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October 5, 2011

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George Soros’ Sympathy For Wall Street Protesters

October 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Billionaire investor George Soros says he can sympathise with the ongoing protests on Wall Street, which have spread to other US cities.

He said he understood the anger at the use of taxpayers’ cash to prop up stricken banks, allowing them to earn huge profits.

Soros is directly involved with the wall street protests in an effort to control them without people knowing it. Click here.

A large rally is planned for Wednesday in New York City, with backing from union groups.

More than 700 protesters were arrested on Saturday on Brooklyn Bridge.

The demonstrations - based at Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street and the Federal Reserve - are now entering their third week.

Answering questions during a news conference at UN headquarters, Mr Soros said: “The decision not to inject capital into the banks, but to effectively relieve them of their bad assets and then allow them to earn their way out of a hole leaves the banks bumper profits and then allows them to pay bumper bonuses.”

Mr Soros was announcing a gift of $40m (£26m) to a development project in Africa.

‘Corporate zombies’

Protests continued on Monday in New York, with many under the Occupy Wall Street banner dressing up as corporate zombies, eating fake money.

One of the protesters, John Hildebrand, 24, an unemployed teacher from the US state of Oklahoma, told the Associated Press news agency: “My issue is corporate influence in politics. I would like to eliminate corporate financing from politics.”

A large rally is planned for Wednesday.

Last Thursday, the United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union, which has 38,000 members, pledged support for the protests.

The transport union said it would put its financial and personnel muscle behind Wednesday’s rally.

In Los Angeles on Monday, an anti-Wall Street demonstration was held outside the court where Michael Jackson’s doctor is being tried for manslaughter.

Protests were held in recent days in Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago in front of their respective cities’ Federal Reserve buildings. A march was also held in Columbus, Ohio.

A rally is planned, too, for later this month in the Canadian city of Toronto.

On Saturday, 700 protesters were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, where traffic was halted for several hours.

The protesters won support from actor Alec Baldwin, who posted videos on his Twitter page that had already been widely circulated.

One appeared to show police using pepper spray on a group of women, another a young man being tackled to the ground by an officer.

“This is unsettling,” Baldwin wrote. “I think the NYPD has a PR problem.”

But the NYPD said the marchers had been warned many times not to stray on to the road, and released video footage on Sunday showing protesters chanting “take the bridge”.

Source:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15155046

See also:

https://exposingthetruth.info/an-emergency-program-for-anti-wall-street-protestors-don’t-let-soros-hijack-the-movement/

Filed Under: #Occupy, Protests

An Emergency Program for Anti-Wall Street Protestors: Don’t Let Soros Hijack the Movement

October 3, 2011 By 5 Comments

Political mass strike dynamics have been at work in the United States since the Wisconsin and Ohio mobilizations of February and March. Now, there are demonstrations in lower Manhattan and Boston specifically directed against the Wall Street banks. Another protest demonstration is scheduled for Washington, DC, starting on October 6. Good: a political challenge to Wall Street is indeed long overdue.

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are skeptical in regard to Obama. There is no sizable constituency for Ron Paul, and the crackpot Austrian school of economics is hardly represented. Above all, there is a desire to break the power of Wall Street. This much is promising, but still not enough to win.

The demonstrations appear initially as leaderless groups, engaged in an organic process of discussion from which specific demands are supposed to emerge. But so far, these demonstrations have put forth no specific demands, reforms, or concrete measures whatsoever to fight Wall Street. This is a fatal political weakness. A movement that attempts to go forward with vague slogans like “Freedom” or “Abolish capitalism” is likely to become easy prey for foundation-funded operatives on the left wing of the Democratic Party.

If a movement pretends to have no leaders, then it is the corporate media, themselves controlled by Wall Street, who will choose the leaders. A few days ago, a Wall Street protester named Kelly Heresy was anointed as principal honcho by Keith Olbermann, who used to work for the hedge fund called General Electric, and who now works for Al Gore. This is no way to select leaders.

The demonstrations may appear spontaneous, but it is easy to see gatekeepers and countergangs operating in their midst, often with a frank counterinsurgency agenda. Occupy Wall Street in particular shows the heavy influence of union bureaucrats from the Service Employees International Union, as well as Acorn – both parts of the Obama machine. The goal of these operatives is to keep the focus of the protests vague and diffuse, so that no demands emerge that might be embarrassing to the Wall Street puppet Obama and his re-election campaign. Their ultimate goal is to absorb the protests as the left wing of the Obama 2012 effort. That means supporting an administration which not only refuses to fight Wall Street, but which is packed with Wall Street executives in its highest positions.

