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Jello Biafra talks Occupy, music, and Obama

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:27:02 +0000

In a great interview with the Guardian, former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra talks about Occupy, Obama, his break with the rest of the Kennedys, and his current band, Jello Biafra And The Guantanamo School Of Medicine (whose existence I'd somehow missed!).

It's depressing how conservative people can be despite supposedly belonging to a supposedly alternative subculture.
Any alternative culture that inspires a lot of passion and inspiration is also in danger of being set in its ways, almost from the moment it's born. That even included the Occupy movement in some ways. It was discussed whether or not to participate in the electoral side of the system at all, which I thought was a good idea. Why not run people for offices and knock off some of the tired old corporate puppets in the primaries, like those lovely people in the Tea Party have done with the Republicans? But other people chose not to do that.
You've been involved with the Occupy movement. (2) The initial media storm around it seems to have died down …
I think that anyone who declared that Occupy was a failure was very much mistaken. I knew it would have a ripple effect, like throwing a big piece of concrete into a lake and just watching the waves ripple. In a way, Obama owes Occupy big time for saving his ass in the 2012 election. Occupy brought the issue of inequality and Grand Theft Austerity, as I call it, right to the forefront.

Jello Biafra: 'Obama owes Occupy big time' (via MeFi)

How the global hyper-rich have turned central London into a lights-out ghost-town

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:01:19 +0000

In an excellent NYT story, Sarah Lyall reports on "lights-out London" -- the phenomenon whereby ultra-wealthy foreigners (often from corrupt plutocracies like Kazakhstan and Russia) are buying up whole neighbourhoods in London, driving up house-prices beyond the reach of locals, and then treating their houses as holiday homes. They stay for a couple weeks once or twice a year, leaving whole neighbourhoods vacant and shuttered through most of the year, which kills the local businesses and turns central London into something of a ghost town.

“Some of the richest people in the world are buying property here as an investment,” [Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour opposition in Westminster Council] said. “They may live here for a fortnight in the summer, but for the rest of the year they’re contributing nothing to the local economy. The specter of new buildings where there are no lights on is a real problem...”
Meanwhile, prices are rising beyond expectation. For single-family housing in the prime areas of London, British buyers spend an average of $2.25 million, Ms. Barnes said, while foreign buyers spend an average of $3.75 million, which increases to $7.5 million if they are from Russia or the Middle East...
The most visible, and also the most notorious, of the new developments is One Hyde Park, a $1.7 billion apartment building of stratospheric opulence on a prime corner in Knightsbridge, near Harvey Nichols, the park and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which functions as a 24-hour concierge service for residents. Apartments there have been purchased mostly by foreign buyers who hide their identities behind murky offshore companies registered to tax havens like the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands.
It is rare to see anyone coming to or going from the complex, and British newspapers have been trying since it opened two years ago to discover who lives there. Vanity Fair reported recently that as far as it could discern after a long trawl through records, the owners seem to include a cast of characters who might have come from a poker game in a James Bond movie: a Russian property magnate, a Nigerian telecommunications tycoon, the richest man in Ukraine, a Kazakh copper billionaire, someone who may or may not be a Kazkh singer and the head of finance for the emirate of Sharjah.

A Slice of London So Exclusive Even the Owners Are Visitors [NYT/Sarah Lyall]

(via Beyond the Beyond)

Wealth disparity in America: an inch of bar-graph for the 90%, 4.9 miles' worth for the top 0.01%

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 01:02:31 +0000

Here's a rather graphic representation of the growth in income inequality in the USA since the 1960s; plotted on a chart where the income growth of the bottom 90 percent is represented by an inch-high bar; the growth of the top 10 percent needs a 163 foot-tall bar; while the top 0.01% need a 4.9 mile-high bar to represent their real wealth growth in the same period.

The income growth and shrinkage figures come from analysis of the latest IRS data by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, who have won acclaim for their studies of worldwide income patterns over the last century.
In 2011 entry into the top 10 percent, where all the gains took place, required an adjusted gross income of at least $110,651. The top 1 percent started at $366,623.
The top 1 percent enjoyed 81 percent of all the increased income since 2009. Just over half of the gains went to the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and 39 percent of the gains went to the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent.
Ponder that last fact for a moment -- the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent, those making at least $7.97 million in 2011, enjoyed 39 percent of all the income gains in America. In a nation of 158.4 million households, just 15,837 of them received 39 cents out of every dollar of increased income.

