Thousands to occupy Wall Street in protest

**Hampsha** · 29-09-2011, 07:31 AM

Some other cities have small protests too

In Pictures: Occupy Chicago Protests: Chicagoist

Occupy Chicago Protest Grows Despite Attempts To Stop It (VIDEO) // Current TV

Occupy Houston:
Occupy Houston | Facebook

Boston..
Occupy Boston: smart, savvy, and aiming to emulate Wall Street protests | World news | guardian.co.uk

Some other cities...

Some general news on this..

Wall Street protests enter 11th day - CNN.com

Why There Are Protests On Wall Street: Their Actions Impoverished More Than 60 Million People | ThinkProgress

**Neo** · 29-09-2011, 04:02 PM

Excellent that the idea is starting to spread, hopefully it will get to the point were it can't be ignored by the media and some will flip sides to grab the ratings

**Neo** · 29-09-2011, 06:27 PM

Go to main page News No big surprise: Wall Street rules
No big surprise: Wall Street rules

Published: 29 September, 2011, 09:26
Edited: 29 September, 2011, 11:09

The mainstream media was thrown into a tailspin after an independent trader revealed how the world of big money and politics looks from the inside. But why were Alessio Rastani’s revelations come as such a surprise?
“The government doesn’t rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules the world,” stock trader Alessio Rastani said on the BBC.

This was the comment which echoed around the world, generating a tidal wave of reaction from papers and pundits alike.
But instead of focusing on the comment itself, most outlets immediately sought to shoot the messenger.

Forbes called him a psychopath. CNBC suggests it might be a hoax. New Yorker magazine wondered if it was a con, or a nightmare come true.

Whatever Rastani’s intentions, the bigger question has been largely ignored. Was he wrong about the power of Goldman Sachs? And why was everyone so shocked?

Several of RT’s guests – bona fide traders and former Goldman Sachs employees – have said much the same.

“Washington is not the biggest player in this. The global bankers are the biggest players, the global hedge fund managers. That’s who is determining the outcome of this, not the players in Washington. They have already ceded control to the global banking industry,” said RT’s Max Keiser, a former equities trader.

“Wall Street has been pulling the strings in Washington from the get-go. It is the largest sector of campaign contributions – and that is to both parties,” said Nomi Prins, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs.

But for a mainstream media unaccustomed to such candor, Rastani’s honesty was unexpected, says George Hemminger of Survive and Thrive TV.
“When they asked him these questions on the BBC, he just let it all hang out and the actual truth came across,” Hemminger said.

Rastani also sent shockwaves around the world when he said that most traders do not really care when or even if the economy is fixed.
“Personally, I’ve been dreaming of this moment for three years,” he said. “I have a confession – I go to bed every night and I dream about another recession.”

“I don’t know if you can see us, but our jaws dropped,” the anchorwoman responded.

Their jaws might have stayed firmly in place had they only read Matt Taibbi’s July 2009 Rolling Stone article – "The great American bubble machine." In it, he famously described Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

Matt Taibbi discussed with RT recently how – although people are unaware of it – the big banks have far-reaching power in our society.
“How much are you paying for gas, how much are you paying for electricity, your mortgages, how much are you paying in taxes, and how much of your tax dollars are going to service debt?” Taibbi said.

Unlike the mainstream media, few of those protesting on Wall Street would be shocked by Rastani’s comments.
For nearly two weeks, these protesters have been out every day, hoping to bring an end – or at least awareness – to what many of them say is a corrupt system.

And still others have argued for years that the government’s actions are dictated by the big banks.
“The very special interests on Wall Street, the insurance industry,” said Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital. “These are the people who are writing the laws that Obama is passing. They are keeping him in power, they are the ones that have financed his campaign and the laws are being written for their benefit.”

As anger builds on Wall Street, the need for the media to ask better questions becomes more urgent, so that a message is sent to decision-makers in Congress that the system that has been sustained and protected for decades might actually need to change.

© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005 - 2011. All rights reserved.

**Hampsha** · 30-09-2011, 11:44 AM

More Keiser on Financial Terrorists

**Hampsha** · 30-09-2011, 12:00 PM

Yeah!
Occupy Wall Street Is About to Get Bigger

The Occupy Wall Street protesters — who the New York Times and other such venues had told me were too vague, too in need of glitzy PowerPoint presentations with concrete goals, too poorly dressed, too busy playing drums, too hypocritical because they used "computers" and other modern products, too middle-class, and in general too gross to sustain any interest for more than a few days, therefore making it not worth doing — have persevered long enough to convince veteran reinforcements to join them next week. Interesting!
A hitherto dormant establishment of New York labor and community groups signed on to the protest today and announced they'd join the dirty fucking spoiled computer-wielding scumbucket hippie monsters in a solidarity march next Wednesday. Crain's explains why they've now decided to rush to Occupy Wall Street's side — they were being shown up, basically:

But as the action nears the start of its third week, unions and community groups are eager to jump on board. They are motivated perhaps by a sense of solidarity and a desire to tap into its growing success, but undoubtedly by something else too-embarrassment that a group of young people using Twitter and Facebook have been able to draw attention to progressive causes in a way they haven't been able to in years. [...]
Some of the biggest players in organized labor are actively involved in planning for Wednesday's demonstration, either directly or through coalitions that they are a part of. The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are all expected to participate. The Working Families Party is helping to organize the protest and MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks to drum up support for the effort.
"We're getting involved because the crisis was caused by the excesses of Wall Street and the consequences have fallen hardest on workers," a spokesman for TWU Local 100 said.
Community groups like Make the Road New York, the Coalition for the Homeless, the Alliance for Quality Education and Community Voices Heard are also organizing for Wednesday's action, and the labor/community coalitions United New York and Strong Economy For All are pitching in as well.

So, okay, they haven't exactly won over a broad political spectrum of groups here. And they're not said to be the most organized bunch! But they're winning converts.
http://gawker.com/5845258/occupy-wal...-to-get-bigger

It's growing!

**Hampsha** · 30-09-2011, 12:03 PM

This is going to grow with so many people unemployed and things looking so bad.

**robuzo** · 30-09-2011, 12:32 PM

""We're getting involved because the crisis was caused by the excesses of Wall Street and the consequences have fallen hardest on workers," a spokesman for TWU Local 100 said."

Ralph Kramden is getting involved. If you've lived in NY you know, don't fuck with the bus driver.

**Neo** · 30-09-2011, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by Hampsha

It's growing!

As is my faith in America.

**Hampsha** · 01-10-2011, 09:00 AM

There's something happening here for sure with more and more places seeing protests and the total number of people involved going up. I'd say its becoming more than a protest against Wall Street. Some more like a moral movement of sorts. The longer they hold on the more people will take to it. A lot of people out there want to be part of change in America. I think this is going to get interesting.

Occupy Together

Chris Hedges: The Best Among Us - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig

Posted on Sep 29, 2011

AP / Louis Lanzano Protesters march past Federal Hall on Wall Street on Monday. The Occupy Wall Street protest is in its second week in New York City as demonstrators speak out against corporate greed and social inequality.

By Chris Hedges
There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

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. Ask Tim DeChristoper ( Tim DeChristopher).

Choose. But choose fast. 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.

The only word these corporations know is more. They are disemboweling every last social service program funded by the taxpayers, from education to Social Security, because they want that money themselves. Let the sick die. Let the poor go hungry. Let families be tossed in the street. Let the unemployed rot. Let children in the inner city or rural wastelands learn nothing and live in misery and fear. Let the students finish school with no jobs and no prospects of jobs. Let the prison system, the largest in the industrial world, expand to swallow up all potential dissenters. Let torture continue. Let teachers, police, firefighters, postal employees and social workers join the ranks of the unemployed. Let the roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grids, rail lines, subways, bus services, schools and libraries crumble or close. Let the rising temperatures of the planet, the freak weather patterns, the hurricanes, the droughts, the flooding, the tornadoes, the melting polar ice caps, the poisoned water systems, the polluted air increase until the species dies.

Who the hell cares? If the stocks of ExxonMobil or the coal industry or Goldman Sachs are high, life is good. Profit. Profit. Profit. That is what they chant behind those metal barricades. They have their fangs deep into your necks. If you do not shake them off very, very soon they will kill you. And they will kill the ecosystem, dooming your children and your children’s children. They are too stupid and too blind to see that they will perish with the rest of us. So either you rise up and supplant them, 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.

Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have eaten more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought possible. They have tasted fear, been beaten, gone to jail, been blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each other, laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, seen their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cares, if they will win. But as long as they remain steadfast they point the way out of the corporate labyrinth. This is what it means to be alive. They are the best among us.

**Butterfly** · 01-10-2011, 09:05 AM

if more "normal" people join, it could grow into something significant

however, it's simply a protest, there is no credible demands or specific requests

**Hampsha** · 01-10-2011, 09:06 AM

A short comment on Boston's protest and what the Fed there told its employees.

Matt Stoller: Boston Fed – “Avoid Engaging with Any Demonstrators”

Friday, September 30, 2011

Matt Stoller: Boston Fed – “Avoid Engaging with Any Demonstrators”

By Matt Stoller, the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at [at]matthewstoller.
If the encampment in downtown NYC is a church, then the sprouting of more of these around the country is something of an religious awakening. And the reaction of the other religious faction is pretty telling.
This is a note sent out to people in the Boston Fed building recently upon news of #OccupyBoston.