Dubious Hollywood figures like Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore are attempting to gain publicity for themselves by showing up at the demonstrations. Michael Moore, who is not very popular with the demonstrators, was instrumental in leading the antiwar and impeachment movements of the past decade back into the Democratic Party to support Obama. Journalist Matt Taibbi, another newly minted expert on the movement, is remembered for his hatchet jobs in favor of the Bush administration theory of terrorism.

The organizers of the Wall Street action say they want to imitate recent protests in other countries. Their favorite is the Tahrir Square agitation in Egypt in February. But if you go to Cairo today, veterans of those demonstrations will tell you that these efforts accomplished relatively little, and mainly had the effect of ousting an oppressive civilian government in favor of an even more oppressive military government of weak CIA puppets which is still operating under martial law, even as benighted religious fanatics gather strength. In Greece, it is true that the trade unions have mounted a dozen general strikes, but all of these have failed to oust Prime Minister Papandreou, the main enforcer of austerity cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund, and so the brutal austerity continues. The same thing applies to Spain, where the indignados became so self-absorbed in their discussion and consensus process that they never put forward a program to save Spanish society from the bankers. In Iceland too, the anti-bank movement was never able to go beyond mere protest to advance a series of concrete measures that would allow them to contend for power, take power, and hold onto it for the public good.

The lesson of all of these situations is that, in a severe world economic depression of the kind we have today, mere protest is not enough. Desperate populations are looking for political leadership with solutions capable of solving the life or death issues facing nations today. A movement which is incapable of specifying what it intends to fight for is an immature movement which no intelligent person will take seriously.

The secret of a mass strike upsurge is that crisis conditions will propel many apolitical people into activism. This makes them vulnerable to manipulation by demagogues, including those of the extreme right. The mass strike upsurge by itself solves nothing. The question is whether any coherent group of people can intervene into the mass upsurge and push aside bankrupt and failed leaders with the kind of radical reform program that can actually get the society out of the crisis. The masses cannot discover this program on their own – they are too busy with the struggle for daily existence. College students therefore have a special responsibility to provide ideas for the benefit of the entire society. If an adequate program becomes dominant, the nation can survive. Otherwise, nothing guarantees that civilization itself will not collapse – look at the Tea Party if you don’t believe this. Soros, Koch, and the other finance capitalists have a good working understanding of how these things work, which is why they are sending in their operatives to make sure that this movement will have only the vaguest demands, or no demands at all, to fight for. Let that happen, and Wall Street will rule the day once again.

Despite what Michael Moore may think, the political power of Wall Street is considerable, and an effective attack on the bankers will demand the unified efforts of key sectors of the population. This unity must be expressed in the program itself. Students must broaden the sociological scope of the movement to include all walks of life.

In order to fight Wall Street, it is necessary for the American people to understand the basic idea of shifting the cost of the world economic depression off of the backs of working people and the poor where it is now, and onto Wall Street banks and super-rich speculators. Depressions are very expensive. Who should pay for the current depression? The bankers demand that the American people must pay. We want the bankers to pay, and we must specify how. A movement that wants to defend working people against the class warfare of the bankers has the responsibility of putting forward a program to defend middle-class and other working people. In order to win, the anti-Wall Street protests must agitate for a series of demands including the following:

1. Student Loan Amnesty. The common experience of many of the protesters is that of being crushed by an outrageous burden of high interest student loans. Today it is common for graduating seniors to carry $50,000, $75,000, or even $100,000 of debt. Add the costs of an advanced degree in teaching, law, or medicine, and the debt burden becomes astronomical. The exorbitant cost of a college education reflects the increasing immiseration of the United States over the past 40 years, as the overall standard of living has declined by two thirds or more in terms of real wages and other considerations. These debts are owed to the same zombie bankers who cashed in on the Bush bailout of 2008, and the even larger loans issued by Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve over recent years. This is a system of brutal primitive accumulation against the life chances everyone who knows that they need a college degree to be employable in the 21st century. Total students loan indebtedness is now approaching $1 trillion. This grinding debt is destroying the futures, the lives, and the hopes of college students and recent graduates.
When a debtor country like Greece is unable to pay its debts, it is normal to hear talk of a haircut for the bondholders and bankers. It is time for the Wall Street zombie banks to take a haircut on student loan debt. Most of this debt cannot be paid off, but an entire generation can be ruined by a futile attempt to pay it back.

