OCCUPY WALL STREET

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Corkey

Lets be clear. The Oakland police department came armed with several riot options. They encountered a peaceful protest and after being taunted with paint and a few rocks, which they were fully capable of protecting themselves from, lobbed tear gas in the direction of a person in a wheelchair, and used a flash bomb on a person who was UNarmed. Upon which Unarmed civilians trying to remove injured civilians from the scene were again flashed bombed. There is NO reason for any of this to have happened. The Mayor needs to answer to the people of Oakland and the police chief needs to answer why his officers used lethal force on unarmed civilians.

Just saw info on the person in the wheelchair- WTH?? I agree about the police being able to protect themselves against rocks and paint- they wear shields.

Good luck with the Mayor of Oakland answering for this! The Chief of Police just quit in Oakland last week due to poor relations with City Hall in Oakland.

What a mess.

[Sachita]

Originally Posted by AtLast

Just saw info on the person in the wheelchair- WTH?? I agree about the police being able to protect themselves against rocks and paint- they wear shields.

Good luck with the Mayor of Oakland answering for this! The Chief of Police just quit in Oakland last week due to poor relations with City Hall in Oakland.

What a mess.

you would think by now that all law enforcement would be prepped to handle this in a non-violent way.

[Cin]

So they are rebuilding...

Tension remains at Occupy Oakland even as action abates


OAKLAND -- The volatile Occupy Oakland movement experienced something of a detente Thursday as protesters, police and city officials retrenched under the world's increasingly critical eyes.

Protesters started rebuilding a tent city that had been removed by police Tuesday night at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, in front of City Hall. Mayor Jean Quan, whose approval of the raid brought condemnation from pundits and protesters, was quiet Thursday amid questions over whether the camp would be allowed to remain on the plaza.

Meanwhile, an Iraq War veteran who was critically injured by a projectile believed to be fired or thrown by police Tuesday prepared for surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old former Marine, had improved slightly Thursday at Highland Hospital and was able to breathe on his own for the first time since the injury, said his roommate, Keith Shannon of Daly City.

Several tents were back up in the plaza by Thursday afternoon and occupiers were expanding a shrine to Olsen built around the base of a memorial to military veterans.

Vita McDonnell, 24, who was arrested in Tuesday morning's raid of the encampment, brought a box of candles and notebook in which she is asking people to write notes of encouragement to Olsen and reflections of events of the past several days.

"He was protesting our arrests," said McDonnell, a health-care assistant. "I felt very touched by it. This is really something I had to
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do."

Tuesday morning's police raid "felt like we were under attack. It was like a war zone," she said. After 13 hours in custody, mostly at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, she was released with a citation of unlawful assembly, she said.

As protesters held vigils and expressed anger over Olsen's injury, police were tight-lipped Thursday about the incident. Oakland's interim police chief, Howard Jordan, said investigators were still piecing together accounts from more than a dozen police
departments that sent officers to Oakland for the raid on the encampment.

Olsen's injury prompted vehement anger toward police during protesters' march around the city Wednesday night, but Jordan would not speculate whether the Daly City man had been hit by a police projectile such as a tear-gas canister, rubber bullet, wooden dowel or something else. At least one police department suggested officers may not be to blame for the incident.

"I haven't seen much, but given the nature of that individual's injuries, I'm wondering if he wasn't struck by something thrown by a demonstrator," said Chief Dennis Burns, of the Palo Alto Police Department.

Oakland police violated their own crowd-control rules, which call for medical services to be available when tear gas and other control measures are used, said Jim Chanin, a civil-rights attorney who has fought for police reform.

Thursday's lull left more questions than answers about the future of Occupy Oakland, which has leapt to the forefront of the nationwide Occupy movement targeting banks, big business and a slate of other social and economic issues. The East Bay protests have captivated talk-show hosts such as Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann, and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore announced Thursday on Twitter that he would arrive at the Oakland site Friday.

[Cin]

Wednesday evening, Occupy Oakland protesters returned to Frank Ogawa Plaza for a relatively peaceful rally and march. Most of the anticipated action was in San Francisco, where a clash with police never materialized.

