According to Democracy Now! today,
Police in Boston raided the “Occupy Boston” encampment early this morning, arresting about 100 peaceful protesters in the latest crackdown on protests linked to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Some 200 police officers — including many in riot gear — approached the protest site at about 1:30 a.m. this morning. Police began making arrests after giving protesters two minutes to disperse. One Vietnam War Veteran said he was knocked to the ground during the arrest operation. Organizers of “Occupy Boston” said the police arrested a legal observer from the National Lawyers Guild and four medics who were attempting to care for protesters injured in the police raid. The arrests came hours after thousands of people marched in one of the largest protests organized by Occupy Boston.
Meanwhile in New York, Amy Goodman and her team have been on the scene, and have dedicated all of today’s show (besides the headlines) to interviews with people at OWS. Amy speaks with Justin Wedes, one of the original organizers about their use of consensus to make decisions (included in the video segment above). Also interviewed is Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation magazine, who notes the “moral clarity” developing from the movement. Dr. Gabor Maté visited the occupation, remarking on the connection between the stress of our economic environment, our medical and mental health, and how all of it impacts children. Other interviewees include an Iraq veteran, a member of an indigenous tribe and a real live investment banker who actually likes the democracy in action he sees in the movement. Rush transcripts are not all available for all segments yet, but you can watch individual segments of the broadcast here.
and a rich kid who gets it:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2180601525703&set=a.2154703558270.2099551.1566875609&type=1&theater
🙂
wow, fluidity — thank you for posting that comment from The Nation. ugh! co-opting is so ugly, esp when it isn’t even done well.
and speaking of presenting simple (or at least comprehensible) things as ‘incomprehensible – so why bother trying?’ (thanks, mystes!) check out this clip in the link below.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/alan-grayson-occupy-wall-street
now, alan grayson *is* a political candidate, so i’m hardly fawning over the guy. but i do like how he puts o’rourke in his place w/ a 37-second explanation of what the OWS movement is pissed off about. o’rourke was apparently trying to promote the b.s line about how they’re “so disorganized and confusing and blah blah blah”:
as the writer of the article notes, “It isn’t that the one percent and the Republicans who support them can’t understand Occupy Wall Street. It’s that they don’t want to. The message isn’t complicated.”
Do check out: “Some Basic Rules for Successful Radicals”
http://www.theygaveusarepublic.com/diary/9368/some-basic-rules-for-successful-radicals
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” –Mahatma Gandhi
“First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.”
— Nicholas Klein, May, 1919, to the Third Biennial Convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (misattributed to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1914 & variants).”
JannKinz
Yes, fluidity, the Nation’s statement inadvertently shows that the efforts “from the Left” (eh?) have not only accommodated a thoroughly corrupt techno-plutocracy, but committed slow suicide-by-boredom. Economics only has to be ‘the dismal science’ if it is rife with smoke & mirrors for the purpose of hiding money/value.
And that has been one of the controlling classes most unnoticed tools: the masses only need constant entertainment if they are convinced that ‘reality’ is so thick with technical balderdash that it takes postgraduate degrees to understand it.
Reality is wonderfully entertaining on its own, once people have something interesting and productive to DO.
Better shut it before someone figures out I’m a Marxist (uh-huh, Harpo was my fave).
I agree fluidity, I was listening to Amy Goodman interview Vanden Heuvel today. You could hear the struggle to sound ‘relevant and connected’ in her voice. She really sounded startled and insincere. I read another article lately, maybe Huffpo, trying to claim Occupy on behalf of Obama. Talk about insincere!
earlier in the day, Boston Police tweeted: “#occupyboston The BPD respects your right to protest peacefully. We ask for your ongoing cooperation. j.mp/oQHGzT” – and it’s not like the protests got non-peaceful, at least not until the police moved in
also, mentioning the editor of the Nation, here’s something relevant:
After playing up to the “young protesters” in a manner that would embarrass any honest participant (“The kids are alright! … Yes, they’re angry, but they are also searching and optimistic and, above all, they have taken matters into their own hands”), the Nation editors get down to the business at hand.
“But what does Occupy Wall Street want? Whether with condescension or curiosity, that is the question being posed to the young people whose brilliant act of symbolic politics has landed them in the spotlight. Wisely, they are taking their time answering it.”
The Nation praises the one statement issued by protest leaders, which criticizes corporations for placing profits over people, then engages in this transparent sleight of hand: “The fact is, we on the left don’t have a scarcity of policy ideas. We’ve staged big rallies with detailed demands. We’ve called for a financial transactions tax and abolishing the carried-interest tax loophole, which benefits Wall Streeters. But we have lacked the power to put our ideas into practice.”
Who is this “we on the left” identified with the miserable and futile proposal to institute a “financial transactions tax,” supported by billionaires Warren Buffett, George Soros and Bill Gates and right-wing French president Nicolas Sarkozy? Vanden Heuvel and the Nation pretend that everyone participating in the protests is as cowardly and satisfied with a slightly reorganized version of capitalism as they are.
– from http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/oct2011/nati-o07.shtml
oops – i meant next year for Amy.
Amy Goodman deserves a Nobel peace prize. Surely, there must be some way to make that happen this year. Congratulations to this year’s peace prize winners – the Goddess is at hand.