A leading demand must therefore be a total cancellation of all outstanding student loan debt, meaning a total and immediate forgiveness of all payments of principal and interest coming from this category of borrowing. Carter granted Vietnam draft resisters an amnesty. If Obama wants to keep his job, he must deliver a student loan amnesty to save not just a single generation, but the entire future of the United States and beyond. Otherwise, dump Obama in 2012! The zombie bankers have been pampered enough. It is time for them to take a bath, so that a generation might live. This is also the best stimulus program possible.

2. Stop Foreclosures. Since students alone will never be enough to make a revolution, it is necessary to put forward additional measures to defend other parts of the population from the depredations of Wall Street. In the area of home foreclosures, the bankers have trampled on the law to seize millions of homes, some of which never had a mortgage, and many of which were current in their payments. The banks have used corrupt robo-signers, robo-cops, and robo-judges to carry out these fraudclosure thefts. The answer is to make foreclosure a federal crime, so that anyone who throws an American family out on the street will end up in Leavenworth. Again, the zombie bankers can eat the losses, which are unavoidable in any case. This is not an impossible demand: under the New Deal, the Frazier-Lemke Act stopped all foreclosures on homes, provided only that the owners could get a minimal payment plan approved by any judge in any court. With the help of popular pressure and public opinion, foreclosures virtually came to a halt. This is what we need to be demanding today.

3. Defend and fully fund the social safety net. Wall Street and Washington elites agree that the American people ought to be subjected to genocidal austerity – cuts so draconian that they will kill people. The goal is obviously to fund bigger and better bailouts of Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase when they go bankrupt the next time around. Real unemployment in the United States is now about 25%, meaning that 30 million people cannot find work, and many have been looking for years. Therefore, we need to extend jobless benefits to all unemployed, including those who have been out of a job for 99 weeks and more. 46 million Americans are now surviving thanks to Food Stamps, but the reactionary Republicans are demanding savage cuts, and Obama is more than likely to cave. We also need to defend programs that specifically help children and young. These include S-CHIP, which gives health care to poor children; Head Start, which provides breakfast and preschool for poor kids; and WIC, which provides high-protein meals for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and infants. Older people have special problems, including that Wall Street speculators have destroyed the value of their 401(k) and IRA retirement plans. This means that Social Security pensions should be increased, and not cut, as the Republicans and Obama both want. Obama has already cut $500 billion out of Medicare, but he wants to cut it even more, and the Tea Party is eager to help him. The best healthcare would be to open Medicare to all Americans, while making the investments needed to maintain quality. Medicaid gives healthcare to poor people of any age, and these payments must be maintained.

4. Pay for healthcare and social services with a 1% Wall Street Sales Tax. When they hear demands like these, Fox news commentators will demand to know how these programs can be paid for. The answer is simple: the Tobin tax or Wall Street sales tax. Today the total financial turnover of the banksters in terms of buying, selling, and other trading comes to well over three quadrillion dollars yearly – that’s more than 3,000 trillion dollars. The rest of us pay sales tax on most purchases, often including the groceries, but Wall Street zombie bankers and hedge fund hyenas pay absolutely zero on that colossal sum. The most unfair aspect of the entire US tax system is that Wall Street pays virtually no taxes. It is time for the bankers to cough up 1% of every stock, bond, and derivatives transaction, be it program trading, high frequency trading, or computerized flash trading at the rate of one million transactions per second. The total revenue could be split between the federal government and the states, and would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps even trillions – depending on how determined the speculators are to keep up their dirty deals. There is nothing impossible about this demand: the federal government had a financial transaction tax from the time of World War I in 1967. And even today, the largely right wing governments of the European Union are about to enact their own Tobin tax. Why can’t it be done here as well?

These are immediate agitational demands that can be readily understood by any person. They can form the leading edge of a struggle to break the political power of Wall Street. In addition, a full recovery from depression and the attainment of full employment for the first time since 1945 will require the nationalization of the Federal Reserve, and the issuing of successive tranches of $1 trillion of 0%, very long-term Federal credit for the building of infrastructure, with a goal of creating 30 million new productive jobs with adequate capital investment per job.

Another essential point is that Wall Street is the biggest nest of warmongers anywhere in the world. Anyone seeking to gain influence over the anti-Wall Street movement should be willing to condemn and denounce Obama’s wanton aggression against Libya, as well as to call for an immediate pullout of US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. Anyone who refuses to do this should be regarded with grave suspicion.