On Thursday morning, two tents were pitched on the square in from of City Hall at 14th Street and Broadway

9:20 a.m.: Two tents and fence `sculpture' on Oakland plaza

Two tents remain on the plaza after the previous night's rally. About a dozen people camped overnight, it appears without city intervention.

What's really attracting attention is a stack of cyclone fence, the remnants of a barrier that had been erected around the lawn area but was torn down by protesters. The stack of fencing resembles a sculpture and many people are walking up to take pictures of it. A police officer just went over to snap a shot as well.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

Wednesday evening, Occupy Oakland protesters returned to Frank Ogawa Plaza for a relatively peaceful rally and march. Most of the anticipated action was in San Francisco, where a clash with police never materialized.

On Thursday morning, two tents were pitched on the square in from of City Hall at 14th Street and Broadway

9:20 a.m.: Two tents and fence `sculpture' on Oakland plaza

Two tents remain on the plaza after the previous night's rally. About a dozen people camped overnight, it appears without city intervention.

What's really attracting attention is a stack of cyclone fence, the remnants of a barrier that had been erected around the lawn area but was torn down by protesters. The stack of fencing resembles a sculpture and many people are walking up to take pictures of it. A police officer just went over to snap a shot as well.

The picture in my original post changed. It was the "when they give you fences make sculpture" pic when I went to bed and it is "Iraq Veterans Against The War joined Occupy Oakland supporters to hold a vigil for Scott Olsen in front of city hall yesterday"pic when I woke up. I guess the picture will change frequently. That should prove interesting albeit puzzling as time passes.

Anyway here's a pic of fence sculpture.

[Dominique]

OCTOBER 17, 2011 Borrowed from the City Paper
Occupy Pittsburgh and other activists come calling at Toomey's office


BY LAUREN DALEY


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Participants in the Occupy Pittsburgh movement ventured out from their Mellon Green encampment and to protest outside Sen. Pat Toomey's office today, demanding he "[s]top working for Wall Street and start working for us."


The Occupy campers joined One Pittsburgh and its offshoot action, the People's Lobby, in front of Toomey's Station Square office building at noon today. There, they denounced the Republican Senator's vote against the American Jobs Act. The action was among those that Occupy participants consented to supporting this week. They also plan to picket BNY Mellon -- which owns the Mellon Green site they are camping on -- this Wednesday.
The roughly three dozen activists on hand were joined by county councilor Amanda Green. "A lot of people think of me as an elected official, but that's just a part-time job," she said into the bullhorn. "I've got a full-time job. I've got bills to pay. I've got student loans. I understand what it's like to not be able to make ends meet."
Green made an impassioned speech from below Toomey's office window. "You need to be able to explain how, at almost 9 percent unemployment rate in this county, you vote 'no' on the [American Jobs Act]," she said. "It's unacceptable and ridiculous to me."
Toomey, protesters say, hasn't offered much of a response to their concerns. "At every meeting, his staff leads us nowhere," says Corey Buckner, a 24-year-old Garfield resident and member of One Pittsburgh.
Toomey has issued this statement on the ACA vote:
President Obama's latest stimulus bill contains hundreds of billions of dollars in increased spending and more tax hikes, which won't create jobs any more than his last stimulus bill did. With the unemployment rate at 9.1 percent, we do not have time to waste on political games and big tax increases that will only make our economy weaker for all Americans
Instead, I support a real jobs plan, which will reduce burdensome regulations that are preventing businesses from hiring; ratify three pending free trade agreements that will increase Pennsylvania's exports; simplify and reduce business and individual tax rates to encourage job-creating business expansions; and get our federal deficits under control, among other pro-growth measures. This plan will actually create jobs.
The protesters, meanwhile, called for Toomey's impeachment for his allegiance to corporations and big banks. And while One Pittsburgh and the People's Lobby aren't directly part of the Occupy Pittsburgh movement, or vice versa, activists like Buckner say the movements go hand-in-hand. "We're all here for the same thing," he said. "We want what Americans have been promised people forever: freedom and the ability to work."
After protesting for about 45 minutes, the group headed back across the Smithfield Bridge and into Downtown, shouting rants against Toomey and singing: "Everywhere we go, people want to know who we are," one lyric went. "So we tell them: We are the 99!"
Onlookers seemed mostly amused or inquisitive. One man yelled, as he flicked his cigarette in the trash, "This is what you get for voting against Arlen Specter, you dumbasses!" Another man, walking behind the protest, asked, "Are they shouting against Toomey?"
Told they were, he smiled. "I can agree with that."
Meanwhile, Downtown workers have been scoping out the Mellon Green encampment that has suddenly appeared amidst the city's skyscrapers. Some workers milled around the encampment during the morning rush and lunch hour, reading signs posted on the fence around the parklet's fountain.
"Keep up the good work!" one woman in a business suit yelled as she passed by on Grant. Another man sidled up to protestor Steve Cooper and said, "Ok, what do I need to know?"
Not everyone was receptive to the message: Occupiers have been keeping a tally of how many times a passerby instructs them to "get a job!" -- and that number is now in the dozens.
But as camper Doug Placais, 27, of the city's Allentown neighborhood puts it: "For every one person who walks by and yells 'get a job' there's been a positive honk or someone yelling in support."