Income Inequality: 1 Inch to 5 Miles (Thanks, Spider!)

Interview with Molly Crabapple

Rob Beschizza — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:00:00 +0000

The artist (one of the creators behind the wonderful I have your heart) talks about the growing political dimension of her work. An exhibition of her latest series, Shell Game, opens April 14 in New York.

Report: FOIA'd FBI documents point to secret, nationwide Occupy surveillance

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:08:21 +0000

Update: I missed this NYT front-section story on the PCJF's document trove, published on Christmas Eve. The tl;dr: The FBI used counterterrorism agents to investigate Occupy Wall Street, "including its communications and planning," according to newly disclosed (and highly redacted) agency records. It's the best analysis I've seen, and mea culpa for having not seen it before this post was published.

Violent crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street in cities around the US may have been coordinated between local law enforcement, the federal government, and banks, even before protests began, according to a trove of documents requested by The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) under the Freedom of Information Act.

According to the PCJF, the 112 pages of documents show the government communicated throughout the crackdown effort with financial institutions through the Domestic Security Alliance Council, an entity created by the FBI in 2005 that "enhances communications and promotes the timely and bidirectional effective exchange of information keeping the nation's critical infrastructure safe, secure and resilient."

The documents add to an increasing pile of evidence that the government treated OWS as a kind of domestic terrorist threat, and engaged in widespread surveillance and counter-intelligence gathering in an attempt to quell the popular movement.

According to the PCJF's analysis of the documents, they reveal "that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat even though the agency acknowledges in documents that organizers explicitly called for peaceful protest and did 'not condone the use of violence' at occupy protests."

"FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country."

Read them yourself. There's an awful lot of redaction, and as others have noted, thin proof to back up claims others have made that they prove "assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire" was planned by the DHS. During the OWS heyday, there was widespread speculation that DHS directly coordinated crackdown efforts, fueled in part by a statement from Oakland mayor Jean Quan.

“The documents are heavily redacted, and it is clear from the production that the FBI is withholding far more material," PCFJ attorney Heather Benno says. “We are filing an appeal challenging this response and demanding full disclosure to the public of the records of this operation.”

I realize it's New Year's Day, and that the documents are heavily redacted—so, there's a lot missing. The PCJF's analysis of what the documents mean is certainly open to debate. But it doesn't say much good about the mainstream US press that this story was broken by a small nonprofit, then amplified in a Guardian op-ed by Naomi Wolf (which I would argue contains distortions and misinterpretation), and a few blogs and websites, including this one. Correction: Nope, NYT covered it on Christmas Eve, when I and everyone else was unplugged from news. Mea culpa.

All the more reason, IMO, to support organizations like Freedom of the Press Foundation that fuel nonprofit transparency efforts, so more ignored stories like this one see sunlight.

Eulogy for #Occupy: beautiful, brutal postmortem

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:06:38 +0000

Quinn Norton's Eulogy for #Occupy is a wrenching, beautiful, long postmortem on the Occupy movement, including an eyes-open (and scathing) critique of what went wrong inside Occupy:

But living in parks, having to rub elbows with the people society was set up to shield from each other, began to stress people and make them twitchy from constant culture shock. Grad students trying to reason with smack addicts was torture for both sides. The GA [General Aseembly] became the main venue for this torture, and sitting through it was like watching someone sandpaper an open wound. Everyone said “Fuck the GA” as a joke, but as time wore on, the laughter was getting too long and too hoarse; a joke with blood in it. The metaphorical pain became less metaphorical with each eviction, with the gnawing feeling that something was coming.
Because the GA had no way to reject force, over time it fell to force. Proposals won by intimidation; bullies carried the day. What began as a way to let people reform and remake themselves had no mechanism for dealing with them when they didn’t. It had no way to deal with parasites and predators. It became a diseased process, pushing out the weak and quiet it had meant to enfranchise until it finally collapsed when nothing was left but predators trying to rip out each other’s throats.
By the time I returned to NY from visiting the camp in DC, exhausted with the pain of six evictions, the NYC GA was a place where women were threatened with beatings, and street kids with calls to the police. All the reasonable people had gotten the fuck out. It had become a gladiator pit no one enjoyed watching. Even Weev, the famous internet troll, didn’t last through the nastiness of the GA I took him to. He left while I wasn’t looking, without saying goodbye. We never spoke about it. I didn’t blame him, and I didn’t have to ask why. It was the tiny, brutal, and bitter politics of failed people.