The alternative to such concrete demands is, whether we like it or not, to remain in the orbit of Obama’s Democratic Party. Earlier this year, students, workers, and others occupied the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin in response to attacks on working people coming from the fascist governor, Walker. The resistance against Walker was betrayed first of all by the Democratic Party, which announced that it would not fight for wages and benefits, but only for trade union rights in the abstract. That is a good program for trade union bureaucrats, but not so good for working people, who bore the brunt of Walker’s austerity. A president who was on the side of the people would have gone immediately to Madison, Wisconsin to hold a town hall on the occupied grounds of the state capitol, an event that would have looked much different than the canned, pre-screened teleprompter town halls Obama likes to address. A real president would have taken Attorney General Holder and Labor Secretary Solis along to investigate the denial of civil rights and labor violations by Walker. Obama did none of these things. Rather, he damned the movement with a few words of faint praise, and cut it loose. The lesson is that the Democratic Party is more than willing to sell out mass struggles anytime it can. And it is only by having your own program of anti-Wall Street demands that you can become independent of the rotten two-party system.

Source:
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.

https://tarpley.net/2011/09/29/emergency-program-for-anti-wall-street-protestors/

Also see:

https://exposingthetruth.info/george-soros-sympathy-for-wall-street-protesters/

Filed Under: #Occupy, Human Rights, Politics, Protests

David Cameron: I Will Replace The Human Rights Act

October 3, 2011 By 2 Comments

The Human Rights Act will be axed, David Cameron vowed yesterday.

David Cameron said: “I do agree that it would be good to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. That was the Conservative policy at the last election. It is, I think, the right thing to do.”

He spoke out after Home Secretary Theresa May also declared yesterday the Act must go — two weeks after Deputy PM Nick Clegg insisted it was “here to stay”.

Ms May said human rights laws were stopping the Home Office from deporting foreign terror suspects and criminals and the PM lost little time in backing her.

But Cameron admitted the Coalition partnership with the Lib Dems would delay his plans. He told BBC1′s Andrew Marr Show: “Obviously it will go more slowly than Theresa or I want. Now are we going to just sit back and say, ‘Tough, nothing we can do?’ No, not a bit of it.”

He said he wanted to change the “chilling culture” created by the Act. He cited the case, exposed by The Sun, of a prison van being driven 100 miles to a jail to transport a prisoner 200 yards to court — sparing him the shame of a short walk in public.

He also hopes to reform the way the European Court on Human Rights and the European Court of Justice work. He said: “We are looking at creating our own British Bill of Rights. We are going to fight in Europe for changes to the way the European Court works and we will fight to ensure people understand the real scope of these rights and do not use them as cover for rules or excuses that fly in the face of common sense.”

He said “a clear and codified” bill would allow the European Court of Human Rights to apply a “margin of appreciation” in its rulings - where judges are obliged to take into account the cultural, historic and philosophical differences between Strasbourg and the nation in question.

Cameron also added “I want National Citizen Service to be available to every teenager after GCSEs. I want them to learn that they can make a difference in their communities and that real fulfilment comes not from trashing things or being selfish but by building things and working with others. Above all, I want them to learn that Britain is a great country they should feel proud to belong to.”

Last night Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan condemned the plans, saying: “The Human Rights Act is the most significant defence for people against state power ever passed. Scrapping it is a lazy and incoherent position to hold.”

Sources:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/3849624/PM-I-will-rip-up-Human-Rights-Act.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12482442

https://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/266219

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5114102.stm

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12277538

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8690572.stm

Filed Under: Featured, Human Rights, Politics

‘Let Us Go!’: About 700 Arrested In Wall Street Protest

October 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

New York City police say about 700 protesters have been arrested after they swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and blocked traffic lanes for several hours.

On the second week of protests by the Occupy Wall Street movement, a large group of marchers broke off from others on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway and headed across the Brooklyn-bound lanes.

Police say demonstrators spilled onto the roadway Saturday night after being told to stay on the pedestrian pathway. They face charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

A majority of the people arrested were given citations and released, The Associated Press reported.

Both the walkway and Brooklyn-bound car lanes were shut to traffic, snarling traffic. Police reopened the bridge at 8:05 p.m. EDT.

‘We are not criminals’

Witnesses described a chaotic scene on the famous suspension bridge as a sea of police officers surrounded the protesters using orange mesh netting.

Protesters speaking out against corporate greed and social inequality took their “solidarity march” to Brooklyn, but battled in a war of words against officers, chanting “We are not criminals” and “Let us go!”

Some protesters tried to get away as officers started handcuffing members of the group. Dozens of protesters were seen handcuffed and sitting on the span as three buses were called in to take them away, witnesses and organizers said.

The New York Times reported a few protesters had “clambered dangerously up the structure of the bridge to get to the wooden pedestrian walkway, which is about 15 feet above the road.”

Erin Larkins, a graduate student at Columbia University who says she and her boyfriend have $130,000 combined in student loan debt, was among the thousands of protesters on the bridge. She said a friend persuaded her to join the march and she’s glad she did.

