Occupy Wall Street Occupies Wall Street: #N17

[Video Link] to a "The other 99%" livestream of history unfolding on Wall Street this morning in New York City. Today, OWS participants called for marches throughout the world. Protesters in NYC have come out in such force, with some crowd estimates at 1,000-3,000, that multiple entrances to the Wall Street area have been shut down. Now, they are going to try to enter and occupy the NYSE.

A retired police sergeant from Philadelphia is said to be among the more than 50 already arrested (possibly this man?). Other credible arrest reports I've seen include vets, activists, elderly, multiple minors, and a woman in a wheelchair: (police couldn't figure out how to get her to jail, so they gave her a citation, says Michael Moore.) LRAD are present and in use. Reports of widespread arrests, and some violence by police, in live-tweeted reports from journalists and observers I'm following on Twitter.

Some accounts to follow from people who are there, right now: @quinnnorton @macfathom @nicoles @NYClu @lucykafanov @newyorkist @katz @JoshHarkinson @PennyRed @allisonkilkenny, @adamgabbatt, @_rosiegray @jeffrae, @mtracey, @nydailynews, @michelleinbklyn, @elliotjustin, @timkarr. Oh, and @mmflint.

The Occupy Wall Street librarians tweet: "Nothing is more telling than the full force of the NYPD guarding the Temples of Finance one day after they destroyed #OWSLibrary. #N17"

Liveblogs: Greg Mitchell at The Nation. Here is the liveblog from The Guardian. The NY Daily News has a liveblog here.

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lknope

I’m really enjoying seeing the number of views climb steadily, about 1000 per minute right now. The world is watching, Wall Street.
Cowicide

Bloomberg better do something quick to protect his money. Never mind America, or anything like that.
http://www.tavie.com Tavie

Power to the people, baby.
Gainclone

I would love to see this massive crowd just start CHASING those fatcops.
- http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
  
  There’s a part of ALL of us that would like to see the same, but then what? What would happen if that were really to occur, if the cops suddenly realized what side they were on and joined us? What would that look like?
  - Gainclone
    
    It would look like effing chaos. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen. (Still though… it’d be SOMETHING. Something other than cops thumping on OWS protesters, which has been the prevalent trend, it seems).
    - Cowicide
      
      It would look like effing chaos. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen.
      
      Wow, that’s cowardice, I’m sorry.
      
      In places in the country where the police already HAVE stood down, there’s been relative calm and peace.
      
      In places in the country where the police are stomping all over our right to freedom of assembly, there’s been growing chaos.
      
      They only people that need be afraid of the American public are the faces of evil.
      
      You want to see chaos? Look at what the corporatists have done to this country since the American public stood down.
  - benher
    
    Like Ebony and Ivory? Together in Perfect Harmony?
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Z2NMTZSN2MTULEG6CAT6BFUALA Don
  
  Martyrdom truimps violence, seventy somethings dying on jailhouse floors truimps bloody confrontations. Ask your grandparents to showup at the next gathering. And may the force protect us all.
http://twitter.com/zaren Jim Schmidt

If I could mention @curiousjohn as another user live in New York. He was doing live streaming and random photos yesterday, and has done some posting again this morning.
benher

Watching from the other side of the world. One of the ever-climbing numbers on the view count. We’re with you, if not in body then in spirit – hang in there!
Digilante

My level of respect for the American people is rising steadily with the number of protesters. It’s your damn country and it’s a fine sight to see you fighting for your rights, and against the oilgarchy [spelling intended] in power.

It would be great to see a new political party arise from this, and consequently rise in power to challenge the existing ones.

Anyway, it’s all very interesting to watch, and I really wonder how this is going to end – will you get your freedom and rights back, as a nation, or will you be quashed with a show of power and new laws that reduce further what little rights you still have. Your oligarchs are a far more educated, wealthy and powerful force than the puny middle eastern chaps that were recently deposed.
- http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
  
  ” a new political party to arise from this”
  
  and if that were to happen, the people that were elected in the name of that party would have the lobbyists with TRUCKLOADS of cash backed up to their office doors within a week. The system is broken. We have to start from scratch.
- Amy L Sacks
  
  I think we have a shot at a real sea change, here. I don’t know how long the encampments will survive, but the change happening to people as they witness and participate…? I don’t think that can be dismantled so easily.
  