And some cogent analysis of why the wider world couldn't (or wouldn't) accept Occupy's message:

Standing next to an older officer after one eviction, telling him what I’d seen and listening to him worry about how he was going to send his kids to college, I overheard the police talk to each other. Of the protestors they kept saying the same thing, the same three words to each other and walked away: “They’ll be back.” Some said it with scorn, lips curled. Some said it with fear, some excited for the action. Some said it with the watery voices of drowning hope: “They’ll be back.”
Please, let something matter again, let something change.
The policing of protest in America makes it clear that protest has become mere ritual, a farce, and that, by definition, it becomes illegal if it threatens to change anything or inconvenience anyone. In time, all the police announcements came to say the same thing to me. “You may go through your constitutional ritual,” they intoned, “but it must stop before anything of consequence happens.” We must, above all, preserve everything as it is.

A Eulogy for #Occupy [Wired]

Occupy Sandy doc screened at secret cinema

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:00:46 +0000

A documentary about Occupy Sandy was screened at a secret location in NYC last night; it made the connection between Sandy and climate change. People wanting to see the movie were directed to a building whose wall was used as a screen for the premiere.

Now, in what may be the quickest turnaround for a movie in recent memory, the group, Occupy Sandy, will show a documentary Wednesday about its efforts and the contention that the storm was tied to climate change and the fossil fuel industry. In classic Occupy fashion, the screening will not be in a traditional theater, but rather on the side of a yet-to-be-disclosed building in the East Village.
The screening of the film, “Occupy Sandy: A Human Response to the New Realities of Climate Change” (see trailer above or click here), will be at 6:30 p.m.

‘Occupy’ Movement’s Next Guerrilla Effort: A Film Screening [NYT]

OCCUPY SANDY TRAILER IS UP! WORLD PREMIERE NEW SHORT FILM! NYC. NOV. 28th. [Vimeo]

#climatecrime [Twitter]

Rolling Jubilee: Occupy raising money to buy up, and wipe out, debts

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:33:32 +0000

David "How to Sharpen Pencils" Rees describes the Rolling Jubilee, a project from Occupy Wall Street to buy up, and zero out, other peoples' debts:

Now OWS is launching the ROLLING JUBILEE, a program that has been in development for months. OWS is going to start buying distressed debt (medical bills, student loans, etc.) in order to forgive it. As a test run, we spent $500, which bought $14,000 of distressed debt. We then ERASED THAT DEBT. (If you’re a debt broker, once you own someone’s debt you can do whatever you want with it — traditionally, you hound debtors to their grave trying to collect. We’re playing a different game. A MORE AWESOME GAME.)
This is a simple, powerful way to help folks in need — to free them from heavy debt loads so they can focus on being productive, happy and healthy. As you can see from our test run, the return on investment approaches 30:1. That’s a crazy bargain!
Now, after many consultations with attorneys, the IRS, and our moles in the debt-brokerage world, we are ready to take the Rolling Jubilee program LIVE and NATIONWIDE, buying debt in communities that have been struggling during the recession.
We’re kicking things off with a show called THE PEOPLE’S BAILOUT at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday, November 15. It will also stream online, like a good ol’-fashioned telethon!

I just put in $100, which will erase $3000 worth of someone's debt.

The People’s Bailout

Oakland's chief of police blackholed all emails mentioning "Occupy," trashed official condemnations and sanctions unread

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:12:35 +0000

Oakland police chief told a court that he never saw emails from city officials and a federal court monitor who emailed him about police brutality and other illegal actions by his force in its response to Occupy Oakland. That's because, he says, he used a spam-filter to automatically spam-filter all messages containing phrases like "occupy," "police brutality," "press pass," and "excessive force." More from SFGate's Matthai Kuruvila.

The city investigation found that Jordan had city staff put in the filters on Oct. 27, 2011 - two days after a violent clash between police and protesters that made international news. He had been inundated with anonymous messages, he said in a declaration to the court.
But he forgot the e-mail filter was still in effect.
At least until Henderson gave his order and the city investigated. All messages to Jordan with the once-banned phrases now go to his inbox, as of Oct. 19. In addition, Jordan now has a special folder for messages from the court monitor, Warshaw.
"It was never my intention to ignore the monitor," Jordan said in his declaration.