“I don’t think we’re asking for much, just to wake up every morning not worrying whether we can pay the rent, or whether our next meal will be rice and beans again,” Larkins wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

“No one is expecting immediate change. I think everyone is just hopeful that people will wake up a bit and realize that the more we speak up, the more the people that do have the authority to make changes in this world listen.”

The march started about 3:30 p.m. EDT from the protesters’ camp in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan near the former World Trade Center. Members of the group have vowed to stay at the park through the winter.

The Occupy Wall Street group was joined by various unions, including the Transit Workers Union and the United Federation of Teachers, in the march to Brooklyn.

Celebrity support

In addition to what they view as excessive force and unfair treatment of minorities, including Muslims, the movement is also protesting against home foreclosures, high unemployment and the 2008 bailouts.

Filmmaker Michael Moore and actress Susan Sarandon have stopped by the protesters’ camp, which is plastered with posters with anti-Wall Street slogans and has a kitchen and library, to offer their support.

On Friday evening, more than 1,000 demonstrators, including representatives of labor organizations, held a peaceful march to police headquarters a few blocks north of City Hall to protest what they said was a heavy-handed police response the previous week. No arrests were reported.

A week ago, police arrested about 80 members of Occupy Wall Street near the Union Square shopping district as the marchers swarmed onto oncoming traffic.

A police commander doused a handful of women with pepper spray in an incident captured on video and spread via the Internet, galvanizing the loosely organized protest movement.

The group has gained support among some union members. The United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which has 38,000 members, are among those pledging solidarity.

The unions could provide important organizational and financial support for the largely leaderless movement.

Similar protests are sprouting in other cities, including Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.

Sources:

https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44742659/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Filed Under: #Occupy, Featured, Human Rights, Protests

More Than 500 Arrested In Wall Street Protest

October 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Police reopened the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening after more than 500 anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested for blocking traffic lanes and attempting an unauthorized march across the span.

The arrests took place when a large group of marchers, participating in a second week of protests by the Occupy Wall Street movement, broke off from others on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway and headed across the Brooklyn-bound lanes.

“More than 500 were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge late this afternoon after multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway,” a police spokesman said.

“Some complied and took the walkway without being arrested. Others locked arms and proceeded on the Brooklyn-bound vehicular roadway and were arrested,” he added.

The bridge was reopened at 8:05 p.m. EDT after being closed for hours.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene on the famous suspension bridge as a sea of police officers surrounded the protesters using orange mesh netting.

Some protesters tried to get away as officers started handcuffing members of the group. Dozens of protesters were seen handcuffed and sitting on the span as three buses were called in to take them away, witnesses and organizers said.

The march started about 3:30 p.m. EDT from the protesters’ camp in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan near the former World Trade Center. Members of the group have vowed to stay at the park through the winter.

Celebrity Support

In addition to what they view as excessive force and unfair treatment of minorities, including Muslims, the movement is also protesting against home foreclosures, high unemployment and the 2008 bailouts.

Filmmaker Michael Moore and actress Susan Sarandon have stopped by the protesters’ camp, which is plastered with posters with anti-Wall Street slogans and has a kitchen and library, to offer their support.

On Friday evening, more than 1,000 demonstrators, including representatives of labor organizations, held a peaceful march to police headquarters a few blocks north of City Hall to protest what they said was a heavy-handed police response the previous week. No arrests were reported.

A week ago, police arrested about 80 members of Occupy Wall Street near the Union Square shopping district as the marchers swarmed onto oncoming traffic.

A police commander doused a handful of women with pepper spray in an incident captured on video and spread via the Internet, galvanizing the loosely organized protest movement.

The group has gained support among some union members. The United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which has 38,000 members, are among those pledging solidarity.

The unions could provide important organizational and financial support for the largely leaderless movement.

Similar protests are sprouting in other cities, including Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.

Updated Article, now more than 700 protesters arrested: https://exposingthetruth.info/let-us-go-about-700-arrested-in-wall-street-protest/

Filed Under: #Occupy, Human Rights, Protests

About 400 Arrested In Wall Street Protest

October 2, 2011 By 1 Comment

About 400 anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested on Saturday afternoon after blocking traffic lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge and attempting an unauthorized march across the span, police and witnesses said.

On the second week of protests by the Occupy Wall Street movement, a large group of marchers broke off from others on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway and headed across the Brooklyn-bound lanes.

“Approximately 400 were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge late this afternoon after multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway,” a police spokesman said.

“Some complied and took the walkway without being arrested. Others locked arms and proceeded on the Brooklyn-bound vehicular roadway. The latter were arrested,” he added.