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Yellow band

I support a real jobs plan, which will reduce burdensome regulations that are preventing businesses from hiring; ratify three pending free trade agreements that will increase Pennsylvania's exports; simplify and reduce business and individual tax rates to encourage job-creating business expansions; and get our federal deficits under control, among other pro-growth measures. This plan will actually create jobs.

You know it concerns me that our elected officials, elected by the people and supposedly working for the people, can continue to spout this rhetoric. I am sure they have an understanding of how the economy works and how it could be fixed, they know what they are saying are lies, yet they continue to spread these untruths.

How will continued and increased tax breaks for corporations, who if not stopped will continue to bring jobs out of the country where there is cheaper labor, ever, ever create jobs for Americans? How can our elected officials not know this? They do know it. Yet they continue to tell us different because they believe the majority of people are too stupid to figure it out. So there is no harm for them in lying to us.

Free trade agreements aren’t very helpful for creating jobs when we continue to import so much more than we export. No jobs there. It would be helpful if, at least, we could tax imports from. U.S. corporations that are U.S. in ownership only. Meaning they provide no U.S. jobs, no goods are produced in U.S., no raw materials are purchased in the U.S. These corporations should be treated like foreign corporations and should pay to import their products to the U.S. So why don’t our elected officials understand this simple reality. Free trade agreements won’t get us jobs. Are they stupid or do they believe we are stupid?

I shudder to imagine what could define burdensome regulations. We don’t even have enough regulations in place to stop the financial sector from destroying the economy of the world. How much less regulations could we possibly survive with? How can any official, given the jam that a lack of regulation just got us into, say with a straight face that we need less of these burdensome regulations? It’s like the mayor of Oakland saying that Oakland needs a more aggressive police department. She would never say that because it would be political suicide. But politicians feel no such qualms about telling us we need to deregulate. Why? Do they think we are so stupid they can get away with that? They seem to be getting away with it.

The federal deficit would get in control much easier if we hadn’t had to bailout those poor over-regulated financial terrorists. But I doubt curtailing handouts to the wealthy is what the 1% has in mind when they speak of getting the deficits under control. They mean austerity measures (social genocide).

So let me see if I can get this straight. The deficit is so bad because the financial sector engaged in actions that [purposely (hard to believe that they could ignore all the warnings and still plead ignorance) or accidentally because of greed and disinterest in consequences – you choose which you believe] are destroying the world’s economy (which destruction, if they place their bets correctly, could even make them money –so really what is in it for them if we have economic recovery) and we the 99% had to bail them out. And we had to bail them out despite the reality that of all the people hurt by their actions they suffered least, if at all, and that the 1% has plenty of money, the banks have plenty of money, everyone who is anyone in finance is still making money hand over fist, but just they don’t have money they wish to share. Then to add injury to insult we have to be squeezed and nickel and dimed to death. The 1% continues to insist on tax breaks and deregulation and bailouts and bonuses and whatnot that benefit them and that will inevitably erase the middle class, crush the working class and leave the poor hopeless. Rather than raise taxes for the rich they would rather subject the rest of us to untold pain and suffering.