Oakland chief filtered out Occupy e-mail (via JWZ)

(Image: Occupy Oakland October 11, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from quinn's photostream)

Brightly colored Guy Fawkes mask-scarves

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 01:35:38 +0000

$15 a pop, in red, orange, blue, and violet, as well as the more traditional black. Hot Occu-Babe not included. Giant Eye/sleekanddestroy.com. I'm also feelin' the Kraken Loves Galleon - Laser Cut Paper Eyelashes and the Pedobear Earrings.

Update: Here's Cory modelling one! And here's a previous post about the black ones. Cory says, "They make several appearances in HOMELAND, the forthcoming sequel to LITTLE BROTHER." (The thing that's new here is the colors.)

The Plot Against Occupy

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 19:47:04 +0000

A worthy piece of reporting over at Rolling Stone, on "how the government turned five stoner misfits into the world's most hapless terrorist cell," in the spirit of COINTELPRO. Snip: "Nothing was destined to blow up that night, as it turns out, because the entire plot was actually an elaborate federal sting operation. The case against the Cleveland Five, in fact, exposes not just a deeply misguided element of the Occupy movement, but also a shadowy side of the federal government." A former FBI counterterrorism agent now with the ACLU describes the government's actions as "manufacturing threatening events."

Molly Crabapple describes and illustrates her Occupy arrest

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:54:12 +0000

Molly Crabapple's brief, illustrated editorial describing her arrest at the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street is a tale of police entrapment: petty, punitive justice; solidarity, and resolve.

At one corner, I saw a cop grabbing the arm of a woman in front of me and pulling her into the street. It was the same gesture you might use to escort an old lady, and, when the next officer did this to me, that is what I thought it was. But then, halfway across the street, he cuffed my hands behind my back.
There was no warning. No Miranda rights like in the movies. At first, I was incredulous. It was not until I got my desk ticket that night for blocking traffic that I had any idea what the officer was accusing me of doing.
I was a head shorter than the officer. I said to him, "You know I was on the sidewalk." He wouldn't meet my eyes. I was two blocks from my apartment. But because I was part of a protest, I was no longer a local. I was an obstruction to be cleared.
Going into the police van, they snapped my picture on a Fujimax Polaroid knockoff, hipster party style. I gave them my best grin. A man in a suit passed by, looked us over, and said to the police, "nice work."

My arrest at Occupy Wall Street

One Year of Occupy. One Year of Journalist Arrests.

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:40:55 +0000

Josh Stearns has been tracking "press suppression and journalist arrests," which became a regular occurrence since the start of Occupy Wall Street on September 17, 2011. "As press, protesters and police converge in New York City for the one year anniversary, we'll be tracking press suppression here." Sadly, the list has been updated today on the one-year #OWS anniversary with quite a few familiar names: bloggers, artists, journalists. (Storify)

On Occupy's first anniversary, over 180 arrested in NYC

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:34:57 +0000

The AP reports that protesters circulated around lower Manhattan this morning, one year after the "Occupy" movement kicked off. "There were a few hundred protesters scattered throughout the city. More than 180 of them were arrested by early Monday evening, mostly on disorderly conduct charges."

Artist Molly Crabapple among those arrested in Occupy one-year-anniversary events

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:01:43 +0000

Arrested. Twittering from police van
— mollycrabapple (@mollycrabapple) September 17, 2012

Earlier today, artist Molly Crabapple was one of a number of people arrested at events marking the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York. By various estimates, more than a hundred people have been arrested there today. Crabapple tweeted from the police van. Over the past year, she has produced a wide array of work related to #OWS, including portraits, street-art templates, and illustrations for coverage in The Nation and other publications.

Somewhere in NYC, a cop is listening to an angry short artist in heels spewing obscenities in four different languages #freemollycrabapple
— Warren Ellis (@warrenellis) September 17, 2012

Her friend (and mine) Warren Ellis writes:

Interestingly, what evidently happens is that NYPD insisted everyone get on the pavement, and once they were on the pavement they were arrested. What I am pleased about is that Molly’s arrest wasn’t one of the violent ones – because nobody in the NYC power structure gives a shit about sending the message that they will beat non-violent protestors to show how devoted they are to preserving the peace of breakfast in the financial district – and that, frankly, she gets to see the inside of a black maria and a cop shop. Because that is going to give her a wealth of new stuff to draw angry, in the mode of her Shell Game pieces.