Both the walkway and Brooklyn-bound car lanes were shut to traffic, snarling traffic. But police said it was expected to be opened soon.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene on the famous suspension bridge as a sea of police officers surrounded the protesters using orange mesh netting.

Some protesters tried to get away as officers started handcuffing members of the group. Dozens of protesters were seen handcuffed and sitting on the span as three buses were called in to take them away, witnesses and organizers said.

The march started about 3:30 p.m. EDT from the protesters’ camp in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan near the former World Trade Center. Members of the group have vowed to stay at the park through the winter.

Celebrity Support

In addition to what they view as excessive force and unfair treatment of minorities, including Muslims, the movement is also protesting against home foreclosures, high unemployment and the 2008 bailouts.

Film maker Michael Moore and actress Susan Sarandon have stopped by the protesters’ camp, which is plastered with posters with anti-Wall Street slogans and has a kitchen and library, to offer their support.

On Friday evening, more than 1,000 demonstrators, including representatives of labor organizations, held a peaceful march to police headquarters a few blocks north of City Hall to protest what they said was a heavy-handed police response the previous week. No arrests were reported.

A week ago, police arrested about 80 members of Occupy Wall Street near the Union Square shopping district as the marchers swarmed onto oncoming traffic.

A police commander doused a handful of women with pepper spray in an incident captured on video and spread via the Internet, galvanizing the loosely organized protest movement.

The group has gained support among some union members. The United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which has 38,000 members, are among those pledging solidarity.

The unions could provide important organizational and financial support for the largely leaderless movement.

Similar protests are sprouting in other cities, including Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.

Update: Source now says about 400 protesters arrested, instead of 50.

Updated Article, now more than 500 protesters arrested: https://exposingthetruth.info/more-than-500-arrested-in-wall-street-protest/

Updated Article, now more than 700 protesters arrested: https://exposingthetruth.info/let-us-go-about-700-arrested-in-wall-street-protest/

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/02/us-wallstreet-protests-idUSTRE7900BL20111002

https://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/01/us-wallstreet-protests-idUSTRE7900BL20111001

https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/

https://erikawithac.tumblr.com/post/10906374406

Filed Under: #Occupy, Human Rights, Protests

Police Arrest About 400 Protesters on Brooklyn Bridge

October 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In a tense showdown above the East River, the police arrested about 400 demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street protests who took to the roadway as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon.

The police did not immediately release precise arrest figures, but said it was the choice of those marchers that led to the swift enforcement.

“Protesters who used the Brooklyn Bridge walkway were not arrested,” said the head police spokesman, Paul J. Browne. “Those who took over the Brooklyn-bound roadway, and impeded vehicle traffic, were arrested.”

But many protesters said that they thought the police had tricked and trapped them, allowing them onto the bridge and even escorting them across, only to surround them in orange netting after hundreds of them had entered.

“The cops watched and did nothing, indeed, seemed to guide us on to the roadway,” said Jesse A. Myerson, a media coordinator for Occupy Wall Street who was in the march but was not arrested.

Things came to a head shortly after 4 p.m., as the 1,500 or so marchers reached the foot of the Brooklyn-bound car lanes of the bridge, just east of City Hall. In their march north from an encampment at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, they had stayed on the sidewalks – forming a long column of humanity penned in by officers on scooters.

Where the entrance to the bridge narrowed their path, some marchers, including organizers, stuck to the generally agreed-upon route and headed up onto the wooden walkway that runs between and about 15 feet above the bridge’s traffic lanes.

But about 20 others headed for the Brooklyn-bound roadway, said Christopher T. Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who accompanied the march. Some of them chanted “take the bridge.” They were met by a handful of high-level police supervisors, who blocked the way and announced repeatedly through bullhorns that the marchers were blocking the roadway and that if they continued to do so, they would be subject to arrest.

There were no physical barriers, though, and at one point, the marchers began walking up the roadway with the police commanders in front of them – seeming, from a distance, as if they were leading the way. The Chief of Department Joseph J. Esposito, and a horde or other white-shirted commanders, was among them.

After allowing the protesters to walk about a third of the way to Brooklyn, the police then cut the marchers off and surrounded them with orange nets on both sides, trapping hundreds of people, said Mr. Dunn.

Mr. Dunn said he was concerned that those in the back of the column who might not have heard the warnings “would have had no idea that it was not okay to walk on the roadway of the bridge.” Mr. Browne said that individuals that were in the rear of the crowd that may not have heard the warnings were not arrested and were free to leave.