Good afternoon.
You may notice various demonstrations in the financial district this afternoon. Most notably, beginning this evening and extending indefinitely, the “Occupy Wall Street / Occupy Boston” movement plans a peaceful demonstration and encampment on Dewey Square. You may have seen media reports about this, and as you may know, a few other cities are seeing similar demonstrations in their financial districts.
Our Law Enforcement Unit is attuned to the situation and as always is in close contact with city and law enforcement officials. We will closely monitor the evolving situation throughout the weekend and beyond.
For your safety, we suggest you exercise caution, and avoid engaging with any demonstrators. Use of the Summer Street entrance and South Station tunnel may be helpful in limiting any inconvenience to you.

Apparently, the encampment is peaceful, but it’s best to avoid engaging with the demonstrators. Better safe than sorry.

**Hampsha** · 01-10-2011, 09:20 AM

VOA video news clip

**Butterfly** · 01-10-2011, 10:02 AM

I think they should call for the hanging of Obama after he decided to put the old Bush team back in power on WallStreet

**sabang** · 01-10-2011, 10:15 AM

He did turn out to be 'the Manchurian candidate' really, just not in the way the raving Right thought.

**Hampsha** · 01-10-2011, 11:30 AM

There was talk of Radiohead playing.

For "Occupy Wall Street," Radiohead just a sideshow - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

But that never materialized. Who knows what the future brings. Seems like more and more well-known people are adding some support.

Found a bit more on this. Seems to have come from a hoaxster.

Radiohead will NOT be playing

Posted Sept. 30, 2011, 4:30 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
#occupywallstreet would like to apologize to the members of the press and public who came out today to see Radiohead and left disappointed. We would also like to apologize to the band directly, and appreciate their kind words of support in the face of this confusion. They had nothing to do with what happened today.
Over the last twenty-four hours #occupywallstreet received several emails purportedly from Radiohead's manager detailing a show for Friday, September 30th at four in the afternoon. Due to miscommunication within our rapidly expanding and adjusting group, we were unable to determine that this was a hoax in time; it can be difficult to seperate rumor from fact in an open source movement.

https://occupywallst.org/

It's got to be difficult to know who you are dealing with on the net these days. I hope Radiohead is encouraged to play by this, myself. Just wishful that's all.

**StrontiumDog** · 01-10-2011, 11:44 AM

BBC News - Occupy Wall Street protests grow amid Radiohead rumour

1 October 2011 Last updated at 01:49 GMT

Occupy Wall Street protests grow amid Radiohead rumour

The crowds in Zuccotti Park are frustrated at a lack of employment and opportunity in the US

An estimated 2,000 people have gathered in Lower Manhattan, New York, for the largest protest yet under the banner Occupy Wall Street.

Demonstrators marched on New York's police headquarters to protest against arrests and police behaviour.

Several hundred people have camped out near Wall Street since 17 September as part of protests against corporate greed, politics, and inequality.

Earlier, UK band Radiohead were forced to deny rumours they would appear live.

A tweet sent out by a Twitter account linked to the protest movement set off a firestorm of online interest.

But a spokesman for the band later denied they were planning to appear, and the group themselves denied the rumour on Twitter.

"We wish the best of luck to the protesters there, but contrary to earlier rumours, we will not be appearing today at #occupywallstreet," [at]Radiohead tweeted.

Anger at police

The Occupy Wall Street movement has set up its base camp in Zucotti Park, a privately owned patch of land not far from Wall Street.

Hundreds of people have camped out in the park since 17 September.

The loosely organised group says it is defending 99% of the US population against the wealthiest 1%, and had called for 20,000 people to "flood into lower Manhattan" on 17 September and remain there for "a few months".

Some 80 people were arrested during a march on 25 September, mostly for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic, but one person was charged with assaulting a police officer.

Friday's protest numbers were swelled by local trade unions and by those attracted to the area by the rumour of Radiohead's attendance.

New York's police have come in for criticism by the movement since video emerged of pepper sprays being used against demonstrators last weekend.

"NYPD protects billionaires and Wall Street," read one placard carried aloft on Friday, the AFP news agency reported, as crowds marched towards the city's police headquarters, where they rallied peacefully before dispersing.

The stand-off at One Police Plaza passed off largely peacefully

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg used his weekly appearance on a radio show to criticise the protesters, saying they were targeting the wrong people.

"The protesters are protesting against people who make $40,000 or $50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line," he said.

"We always tend to blame the wrong people. We blame the banks. They were part of this, but so was Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae and Congress and you and me and everybody."

A series of other small-scale protests have also sprung up in other US cities in sympathy with the aims of Occupy Wall Street.

The movement's website on Friday said a Boston movement had begun, with other reports online suggesting a sit-in was due to begin on Saturday in downtown Washington DC.