  IF the manufactured stampede to the 2012 Electoral Farce doesn’t sap people’s time and resources as it did that of the Anti-War movement last time. Yeah, it’s an awfully big “IF,” but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. The Democrats have proven repeatedly, beyond a doubt, that the only good activist is one they can keep in their own hip pocket. I don’t want to see protesters fall for their worthless threats/blandishments again.
http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

I only saw two arrests (although there were periodic cries of “Shame! Shame!” and “Peaceful protest!” from deeper in the crowd, always a sign that someone’s getting zip-tied). One person I saw get taken was a cop from Philadelphia – a tall, distinguished-looking old guy wearing his full police uniform. He sat down in the street, and the cops scooped him up and took him away, while the crowd cheered him.

One thing I noticed was that the NYPD’s bullhorns were nearly inaudible, so any directions they gave went mostly unnoticed. They should probably have asked if they could use the People’s Mic, which seemed much more efficient.

On Twitter, @Breaking911:twitter , which seems to be basically summaries of NYPD and FDNY radio traffic, is worth following for live-tweets of OWS-related activity.
Phil Fot

It would be interesting to see some firehoses turned against the LRAD equipment.
Gainclone

What to the protestors intend to do when the snow, hail, and freezing rain arrive?
- Ipo
  
  Ow man. The cops are gonna hate having to abuse people throughout the winter.
- Cowicide
  
  What to the protestors intend to do when the snow, hail, and freezing rain arrive?
  
  It already has and many stayed out there until the police (under orders) forced them out who then destroyed and stripped away all their warm tents. This isn’t lazy tea baggers we’re talking about.
  
  The thing is, the corporatists are slowly starting to understand that the American people (at large) are badasses. Once the first winter storms hit, they thought the OWS movement would have ended. When it didn’t, they went into panic-mode because it finally dawned on them that the OWS movement is playing for keeps… AND WE ARE.
  
  That’s why we’re now seeing Homeland Security (a Nazi term, by the way) coordinate with lackeys around the nation to squash freedom of assembly. They say it’s for public safety, but that’s what every fascist has always said.
  
  We know the real reasons… they don’t want their LIES that destroy American lives to be exposed. They are rich from the status quo and they don’t want change at any cost (to themselves).
  
  They want us all to talk quietly amongst ourselves about our increasingly serf-like status and do nothing. Get in line, serfs. Basically, they want United States citizens to be weak cattle.
  
  They want you to be a coward. The only question is… will you comply?
  
  You have the right to free speech. As long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it.
http://twitter.com/loumsc Louis Davidson

Get a life people!
- Amy L Sacks
  
  I had a life once but the banks foreclosed on it.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I had a life once but the banks foreclosed on it.
    
    Now the bank owns your life. Until they sell it to a shadowy mega-corporation on the secondary market.
- http://twitter.com/WillBurd William Burden
  
  Umm, to whom are you speaking?
- Cowicide
  
  Get a life people!
  
  Thanks, and hopefully through our struggles we’ll get one for you as well.
publicuum

(to gainclone): How, exactly, would the police shifting their support and protection from the
big institutions to the common citizen result in “effing chaos?” My naive reaction suspects violence and crime might actually drop.
- Gainclone
  
  I imagined cops and protestors alike flooding into skyscrapers and arbitrarily tossing white-collar Stock-Exchange-Type workers out of windows and such. Lynches, arson and suchlike.
David Telford

The police and other law enforcement agents on scene at the various Occupy movements around the country (and globe) seem to be caught in a conflict of interests. On one hand, they have the people in charge cutting their pay checks telling them to perform certain actions, and on the other they have the sworn responsibility of protecting the populace and making sure laws are upheld and abided by. Their conflict arises when they are told to harm peaceful people, and to act against constitutional and local laws for the sake of dispersing crowds of people exercising their rights to gather.

