He characterises it as “frustratingly democratic” because when he has said to protesters “take me to your leader”, there has turned out to be no leader. And yet, as he remarks, the advantage of this is obvious: “You have to engage with the issues.”
Source : The guardian
It is ironic that those police officers who are busting up the Occupy protesters are themselves victims of the same social ills the demonstrators are combating: corporate greed; the slackening of essential regulatory systems; and the abject failure of all three branches of government to safeguard civil liberties and to protect, if not provide, basic human needs like health, housing, education and more.
Source : The Nation
It is therefore tragic to see rights of association, assembly and protest, rights guaranteed by the Constitution, trampled upon by policies formulated within the CUNY system that seem designed to deny the right to protest and to restrict the possibility for open and and pacific dialogue.
Source : Occupycunynews
Media’s natural tendency is to sympathize with the police. They are the good guys, criminals the bad guys. And I think this is the right presumption until facts compel one to think otherwise. But I also think this habit of deference is so ingrained in the minds of journalists that even when it’s totally obvious that the cops are so completely the bad guys in a story, the media still can’t avoid false equivalency.
Source : Business Insider
The mainstream media was declaring continually “OWS has no message”. Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online “What is it you want?” answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
Source : The guardian
“I found John de Clef Piñeiro, a former high-ranking New York Housing Authority official, standing on the steps of Zuccotti Park in a sharp pinstriped suit and holding a large sign directed at the men in blue. “Your pay, job security, and pensions are at risk, just like ours,” it said. “We are not the enemy.” Piñeiro told me he’d been to the park four times with the sign. “
Source :Mother Jones
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