Sunday, October 2, 2011

Class War? Part 3: "Occupy Wall Street" Protest & Mass Arrests

Yesterday, the New York Police arrested 700 plus protesters who were peacefully crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. As the American Spring shows signs of warming up at the beginning of Fall, peaceful protests across the country are increasing. Occupy Wall Street is showing Americans the only way to meaningful change is millions of Americans engaging in peaceful protest, standing up to the Corporate State and their police, filling their jails, clogging their courts, and bringing their commerce to a standstill. With many millions unemployed, with millions being forced out of their homes so that wealthy investors can take them for a song (a low price denied to those being foreclosed upon), and with tens of thousands of Americans homeless, there are plenty of frustrated folks that could make it happen if they can get beyond their fear of the Corporate State. What do they really have to lose? [Edited & added Chris Hedges & other videos, 10/3/11]
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Occupy Wall Street Protesters Take Brooklyn Bridge - 700+ Arrested


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Published on Friday, September 30, 2011 by TruthDig.com
#OccupyTogether: The Best Among Us

by Chris Hedges
. . . .
To be declared innocent in a country where the rule of law means nothing, where we have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no longer exists, where you, as a citizen, are nothing more than a commodity to corporate systems of power, one to be used and discarded, is to be complicit in this radical evil. To stand on the sidelines and say “I am innocent” is to bear the mark of Cain; it is to do nothing to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet. To be innocent in times like these is to be a criminal.
. . . .
The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in four children outside those barricades depend on food stamps to eat. Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged. Today they run the state and the financial markets. They disseminate the lies that pollute our airwaves. They know, even better than you, how pervasive the corruption and theft have become, how gamed the system is against you, how corporations have cemented into place a thin oligarchic class and an obsequious cadre of politicians, judges and journalists who live in their little gated Versailles while 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a number soon to rise to 10 million, where a million people a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care, where real joblessness is spiraling to over 20 percent, where the citizens, including students, spend lives toiling in debt peonage, working dead-end jobs, when they have jobs, a world devoid of hope, a world of masters and serfs.
. . . .
either you dismantle the corporate state, for a world of sanity, a world where we no longer kneel before the absurd idea that the demands of financial markets should govern human behavior, or we are frog-marched toward self-annihilation.

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The following video was produced early in the occupation of Wall Street. NYC has told the protesters they may not camp in the park since the video was produced. There are several good interviews of people at the protest who explain why they came to Wall Street.

"Days of Rage" Occupy Wall St.


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Occupy Wall Street protests - live coverage
Includes:

11.37am: This is good. The New York Observer has posted a video of "an interview Fox News filmed, but doesn't want you to see".


New York Observer: Exclusive "Occupy Wall Street" Unaired Fox Footage


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Keith Olbermann Covers Occupy Wall Street Protests Media Blackout


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Occupy Wall Street (FULL) Interview with Chris Hedges Part 1


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"2nd time I've fought for my country. 1st time I've known my enemy." #OccupyWallStreet
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List of Demands from the Occupy NYC General Assembly meetings.
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Sun Oct 02, 02:54 PM
Wall Street occupation inspires Canadian protesters
Josh Visser | CTVNews.ca Staff

Inspired by protesters along Wall Street and in other U.S. cities, hundreds are expected to occupy Toronto's Bay Street in two weeks to air their various grievances against the financial system and its wealthiest companies.

The protest near Wall Street in New York is entering its third week, and doesn't appear to be slowing down. In fact, a police crackdown has only emboldened protesters and some are now expecting the "occupation" to continue into the winter.

The organizers of Occupy Toronto plan to descend on King and Bay Streets on the morning of Saturday, Oct. 15 to set a base of operation to prepare for a march on that Monday. Organizers hope the occupation will last into the following week.

It's not clear how or if the goals of the Occupy Toronto organizers differ from their American counterparts. In the U.S., the main complaints have been bank bailouts, the lack of financial oversight that led to recession, foreclosures and high unemployment. . . . . .

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American Spring? 'Occupy Wall Street just the beginning'


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SHAMEFUL police action @ Occupy wall Street


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More:

About OCCUPY TOGETHER

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