They talk like the things they are saying make perfect sense and deserve to be taken seriously as an answer to our economic woes. It’s as though we should take seriously the idea that perhaps the sun does indeed revolve around the earth after all.

[Sachita]

Does anyone remember this? How profound George was. RIP

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

You know it concerns me that our elected officials, elected by the people and supposedly working for the people, can continue to spout this rhetoric. I am sure they have an understanding of how the economy works and how it could be fixed, they know what they are saying are lies, yet they continue to spread these untruths.

How will continued and increased tax breaks for corporations, who if not stopped will continue to bring jobs out of the country where there is cheaper labor, ever, ever create jobs for Americans? How can our elected officials not know this? They do know it. Yet they continue to tell us different because they believe the majority of people are too stupid to figure it out. So there is no harm for them in lying to us.

Free trade agreements aren’t very helpful for creating jobs when we continue to import so much more than we export. No jobs there. It would be helpful if, at least, we could tax imports from. U.S. corporations that are U.S. in ownership only. Meaning they provide no U.S. jobs, no goods are produced in U.S., no raw materials are purchased in the U.S. These corporations should be treated like foreign corporations and should pay to import their products to the U.S. So why don’t our elected officials understand this simple reality. Free trade agreements won’t get us jobs. Are they stupid or do they believe we are stupid?

I shudder to imagine what could define burdensome regulations. We don’t even have enough regulations in place to stop the financial sector from destroying the economy of the world. How much less regulations could we possibly survive with? How can any official, given the jam that a lack of regulation just got us into, say with a straight face that we need less of these burdensome regulations? It’s like the mayor of Oakland saying that Oakland needs a more aggressive police department. She would never say that because it would be political suicide. But politicians feel no such qualms about telling us we need to deregulate. Why? Do they think we are so stupid they can get away with that? They seem to be getting away with it.

The federal deficit would get in control much easier if we hadn’t had to bailout those poor over-regulated financial terrorists. But I doubt curtailing handouts to the wealthy is what the 1% has in mind when they speak of getting the deficits under control. They mean austerity measures (social genocide).

So let me see if I can get this straight. The deficit is so bad because the financial sector engaged in actions that [purposely (hard to believe that they could ignore all the warnings and still plead ignorance) or accidentally because of greed and disinterest in consequences – you choose which you believe] are destroying the world’s economy (which destruction, if they place their bets correctly, could even make them money –so really what is in it for them if we have economic recovery) and we the 99% had to bail them out. And we had to bail them out despite the reality that of all the people hurt by their actions they suffered least, if at all, and that the 1% has plenty of money, the banks have plenty of money, everyone who is anyone in finance is still making money hand over fist, but just they don’t have money they wish to share. Then to add injury to insult we have to be squeezed and nickel and dimed to death. The 1% continues to insist on tax breaks and deregulation and bailouts and bonuses and whatnot that benefit them and that will inevitably erase the middle class, crush the working class and leave the poor hopeless. Rather than raise taxes for the rich they would rather subject the rest of us to untold pain and suffering.

They talk like the things they are saying make perfect sense and deserve to be taken seriously as an answer to our economic woes. It’s as though we should take seriously the idea that perhaps the sun does indeed revolve around the earth after all.

they're still clinging to the notion of trickle down economics, which, as we've seen, doesn't work. they keep talking this trash but never mention that the largest corporations in this country are literally sitting on a collective trillions of dollars in cash. TRILLIONS! of CASH! they aren't spending shit and we are the most deregulated we've ever been since after the Depression. the bottom line is they have no other answers. it's all lip service. they really don't have any other ammo in their arsenal. the same old spewing of nonsense is all they've got.