Right now @mollycrabapple is tweeting from a police van. Art arrest. Sending her love. #ows
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) September 17, 2012

(Disclosure: she also drew me, once.)

Compelling bad news about the economy

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 20:53:41 +0000

Ian Welsh writes on Naked Capitalism with 21 dismal and compelling "basics" about the economy and the so-called "recovery."

7) Europe, ex. Germany, is in recession.
8 ) the developed world is in depression, it never left depression. During depressions there are recoveries (such as they are) and recessions, but the overall economy is in depression.
9) China’s economy is slowing down. Since China is the main engine of the world economy, followed by the US, this is really bad. If it goes into an actual recession, bend over and kiss your butt goodbye.
10) Austerity is a means by which the rich can buy up assets which are not normally on the market for cheap.
11) the wealth of the rich and major corporations has recovered and in many countries exceeded its prior highs. They are doing fine. Austerity is not hurting them. They control your politicians. The depression will not end until it is in their interest for it to do so, or their wealth and power is broken.
12) The US play is as follows: frack. Frack some more. Frack even more. They are trying the Reagan play, temporize while new supplies of hydrocarbons come on line. Their bet is that they’ll get another boom out of that. If they’re right, it’ll be a lousy boom. If they’re wrong (and the Saudis think they are, and the Saudis have been eating their lunch since 2001) then you won’t even get that. Either way, though, they’ll devastate the environment, by which I mean the water you drink and grow crops with.
13) For people earning less than about 80K, the economy never really recovered. Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/some-basics-on-the-economy.html#0PPQV6PGXuqWiWc9.99

Ian Welsh: Some basics on the economy

Down in Smoke: through comics, Susie Cagle chronicles the DEA raids on medical marijuana facilities in California

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:49:45 +0000

At Cartoon Movement, "graphic journalist" Susie Cagle (Twitter) surveys the impact of recent DEA raids of medical marijuana centers, and legal attacks against Harborside and the like, in 'Down In Smoke'. The work includes sound clips, which is brilliant.

Oakland, California. Ground zero for a medical marijuana fight between states and the federal government that has only been heating up. Incorporating real audio from activists, Cagle portrays what "feels like class war" as local growers, patients and city officials fight against losing their jobs, medicine, and tax revenue.

The whole thing is here, and it's fantastic. Susie has done some of the best reporting I've seen of the Occupy movement and related protests in America—she's been jailed and injured for it. The fact that her reporting is focused through the medium of comics is just so innovative and cool. She takes true risks for her reporting, and what comes out of it is insightful, informative, and funny. I just love her work.

Aaron Swartz reviews Twilight of the Elites, an indictment of meritocracy

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 13:57:59 +0000

On Crooked Timber, Aaron Swartz reviews Twilight of the Elites, Chris Hayes's indictment of "meritocratic" society. I recently blogged an excerpt from Twilight, published in The Nation -- I was really impressed by it. Swartz's review has cemented that view.

Hayes pins the blame on an unlikely suspect: meritocracy. We thought we would just simply pick out the best and raise them to the top, but once they got there they inevitably used their privilege to entrench themselves and their kids (inequality is, Hayes says, “autocatalytic”). Opening up the elite to more efficient competition didn’t make things more fair, it just legitimated a more intense scramble. The result was an arms race among the elite, pushing all of them to embrace the most unscrupulous forms of cheating and fraud to secure their coveted positions. As competition takes over at the high end, personal worth resolves into exchange value, and the elite power accumulated in one sector can be traded for elite power in another: a regulator can become a bank VP, a modern TV host can use their stardom to become a bestselling author (try to imagine Edward R. Murrow using the nightly news to flog his books the way Bill O’Reilly does). This creates a unitary elite, detached from the bulk of society, yet at the same time even more insecure. You can never reach the pinnacle of the elite in this new world; even if you have the most successful TV show, are you also making blockbuster movies? bestselling books? winning Nobel Prizes? When your peers are the elite at large, you can never clearly best them.
The result is that our elites are trapped in a bubble, where the usual pointers toward accuracy (unanimity, proximity, good faith) only lead them astray. And their distance from the way the rest of the country really lives makes it impossible for them to do their jobs justly—they just don’t get the necessary feedback. The only cure is to reduce economic inequality, a view that has surprisingly support among the population (clear majorities want to close the deficit by raising taxes on the rich, which is more than can be said for any other plan). And while Hayes is not a fan of heightening the contradictions, it is possible that the next crisis will bring with it the opportunity to win this change.
This is just a skeletal summary—the book itself is filled with luscious texture to demonstrate each point and more in-depth discussion of the mechanics of each mechanism (I would call it Elster meets Gladwell if I thought that would be taken as praise). So buy the book already. Now, as I said, I think Hayes is broadly correct in his analysis. And I think his proposed solution is spot on as well—when we were fellows together at the Harvard Center for Ethics, I think we annoyed everyone else with our repeated insistence that reducing economic inequality was somehow always the appropriate solution to each of the many social ills the group identified.