I purpose one solution to this issue: Embrace these people and show them that we need them! We look to these officers for help in the most dire of situations. They look for our loved ones when they are missing, they search for our stolen property. They rescue us from violence, accidents and harm. They help keep or cities safe by putting their lives at risk every day trying to capture violent criminals. They do these and other countless things for us. And at the end of the day they take off their uniforms and go home to their families, worry about their bills, just like the rest of us. They ARE us. That’s what we need them to realize. They are part of the 99%. One of the most important parts. They are the part that have vowed to protect and watch over us. We need to convince them that with their help we can win this. We need to remind them why they do what they do. I’m sure it can’t feel good to go home after launching rubber bullets into crowds innocent people, to pepper-spray 80 year old women, to baton young girls and boys just asking for a better tomorrow. Some of these officers must truly feel terrible inside, having done these things. It’s up to us to let them know they have a choice. They don’t have to be pawns of Wall Street and Big Industry, that they can fight for the rights promised us all, they just have to choose it.
Rosetta Maranos

Waking up, America rises, yawns, scratches and yells WTF!!!!!
Rosetta Maranos

As well, Tim Pool’s feed, over 19,000 watching live:
http://www.ustream.tv/theother99#utm_campaign=synclickback&source=http://boingboing.net/&medium=9488285
http://twitter.com/sarah_no_cal sarah_no_cal

You know, if they had started out this way I might be interested. But now, eh, I’m so not paying attention. Their message has been completely lost.
Time for a do over.
- Finnagain
  
  Thanks. Now I know that you don’t care. I was really wondering.
- amida
  
  Completely disagree. No single “message” needed; they’ve changed the discourse.
- Cowicide
  
  Hey, isn’t American Idol on or something? Go watch that before you miss something.
Mister44

re: “and a woman in a wheelchair: (police couldn’t figure out how to get her to jail, so they gave her a citation,”

Aha – with this bit of info, you now know how to avoid arrest by the police! Until they make paddy wagons ADA compliant, they can’t haul you to jail very well.
Shinkuhadoken

The way I see it, the Tea Party and OWS pretty much have the same idea (though one likes guns and the other likes drugs). There’s a malaise over the egregious coddling of the rich with tax payer money to bail them out of their own screw ups and to fund their lobbying to be allowed to screw up just as bad in the future. Obviously these two groups may not agree on the solution to this problem, but at least they agree on what lit the match.

There is a trust that has to exist between rich and poor that they are working for the betterment of the country without working behind the scenes to subvert it. I believe the poor have, for the most part, kept their part of the bargain. They didn’t give in to communism, as was once feared, but fought bravely against the fascism and imperialism that threatened the freedom loving world. If you’re not one of these people, chances are you’re a descendant of one.

But these days, I’m not so confident to say the same of the rich. They can’t all be painted with the same brush, of course, but it’s discouraging to see the power grab. Money = speech. Corporations = people (except when it comes to incarceration). Communist China is now the market that has their rapt attention; the market of their own people holds little interest, except if it can be used to grow their Chinese interests. They (most, not all) demand lower taxes while taxing the poor further, and giving themselves even more ridiculous bonuses with the savings. You can’t even get on a plane without being treated like a suspected terrorist; not so for the rich. Pretty much every program of the New Deal that has kept the United States stable for decades is planned to be dismantled or severely scaled back. Unions busted. Minimum wages repealed. Healthcare non-existent. No Social Security for the elderly. The clean air and water you enjoy are about to be polluted if the EPA goes away as planned. And the “vision of hope” we’re given to justify this is to think about all the money the rich will get as a result, and maybe, if they’re feeling charitable, they might give you a job (if you’re still healthy enough somehow). Record-breaking wealth that they currently have be damned; they must have more money before they start hiring!

WTF.
http://www.facebook.com/Devgoesrawr Kayla Woods

Does anyone know if the LRADS were used as a weapon or just as a long distance PA? Big difference between using them for communication and for crowd dispersal.
jhertzli

November 16 NYSE market volume: 918,719,737.

November 17 NYSE market volume: 1,024,669,206.

It doesn’t sound that effective.

Actually, speaking as a reactionary crackpot, I must admit OWS has two actually reasonable complaints:

1) The bleeping bailouts. (The Tea Partiers are also on this case.)

2) The fact that student loans are non-bankruptable. (As far as I know, the Tea Partiers are not yet on this case.) Student loans became non-bankruptable in 1998. The very next year a long-dormant student protest movement came back from from the dead, filling a much-needed gap in the political spectrum. The non-bankruptable nature of student loans is a recent and regrettable innovation. It’s not a traditional feature of capitalism.