"THE LAST BASTION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT - SINCE 1995"
Thursday, October 27, 2011
dvtv live broadcast 10.27.11: CLAMPDOWN OWS
...this is a part of a measured tactic to discredit the protesters by making them violent - physically attack a peaceful march to turn it into a riot...
Occupy is the little movement that could, and each time it gets brutalized by the authorities its numbers swell. With each arrest the support and the sympathy grows. Indeed – many have questioned the motives of the protesters, many have speculated on the agenda, but nobody is denying that there is a problem. Though calls for a concise set of demands from the protesters seem logical and reasonable the reasonable response seems to be – its not one thing – its everything. You are not dealing with a group leader or spokesperson, but you are dealing with an angry public, profoundly dissatisfied with where their hard earned tax dollars are going.
...featuring dvtv live producer Blade Branstrom and his exclusive footage from the Wall Street Occupation.
Just nineteen days into the occupation, the president of the United States acknowledged their influence in the 2012 presidential campaign.
Just nineteen days ago the press all but ignored them.
Nineteen days ago they couldn't even get arrested.
When airline pilots and steelworkers and bus drivers and the AFL-CIO and world famous scholars and congressmen and movie stars start showing up at Zuccotti park to support this soggy group of hippies – the media attacks the message.
Occupy wall street has no message!
This is a non-event - vapid and meaningless.
There is no leader – there is no message. Only – the non-message spreads – there’s occupy Boston and occupy Los Angeles and occupy Boise, Idaho for crissakes. Not only do scholars and movie stars and union presidents get it, thousands of people across the country get it. Obama gets it. Even Ben Bernanke gets it.
So I’ll use a line from Marlon Brando to answer the question: what are they rebelling against?
What do ya got?
You got the highest unemployment in sixty years. You got very few jobs with pitiful wages, constant efforts to eliminate minimum wage. You got pensions, retirement funds gutted, massive tax cuts for millionaires, mind boggling tax refunds for corporations, hundreds of billions in bailouts to the people who gambled the morgage. You got union busting at the private, corporate, state and federal level. You got across the board corporate deregulation breeding economic and ecological ruin on huge stretches of america. You got endless attacks on the safety nets for the working poor and the elderly the very people who are suffering the most right now. Without safety nets - everything slams to the ground with a sickening thud - with a resounding splat... like the Euro - and soon - the dollar.
You got useless and endless wars that get more expensive more secretive more mysterious more covert and therfore more nebulous unnacountable and nefarious as the years drag on.
This country has been in a permanent state of war for ten years now. We can’t even make a profit from it. What’s happened to this country?!
a cry for justice from a soggy band of demonstrators has thundered round the globe - even the president has acknowledged that their voices will have an impact on his re-election. the leaderless occupiers are poised to grow into a force that could put the Tea Party to shame. but: will Bloomberg, who practically predicted this uprising, attempt to quash it?
those and other pressing questions TONIGHT with YOUR phone calls on New York’s Longest-Running Call-In Show: dvtv live
channel 67 (time-warner) channel 85 (rcn) channel 36 (verizon-fios) livestream: mnn.org all episodes archived at dvtv.blip.tv
NY TIMES: ROMNEY LIKENS WALL STREET PROTESTS TO ‘CLASS WARFARE’
“I think it’s dangerous — this class warfare,” Mr. Romney said.
Didn't Mittens get the memo? "Class Warfare" is verboten speech, because the 1% has realized - they are outnumbered 99 to 1!
OWS, and Occupy Los Angeles (and Occupy Boise, Idaho for that matter) seem to be saying - "Class Warfare? Bring it on!"
Of course it is dangerous, Mittens. Democracy is a dangerous thing.
While the protests have generally been nonviolent, the police in New York arrested 700 people on Saturday after some demonstrators marched on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge.
BTW - Times editors- please - the last 'graph implies that Saturday's Brooklyn Bridge march was violent. Not even the NYPD or Bloomberg are claiming that.
Please NYTimes, don't stoop to this king of innuendo - you are better than Fox News (well, sometimes).
many states, such as Florida, Nevada and North Carolina are moving up the dates of the presidential primaries: could it be that economic shit is about to hit the fan?
could it have anything to do with the impending nose-dive the dollar is about to take?
NY TRANSIT UNION: WE WON'T BUS ARRESTED OWS PROTESTERS
The TWU is standing up for the occupiers with more than just words... from thinkprogress.org
The Transport Workers Union is going to court today in hopes of blocking New York City from forcing bus drivers to transport any Occupy Wall Street protesters after the New York police department commandeered at least three buses to take many of the 700 protesters off the Brooklyn Bridge this weekend. Last week, the TWU voted to support the Occupy Wall Street movement and called the order to bus prisoners “a blatant act of political retaliation.”
"TWU Local 100 supports the protesters on Wall Street and takes great offense that the mayor and NYPD have ordered operators to transport citizens who were exercising their constitutional right to protest - and shouldn't have been arrested in the first place," [Transport Workers Union president John] Samuelsen said Sunday night.
At least five empty buses were commandeered from terminal points on both sides of the bridge, Samuelsen said.
Here's Samuelsen, in plain language, explaining why the TWU voted solidarity with OWS. (They now have "a couple hundred members" who joined the occupation.)
Because the NYPD and Bloomberg at first were secure that the Occupy Wall Street protesters would be ignored, they surmised that a few dozen hippies would just give up and go home. Three weeks in, they try mass arrests - and end up as BBC News’ top story. Now the City cannot ignore the growing numbers, the growing support, and the growing attention paid to OWS. As for the complaints of a lack of a specific complaint, muddled message, or lack of focus, people in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and even in Toronto who have formed "solidarity" protests seem to know exactly what OWS is saying. So next expect the City to pressure Brookfield Properties, owners of Zuccotti Park, to take legal action to drive the protestors from the encampment. However, after three weeks of international attention - and hundreds of people willing to sleep outdoors in the rain - there is very little the City can do other than pepper spray peaceful women and arrest these people. Whatever the City decides to do - ignore them or bust them - this has past the point where OWS will fold their tents and go quietly into the night. If significant numbers of union members join the camp out on Wednesday (I'm predicting they will), then OWS will grow into the major issue of the 2012 elections.