Officers began plunged into the crowd – with protesters at times chanting “white shirts, white shirts” — and, one by one, they made the arrests, using plastic flex cuffs. A freelance reporter for The Times, Natasha Lennard, was among those arrested. Charges against those arrested were not immediately available.

Earlier in the afternoon, as many as 10 Department of Correction buses, big enough to hold 20 prisoners apiece, had been dispatched from Rikers Island in what one law enforcement official said was “a planned move on the protesters.”

Etan Ben-Ami, 56, a psychotherapist from Brooklyn who was up on the walkway, said that the police seemed to make a conscious decision to allow the protesters to claim the road. “They weren’t pushed back,” he said. “It seemed that they moved at the same time.”

Mr. Ben-Ami said he left the walkway and joined the crowd on the road. “It seemed completely permitted,” he said. “There wasn’t a single policeman saying ‘don’t do this’.”

He added: “We thought they were escorting us because they wanted us to be safe.” He left the bridge when he saw officers unrolling the nets as they prepared to make arrests. Many other who had been on the roadway were allowed to walk back down to Manhattan.

Mr. Browne insisted that the police did not trick the protesters into going onto the bridge.

“This was not a trap,” he said. “They were warned not to proceed.”

The Occupy Wall Street protests, against what demonstrators call inequities in the economic system, are in their 15th day.

Updated Article, now more than 500 protesters arrested: https://exposingthetruth.info/more-than-500-arrested-in-wall-street-protest/

Updated Article, now more than 700 protesters arrested: https://exposingthetruth.info/let-us-go-about-700-arrested-in-wall-street-protest/

Sources:

https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/

Filed Under: #Occupy, Human Rights, Protests

Occupy Wall Street: Big Banks Do Nothing But Big Bangs

October 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Protests in New York highlighting the plight of the US economy and slamming the corporations behind it are not going away, at least until the end of winter. As unions join in, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement seems to be gaining more support daily.

Activists of the “Occupy Los Angeles” movement are planning another Saturday march to city hall in solidarity with “Occupy Wall Street,” reports Southern California Public Radio.

Hundreds of protesters have been camping out in a park near the nation’s financial hub, Wall Street, for two weeks. Seven days into the New York protests, similar demonstrations sparked in Los Angeles, Chicago and other locations across the US.

The protesters have given very clear grounds for their “occupations”: Americans feel duped and defrauded by a system which let Wall Street greed kick off a financial meltdown and ultimately collapse the economy.

With one in every six Americans now living in poverty, the demonstrators are bitter about the fact that bankers have not been held accountable for the financial crisis, and ordinary people have been left to suffer.

“This could be the skeleton of a revolution, the beginning of one, possibly,” Ziya Smallens, a high school student, told RT in New York.

As high-profile activists and scholars started joining in to support the crowds, it became harder for the media to ignore the demonstrations.

It also became harder for most Americans to disregard the Wall Street protests when police brutality started to occur. Last weekend over 80 protesters were arrested, while several women were gathered up in a police net and maced with pepper-spray.

But the protesters say they are willing to pay any price to get their voices heard.

“A lot of people are talking about the one percent and a fraction of one percent that have all the money and real power. They influence a lot of decisions which do not help anyone else but them, so that is why everyone else is getting screwed, you know,” says Troy Telford, one of the protesters.

As the protest gathers force and union support, many are beginning to wonder if this gathering can become reminiscent of what America saw in Wisconsin this winter. In February, up to 70,000 people stormed the Capitol building, saying their voices were being ignored.

It was also union support that made as many as 250,000 people come out onto the streets in Europe.

There is a real possibility that these demonstrators could stay in New York and grow in numbers until a real peaceful revolution occurs. After all, if the Arab Spring was applauded by America’s powerful, why not listen to a similar cry for change at home?

Original source:

https://rt.com/news/occupy-wall-street-support-851/

Filed Under: #Occupy, Human Rights, Protests

Wall Street Protests Spread To Other Cities

October 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Protests inspired by “Occupy Wall Street” movement have emerged in Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Members of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement have vowed to stay through winter in a park near New York’s iconic financial district, where they are protesting issues including the 2008 bank bailouts, foreclosures and high unemployment in the United States.

Protests inspired by New York’s have emerged in other US cities in recent days, including Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

A group in Boston has taken on the tactics of New York’s protesters and on Friday night set itself up in the city’s Dewey Square. Activists remained camped out at what they called “the heart of the financial district” on Saturday.

“We are establishing our subsection of a national dialogue on finance reform and governance reform,” Nadeem Mazen, said an organiser with Occupy Boston.

Mazen said that the Boston protest quickly drew a thousand people. “It shows that we’re experienced and that we’ve all been independently thinking about what change we want to see. .. I think we’re all very hungry for change.”