Interestingly, the term "meritocracy" was originally coined as a pejorative, and it originates with Michael Young, who also founded the Open University.

Guest Review by Aaron Swartz: Chris Hayes’ The Twilight of The Elites (via 3 Quarks Daily)

What we teach children about police

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:27:16 +0000

"Someone is causing a lot of trouble."

Josh Stearns, a reporter who has covered the Occupy movement extensively, asks, "Why is this children's book teaching my kid about SWAT vehicles and Riot Control practices?" From his blog post:

Visiting the local library yesterday my son picked out a book all about police. I was stunned when, after pages and pages of info about police cars and police offices, there were these two pages about Riot Control Trucks and SWAT Vans.
Even after months of tracking conflicts between police and the press I still have a profound respect for much of law enforcement and the jobs they do in our communities. However, the descriptions of water cannons being turned on protesters and the taunting opening on the SWAT page, “Someone’s causing a lot of trouble…,” all seemed out of place. Given the increasingly militarized response we have seen to citizen protests, seeing Riot and SWAT teams portrayed this way in a children’s book was troubling.

More scans here.

If you'd like to pick up a copy as a gag gift for your favorite police-beaten Occupier, the book is "Police Cars." Google Books has a few scanned pages here.

Germany: Riot police clear Occupy Frankfurt (photo)

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:24:19 +0000

REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

German riot police carry a demonstrator fully covered in paint as police clears the camp of occupy protestors in front of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, May 16, 2012.

Occupy footage exonerates journalist; cop lied under oath

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:34:38 +0000

Photojournalist Alexander Arbuckle, arrested while covering Occupy Wall Street protests, was acquitted Tuesday after a short trial. Moreover, footage shown in court suggests that police lied about what happened.

Arbuckle was charged with disorderly conduct when police rounded up New Year's Day protestors near Sixth Avenue. The arresting officer claimed that he was blocking traffic in the street—a version of events repeated under oath.

Nick Pinto at The Village Voice:

There was a problem with the police account: it bore no resemblance to photographs and videos taken that night. Arbuckle's own photographs from the evening place him squarely on the sidewalk. All the video from the NYPD's Technical Research Assistance Unit, which follows the protesters with video-cameras (in almost certain violation of a federal consent decree), showed Arbuckle on the sidewalk. And in an indication of the way new media are transforming the dynamics of street protest, a clip from the live-stream of journalist Tim Pool showed that not only was Arbuckle on the sidewalk, so were all the other protesters. The only thing blocking traffic on 13th Street that night was the police themselves.

The arrests begin about 32 minutes into the clip embedded above.

BB reader Geoff Shively writes in:

This is the first win in a series of cases where the NYPD is accused of manufacturing false accounts to make arrests of journalists, activists and legal observers. I asked an NLG observer in Chicago yesterday if its likely the police officer could be charged for perjury and he replied "Unfortunately, police are rarely rarely rarely held accountable for false arrests". We hope Arbuckle can change that and bring a case to court against this officer so that police understand that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.

Occupy this stylish biker jacket

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:48:57 +0000

I'm digging the look of this Occupy Wall Street khaki street jacket by EGOLOGICS on Etsy. (thanks, foslforever)

May Day protests: gas, brutality, and baseless arrest

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:49:09 +0000

Mike from Mother Jones sends us a link to the magazine's coverage of yesterday's May Day protests: "Mother Jones reporter was close at hand, and got disturbing photos and video of Oakland Police officers tackling a girl on a bike who didn't seem to be doing anything provocative. He then got a nice taste of OPD attitude: 'Fuck, I just got teargassed,' he tweeted. The video clips are about halfway down, but lots of good photos and bicoastal coverage, too."

