(Hundreds gathered to protest on and near Wall Street on Saturday)
Today, unknown to many people including myself, was the launch of a three day long protest called "Occupy Wall Street" the event is apparently affiliated with the 99% movement whose core tenant is that the Top 1% of the wealthy in America have essentially rigged the economy for their benefit at the expense of the bottom 99% I want to also stress it is difficult to understand who or what is exactly behind this protest/movement because of the strategy known as "leaderless resistance." The group Anonymous is also believed to be involved.
Julianne Pepitone, of CNN, has been one of the few reporters on the scene. From her story:
Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Manhattan's financial district on Saturday in a largely peaceful protest aimed at drawing attention to the role powerful financial interests played in wreaking havoc on America's economy.
Modeled on the "Arab Spring" uprisings that swept through Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and other countries this year, Occupy Wall Street is a "leaderless resistance movement" orchestrated through Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools. The Twitter hashtag #OccupyWallStreet lit up Saturday with coordination messages and solidarity tweets.
One of the solidarity tweets caught my eye:
(Haledon Mayor Domenick Stampone tweets his support)
The protests have, so far, been peaceful though the police were deployed and closed off Wall Street.
(Police protect Wall Street Assets)
Most of the coverage, with the exception of CNN, has been international. Some are claiming there is a media blackout with unconfirmed reports that Twitter is blocking the tags #OccupyWallStreet and #TakeWallStreet from trending.
But I would offer the explanation that few media outlets knew or cared to know about this protest and some have caught up such as Business Insider (linked above) and now Businessweek, who posted this article while I was writing. Contained within the story is something rather troubling:
Protests also are planned for financial districts in Madrid, Milan, London and Paris, according to a bulletin from the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center obtained by Bloomberg News. The NCCIC is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Chris Ortman, an agency spokesman, confirmed the bulletin’s authenticity.
Pretty sure peaceful protests are not within the jurisdiction or purview of the Department of Homeland Security. Then again neither is copyright infringement. We'll discuss out of control Orwellian government agencies later.
The protests are set to end on Monday with the crescendo being some public theater between the protesters and the Wall Street Banksters coming back to work.
We'll let you know if anything major develops or this was just a fun day to raise awareness of an important issue.
(Photos: Julianne Pepitone CNN, David Graeber, Dustin Slaughter)