The New York campaign is based in Zuccotti Park - formerly Liberty Plaza Park - just across from the World Trade Centre site.

The movement has gained the support of five New York labour unions, as well as celebrities and academics such as Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, rapper Lupe Fiasco and the musical group Radiohead.

Friday protest

More than 1,000 demonstrators, who have camped out in New York’s financial centre for over two weeks, marched on Friday to New York’s police headquarters to protest to what they viewed as a heavy-handed police response earlier on in their demonstration.

Some held banners criticising police, while others chanted: “We are the 99 per cent” and “The banks got bailed out, we got sold out”.

Police observed Friday’s march and kept protesters on the sidewalk, but no clashes were reported. They said no arrests were made before protesters dispersed from the police headquarters after the march by 8pm.

“No to the NYPD crackdown on Wall Street protesters,” organisers had said on their website, promoting the march.

Other online flyers for the march critiqued local police policies: “No to Stop-and-Frisk in Black & Latino neighbourhoods” and “No to Spying and Harassment of Muslim Communities”.

The protest came less than a week after police arrested 80 Occupy Wall Street members during a march toward a main shopping district - the most arrests by New York police at a demonstration since hundreds were detained outside the Republican National Convention (RNC) in 2004.

A city police commander used pepper spray on four women at last weekend’s march and a video of the incident subsequently went viral on the internet, angering many protesters who vowed to continue their protests indefinitely.

The same commander was accused of false arrests and civil rights violations after incidents with protesters during the 2004 RNC police response.

Source:

https://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/10/20111014553864593.html

Filed Under: #Occupy, Human Rights, Protests

Wall Street Protesters March On Police

October 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Protesters who have camped out near Wall Street for two weeks marched on Friday on police headquarters in Manhattan over what they viewed as a heavy-handed police response to a previous demonstration.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, whose members have vowed to stay through the winter, are protesting issues including the 2008 bank bailouts, foreclosures and high unemployment.

More than 1,000 people marched past City Hall and arrived at a plaza outside police headquarters in the late afternoon. Some held banners criticizing police, while others chanted: “We are the 99 percent” and “The banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”

Workers from the financial district on their way home watched as the marchers passed, with some saying it was not obvious what outcome organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement wanted.

Police observed the march and kept protesters on the sidewalk, but no clashes were reported. Police said no arrests were made before the protest dispersed peaceably by 8 p.m. after the march.

“No to the NYPD crackdown on Wall St. protesters,” organizers had said on their website, promoting the march. Other online flyers for the march read: “No to Stop-and-Frisk in Black & Latino neighbourhoods” and “No to Spying and Harassment of Muslim Communities.”

The protest came less than a week after police arrested 80 people during a march to the bustling Union Square shopping district, the most arrests by New York police at a demonstration since hundreds were detained outside the Republican National Convention in 2004.

A police commander used pepper spray on four women at last weekend’s march and a video of the incident went viral on the Internet, angering many protesters who vowed to continue their protests indefinitely.

Police have said pepper spray was a better alternative than night sticks to subdue those blocking traffic.

Right To Protest

Friday’s crowd appeared to have been boosted by an announcement that the rock band Radiohead would perform at 4 p.m. Later, organizers said on their website, “Radiohead will not being playing. This was a hoax. Please accept our apologies.”

“We heard about Radiohead coming here on Facebook,” said Alegra Felter, a 34-year-old teacher from Brooklyn who was among the disappointed rock fans.

The protest encampment in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan is festooned with placards and anti-Wall Street slogans. There is a makeshift kitchen and library, and celebrities from film maker Michael Moore to actress Susan Sarandon have stopped by to show solidarity.

Asked on his weekly radio show on Friday whether the protesters could stay indefinitely at the private park they call their base, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “We’ll see.”

Bloomberg added: “People have a right to protest. But we also have to make sure that people who don’t want to protest can go down the street unmolested.”

While the protest has been made up mostly of young people, it also has recently attracted the support of a loose coalition of labour and community organizations.

Marty Goodman, a unionised subway worker, said, “Last year we had 900 of our members laid off … These are our issues too: Wall Street, the banks, lay-offs, the struggle that these young people are spearheading is our struggle too.”

Among those pledging solidarity were the United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which has 38,000 members. The unions could provide important organizational and financial support for the largely leaderless movement.

Similar but smaller protests have also sprouted in other cities in recent days, including Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.

Sources:

https://news.yahoo.com/wall-street-protesters-march-police-025924383.html

Filed Under: #Occupy, Human Rights, Protests
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