"#$#! I Just Got Tear Gassed!" and Other MoJo Tales From Occupy May Day

A visual explainer of laws that govern police crowd control tactics at protests in Oakland, CA

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 02 May 2012 01:08:55 +0000

At Oakland North, John C. Osborn has created a series of graphics that visually explain the policies of the Oakland Police Department and the California Penal Code that are supposed to guide how police and protesters interact.

May Day, 2012 (big photo gallery)

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 01 May 2012 23:37:20 +0000

Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

A protester holds a Guy Fawkes masked teddy bear during May Day demonstrations in Los Angeles. Below, more photos from demonstrations around the world today (Canada, Germany, Spain, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, and more) in support of workers' rights and economic justice.

Joe Sabia

Above, Boing Boing pal Joe Sabia took these iPad snapshots of taxi drivers and workers protesting in NYC's Greenwich Village. "These photos are on the mid to tail-end of the march," Joe tells Boing Boing, "They're on Tenth and Broadway, heading south from Union Square."

REUTERS/Jana Asenbrennerova

Ivar Diehl and his dog, Lucy, wait for a rally to begin as part of a nation-wide May Day protest in Oakland, California.

REUTERS/Mike Segar

Occupy Wall Street protesters dance around a "May Pole" in Union Square park as they demonstrate in New York City, May 1, 2012. Occupy Wall Street is joining labor groups for a day of protests on Tuesday to mark International Workers Day and to try to breathe fresh life into the movement that sparked a wave of nationwide protests against economic injustice eight months ago.

REUTERS/Anthony Bolante

The window of a Wells Fargo Bank damaged by protestors during May Day protests in Seattle today. Reuters reports that "Demonstrators, including hundreds in black masks, hoods and armed with bats also destroyed the windows of a NikeTown and an American Apparel store during one of the numerous marches throughout downtown Seattle."

REUTERS/Anthony Bolante

A police officer in riot gear emerges from the debris after shooting pepper spray at masked protestors during May Day demonstrations that went violent in downtown Seattle May 1, 2012.

REUTERS/Anthony Bolante

Self proclaimed vigilante "superheroes" (L to R) Caballero, Midnight Sun and Phoenix Jones stand guard at the front of the Federal Courthouse in downtown Seattle after May Day protests went violent May 1, 2012.

REUTERS/Mark Blinch

People affiliated with the Occupy Toronto group take part in "Occupy Gardens" where they planted vegetable seeds at Queens park during May Day protests in Toronto, Canada today.

REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate

A protestor with a painted face argues with riot police in front of the Legislative Assembly building in San Jose, Costa Rica, on May 1, 2012.

REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera

In Honduras, police officers stand guard outside the National Congress building as workers from different unions take part in a march along a street during a demonstration in Tegucigalpa.

REUTERS/Jose Miguel Gomez

In Colombia, riot police stand guard after being hit by paint balls from students in clashes during International Workers' Day, or May Day, at the central square of Bogota.

REUTERS/Fabian Bimme

In Hamburg, Germany, riot police stand guard in front of the Rote Flora alternative cultural center during May Day demonstrations in the Schanze district.

REUTERS/Albert Gea

A secret police officer checks a demonstrator at a checkpoint before a march on May Day in central Barcelona, Spain.

REUTERS/Gus Ruelas

The scene at Los Angeles International Airport today: more than a thousand members of SEIU United Service Workers West labor union and their supporters hold a demonstration and one-day general strike to protest working conditions and lend support to May Day demonstrations.

REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

In Cali, Colombia, a demonstrator holds a toy gun and a banner that reads "no weapons" on May 1, 2012. Below, also in the Colombian city, riot police fire a water cannon at the demonstrators during Labour Day demonstrations today.