**robuzo** · 01-10-2011, 12:05 PM

Mayor Bloomboig to the protesters: "We always tend to blame the wrong people. We blame the banks. They were part of this, but so was Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae and Congress and you and me and everybody." Taking his cue from Goebbels, Bloomberg repeats the lie. Sorry, Thugs, it wasn't Freddie and Fanny, much as it comforts you to think so. Take it from somebody who knows what he is talking about and is no fan of the GSEs: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/05...credit-crisis/ Bloomberg shows his true plutocrat colors again.

**PlanK** · 01-10-2011, 12:06 PM

They really need to pick a consistent colour for their T-shirts. That'll make it easier for police to mace the right people.

**Hampsha** · 01-10-2011, 01:01 PM

Another interesting clip.

**Hampsha** · 01-10-2011, 01:21 PM

Bernie Sanders the independent senator from Vermont.

**robuzo** · 01-10-2011, 05:58 PM

Bernie is the man, what a great guy. From Vermont but still talks Brooklyn. Thanks for posting.

**Neo** · 01-10-2011, 11:37 PM

Roseanne Barr for President

**The Bold Rodney** · 01-10-2011, 11:50 PM

Originally Posted by Neo

Roseanne Barr for President

I don't suppose for one minute she'll get many votes from US Bankers, Financiers or the current politicians?

**Hampsha** · 02-10-2011, 07:22 AM

Lots happened on Saturday in the US.

Dozens arrested at Occupy Wall Street protest; Brooklyn Bridge shut down

Thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday, shutting down car lanes and setting up yet another showdown with the NYPD.

Dozens of people were arrested after standing in the roadway, blocking the Brooklyn-bound lanes. Traffic in the opposite direction was slowed -- but still running after the 4 p.m. standoff.

Police called in city buses to haul away some of the handcuffed demonstrators.
"People were trying to climb off [the roadway to the pedestrian] walkway, but they were freaking out," Mariana Flor, 23, said of the police.

Flor said cops warned protesters that if they didn't move, they'd be arrested.
Some of the demonstrators estimated more than 100 people were arrested. The NYPD couldn't immediately confirm the number of people in custody.

A sea of cops set up orange nets penning in the protesters, prompting some to chant, "Shame! Shame

Before cops arrived, hundreds of protestors took to the bridge on the pedestrian walkway and the roadway chanting, "Take the bridge!" witnesses said.
By 5 p.m., protesters, who marched to the bridge from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, clogged both the walkway and Brooklyn-bound car lanes. Just after 6 p.m., some of the protesters moved to the Manhattan Bridge.

The arrests marked the second Saturday in a row protesters landed in cuffs.
Last week, cops arrested more than 80 people near Union Square. During that roundup, Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna doused a handful of women with pepper spray - spawning a video clip that helped embolden the movement.

NYPD Internal Affairs and the Civilian Complaint Review Board are probing the pepper-spray incident, which gave the protests - now more than two weeks old - added verve.

Read more: Dozens arrested at Occupy Wall Street protest; Brooklyn Bridge shut down

**Hampsha** · 02-10-2011, 07:34 AM

They've listed the mayor's office of New York City. Call Mayor Bloomberg and let him know that arresting protestors and journalists is unacceptable. The number they gave is 212-788 1400.

globalrevolution - live streaming video powered by Livestream

An odd clip from 'Anonymous' Not sure if it's legit or just someone using the name.

ANother story...
BofA’s Boston Building Draws Protesters, Arrests

Twenty-one people were arrested as about 3,000 demonstrators converged on a Bank of America Corp. (BAC) office building in downtown Boston yesterday, protesting the largest U.S. lender’s foreclosure practices.

Some participants were taken into custody after entering the building’s lobby and refusing to leave, said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. Those arrested were charged with trespassing, according to Officer Eddy Chrispin, a police spokesman.
The crowd had marched a half-mile from Boston Common to the building at 100 Federal Street while chanting, banging on drums and toting signs that read “Stop Corporate Greed” and “Bank of America: Guilty as Charged.”

The rally was organized by Right to the City Alliance and follows demonstrations in Manhattan, known as #OccupyWallStreet, which began 14 days ago to protest the influence of Wall Street money on politics. A second Boston protest group, Occupy Boston, held a rally at Dewey Square later, and from there protesters from both events made their way to the statehouse, according to Chrispin.

T.J. Crawford, a spokesman for Bank of America, called the protests “aggressive public-relations stunts.”
“Bank of America has a lot to be proud of in Massachusetts, from modifying 18,000 mortgages since 2008 to lending nearly $400 million in the first half of 2011 to small businesses,” he said.

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America is the largest U.S. lender by assets.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...s-arrests.html

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