Occupy Wall Street Protest
Posted: September 17, 2011 Filed under: The Bonus Class | Tags: occupy Wall Street 17 Comments
GEN Y protests: maybe they'll be more engaged than Gen X, the so-called slackers
A protest of the influence of Wall Street organizations on US policy is being held today near Wall Street. It aims to do create change in the same way that media savvy young people did in Egypt and union workers did in Wisconsin.
Occupy Wall Street is a “leaderless resistance movement” spearheaded by activist magazine Adbusters. Organizers want people to swarm into lower Manhattan on September 17 and set up camp for two months, then “incessantly repeat one simple demand.”
What’s that demand? They haven’t decided yet.
The plan is to crowdsource the decision. Protestors are set to meet and discuss the issue at the iconic Wall Street Bull statue at noon Saturday, as well as at a “people’s assembly” at One Chase Manhattan Plaza at 3 p.m.
The protestors’ demand will likely be focused on “taking to task the people who perpetrated the economic meltdown,” says Kalle Lasn, the editor-in-chief of Adbusters.
I’ve been following some tweets and it appears the NYC police are not letting any one but Wall Streeters get close the financial district. There is some interesting information on the plans, however, if they manage to get any where near the sphere of influence.
Saturday at noon, a group that calls itself “Occupy Wall Street” is going to try to live up to their name for as long as they can. But first, they’ll be meeting at Bowling Green Park for a program that includes yoga, a pillow fight, face-painting, small break-out groups to discuss topics like derivatives, and a lecture from an author. There’s an arts and culture committee. Plus, there’s yoga and a planned “Thriller” dance. It sounds a little bit like camp, or maybe one of those pre-college orientation bonding sessions. But as the group says on its website, it’s actually a “leaderless resistance movement” meant to protest the concentration of wealth at the top of society — the “99 percent” standing up against the “1 percent.”
Essentially, says Marissa Holmes, a 25-year-old freelance documentarian who’s helped organize the event, it’s meant as a rebuke of “neoliberal economics,” and a youth-driven lefty answer to the tea party. Many of those involved, says Holmes, are young, overeducated, and underemployed. “How do you think we had time to organize this?” she laughed. Anonymous, the hacktivist group, has also released a video in support of the event, though their involvement isn’t official — Holmes told me she was simply waiting, curiously, to see what they might do.
The scenario of an unemployed-young-people uprising is exactly the one Mayor Bloomberg publicly worried about earlier today. The group explicitly cites the Tahrir Square demonstrators as an inspiration. And the critique of neoliberal economics also calls to mind the violent World Bank protests of the nineties in Seattle. But it’s a little unclear how many people will actually show up. The original goal — as proposed by AdBusters, where the event originated — was to gather 20,000 people, but the group’s Facebook page has less than 8,000 who’ve RSVPed.
I’m actually curious to see if any of the networks will even cover it. The twitter channel to follow is: #TakeWallStreet. You can watch some livestreams around 3 pm est at Global Revolution. It will be interesting to see if some of the twitter generation here in the US are any more committed to nonviolent change than other places in the world. Right now the associated chat channel looks to be spammed by Paultards.
Okay, caption contest: what do you say about police protecting THE bull?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Dak,
Thanks for the post, as it seems no media outlets are covering the Occupy Wall Street Protest. I am interested in some of the stories of people being laid off, their children not being able to pay for college and the lack of health care while big bonuses continue to be paid out to Wall Street executives.
hadearkandil Hadear Kandil
by monaeltahawy
High high high police presence. They’ve blocked off streets and are keeping us barricaded #Sep17 yfrog.com/kh4ywdpj
some pics here …
they are saying the press isn’t following them at all
Most of what I have seen is their own live streams…DemocracyNow has someone there after they got repeated calls. I was moved by the video with all the personal stories, including one of a family where both parents got laid off. The trickle down is just not trickling down.
One journo outright said he and his orgs didn’t support, and I guess won’t cover the protests.
They jump when it’s a dozen teabots. Poor Susan Rozgen lost her job at CNN when the teabots where upset at her insinuations. Corporate media is right!
For all practical purposes, the MSM is [not surprisingly] absent in covering the protest. If it were a Tea Party rally, they’d be all over it.
Couple of tweets I picked up online indicate the NYPD are occupying Wall St. at the moment with a particular contingent guarding ‘The Bull.’ Couple of protestors have picked up police radio scanners, calling for extra vans for arrest transport. Lots of plastic handcuffs spotted on site. Protestors are reminded to stay safe and remember the protest is a nonviolent event. One of the headlines I caught was: Marxist Mob Descends on Wall St. So predictable!
Interestingly enough the Nurses Union has been holding protests and marches all over the place, blasting Wall St. looting. Have we heard about them?? Not really.
Firedoglake is running a frontpage live stream. Transmission is bumpy but at least it’s an outlet to check as the day goes on. Corrente has a running twitter feed. Al Jazeera has some reporters there, Democracy Now representative and I did read at least one CNN reporter with photographer. It will be interesting to see if any reports make the nightly ‘news.’
I wish the protest well! A DC sit-in is planned for October. The natives are getting restless, finally.
I found some pix I just put up including the Bull Guard contingent.
One of the things I read is that there’s saying [or maybe a streaming myth] that if the Bull is toppled, Wall St goes down. I guess Bloomberg heard it, too.
Kind of sounds like blowing up parliament ala that movie Anonymous like so much.
Superstition, but perhaps they think the market is driven by the Balls and not investor confidence? :blush:
OK, a Bloombito take: ‘We must protest our guevos, I meant our torro’ 😉 =’Tenmos que protejer nostros balls, dego nostros BULL’…
Should have used google 😆
This is why I adopted MCM* instead of MSM. First, because Mainstream Media is two words, and second, and most importantly, the important part of MCM is the middle initial, C for Corporate. As in Mainstream Corporate Media.
The C part controls the media part.
*I did not invent this myself, altho’ MSM always bothered me because of the two words being made into three. I read MCM used on a blog, which one now long lost in memory, but it made such absolutely clear and vital sense.
To me, at least. It certainly hasn’t spread!
Well, AJ is following it … the AJSTEAM is full of pictures and comments from people there. They are chanting this is what democracy looks like and people not profits. It’s all kids from the looks of it. Some of them are wearing Guy Fawke’s masks.
Apologies if this is a repeat, but have you seen this British newspaper coverage of a tent/hut/tarp city in Ocean County, NJ, forested park land?
I’m sorat measuring what I’d need space-wise, as it would save a lot on property taxes….
I posted this one twice. The gap between rich and poor in this country is shocking, almost like a third world country.
Good grief! No I hadn’t seen the photos or copy on tent cities in Ocean City. I’m a native of NJ and the winters are cold. I can’t imagine people living in The Pines in these shelters during the cold weather. I did see similar pictures from California. You stand a better chance in a warm state. If the GOP has its way, we’re going to see more of this with unemployment checks cutoff, food stamps curtailed, an aversion to debt restructuring and the whole ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ mentality.
More images like this will fuel a sense of shame and outrage in the general population. How sad that the foreign press is the only outlet for these stories, whether it be the Brits or Al Jazeera. What a disgrace!
Guess this is what ‘liberty’ looks like.
You know, there was some coverage in the Guardian about this, but while looking for updates on the protest for tomorrows reads, I couldn’t find anything.