Just Do It environmental outlaw activist documentary screening, free online for May Day

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:10:17 +0000

Emily sez,

Just Do It - a tale of modern-day outlaws is an exciting new documentary which takes you behind the scenes of the secret world of environmental direct action in the UK. Granted unprecedented access to film, director Emily James embedded herself inside a group of nonviolent UK activists as they shut down airports, stormed the fences of coal power stations, and super-glued themselves to bank trading floors, all despite the very real threat of arrest.
The film opened in the US just last week on Earth Day, however, in solidarity and support with May Day actions planned around the world - starting at 5:30pm EST on Monday 30th, the full film will be available to watch online for FREE for 24 hours on occupy.com, with a live Q&A with director Emily James at 7pm EST. To reserve your seat for the 5:30pm screening, simply head over to www.occupy.com/watch/ or to watch the film at any time during the 24-hour invitation, click "watch now" in the player.

You'll remember Emily and her awesome movie from such blogposts as this one.

Just do it | Occupy.com

Occupy Dagobah

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:02:49 +0000

A little bit of Star Wars-meets-Occupy street art, snapped near my flat in Hackney, London.

Occupy Wall St The 99% We Are, Yoda stencil, Great Eastern Street, Hackney, London.jpg

Million Hoodie March for Trayvon Martin under way in NYC

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 23:26:41 +0000

A large crowd of protesters, between 2,000 and 5,000 by various estimates, are marching through the streets of New York right now to draw attention to the killing of Trayvon Martin. The Florida teen was shot to death last month, in a case that has generated widespread outrage online.

Tim Pool has been running a live video stream of the march.

Here's a quick link to the relevant Twitter hashtag (#millionhoodiemarch), to follow tweets from people who are there. Seems like a lot of youth are present at this one, perhaps more so than at recent Occupy marches in New York. People are wearing hoodies, carrying bottles of iced tea and throwing Skittles in the air: Trayvon was wearing one, and holding that candy and beverage when he was shot. So far, police presence is high, but interactions are peaceful, and the crowd is doing its thing without much NYPD aggression. That could change before the night is through.

The parents of the slain teen are present, and addressed the crowd earlier.

#Trayvon's mother at #millionhoodiemarch: "This is not abt a black and white, this is abt a right and wrong." #POWERFUL
— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) March 21, 2012

Heard that a local news outlet claimed that there were dozens of people out here. There are thousands. #millionhoodies
— EBONY Magazine (@EBONYMag) March 21, 2012

Union sq panoramic #trayvonmartin twitter.com/Timcast/status…
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) March 21, 2012

I was going to the march. The march came to me #millionhoodiemarch lockerz.com/s/194581782
— Questo of The Roots (@questlove) March 21, 2012

The chanting of 'we are all tray on Martin' got deafening. Crunch of skittles underfoot. #OWS #TravyonMartin #UnionSq
— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 22, 2012

As of 8pm NYC time, the Associated Press and other news outlets still insist on reporting that only "hundreds" are participating in the march, despite evidence to the contrary. ABC News pegged the number at "dozens." As if.

As the march continues, two stories related to the case are breaking: city commissioners in Sanford, Florida have voted "no confidence" in the local police chief presiding over the case. Republican lawmakers in Florida who pushed a controversial self-defense law say it shouldn't apply to George Zimmerman, the shooter who killed Trayvon.

(photos: top, @occupywallst; inset, @xLovePatricia)

NYPD and Bloomberg vs. Occupy Wall Street: "Just hit them"

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 23:29:49 +0000

"[W]hat's been pretty seriously under-covered is this past weekend's amazing outburst of out-of-control NYPD tactics on Occupy Wall Street," writes Choire Sicha at the Awl, along with a roundup of links and videos illustrating just how out-of-control those NYPD tactics are.

Homeland Security memo warned of violent threat posed by Occupy Wall Street

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:10:40 +0000

An October, 2011 Department of Homeland Security memo on Occupy Wall Street warned of the potential for violence posed by the "leaderless resistance movement." (via @producermatthew).

Update: Looks like there's a larger Rolling Stone feature on this document:

As Occupy Wall Street spread across the nation last fall, sparking protests in more than 70 cities, the Department of Homeland Security began keeping tabs on the movement. An internal DHS report entitled “SPECIAL COVERAGE: Occupy Wall Street [PDF]," dated October of last year, opens with the observation that "mass gatherings associated with public protest movements can have disruptive effects on transportation, commercial, and government services, especially when staged in major metropolitan areas." While acknowledging the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of OWS, the report notes darkly that "large scale demonstrations also carry the potential for violence, presenting a significant challenge for law enforcement."