness displayed is just embarrassing.

/protested actual causes for most of the nineties.

 

[UrbanMasque]

The lack of activity in this thread, at least from me, is because they aren't protesting anything concrete so I don't see why I should give a fuck. Standing around saying bankers are teh evilz doesn't exactly endear me to their plight. The police always treat protesters as criminals, so there's no surprise there, ergo no desire or need to comment.

While it may be de rigueur for many sophomores and local hippies at the moment, the aimlessness displayed is just embarrassing.

/protested actual causes for most of the nineties.

Embarrassing? Actual causes? Lets give this man a hand for his services - his retirement from protesting injustice is well deserved. When you see a legitimate cause I should get behind, please let me know and let the masses know how to go about addressing it. I'm glad the causes you protested, at that moment, in the 90's did so much to make life better for the rest of us.
Sorry to have disturbed you sir.
Shant happen again.

tbh, I would've preferred silence to THAT response.

 

[Prolescum]

I also don't give a flying fuck what kind of response you prefer; I don't post to order, but to express my view. Don't like it? Don't fucking respond or tell me why my view is bunk.

If you're unable to articulate why you're out there, perhaps you should've smoked fewer joints.