I shot this video. Please like it, tweet it, share it, make it viral. It needs to be seen. You can watch as the NYPD kettle in the people on the Brooklyn Bridge. I have other videos too that I will publish as soon as I can. You can hear my voice in the video. Spread this far and wide.
You can hear the crowd below chanting "LET US GO! LET US GO!" as we shouted down support from above them.
Crowds chanting to the police "We're not the criminals, we're not the criminals, you are us, we're fighting for your pensions! You are us, we're fighting for your pensions!"
The AP is reporting 700 arrests.
I marched the Brooklyn Bridge today with a few thousand of my friends. I took pics and have video thanks to the media fund we created. Please consider a donation if you'd like to keep us going.
So, here are some pics the Corporate Media won't show you.
I was on the middle road over the bridge. The road to our left, the traffic lane, was open because traffic stopped coming through when we blocked the street on the otherside passing by. Many people went down the open road. People in the back saw they were getting closed off but weren't able to communicate it to the middle of the crowd, and the front of the crowd didn't see this and kept walking on. After the last on ramp the police brought in a BIG force and began hemming people in with nets. People on the lower road began sitting down, a few allowed themselves to be arrested. Sitting in protest and non violent defiance. The rest of us above on the walkpath looked down at our brothers and sisters and recorded everything we could. People with cameras and videocams were given preference to record what was happening. I was one of those people.
We watched, appalled. As we crossed over people grew nervous. Would the police allow us to leave? It is a very narrow passage on the Brooklyn side of the bridge. What would happen when we got there.
Then we got back down to traffic level, chanting with our signs, and traffic started honking in approval! People heading into Manhattan were giving us thumbs up and slowing down to watch. It lifted our spirits.
We convened for a brief and what I think was unofficial General Assembly in the first park we came to on the Brooklyn side. We were informed of arrests and decided to stay put for the time being, trusting in safety in numbers. I decided to risk it, so I broke away from the crowd and hopped on the subway, eager to get my video and pics back to our media team to be disseminated.
I am losing track of how many days I have been here. Today I joined the march across the Brooklyn Bridge. I have been doing some thinking. We are winning.
When Mayor Bloomberg attacks us and Hannity attacks us, we are winning.
When Andy Sorkin does a full Baghdad Bob impersonation about us, we are winning.
Most of the people I've spoken to from far away said that the media silence made them feel they had to be here to see it for themselves. And they stay!
Hundreds of our brothers and sisters were arrested. We don't even know why they were arrested, officially.
Among each other we are resolved. We know we are being lied about and hidden. That makes our intent even clearer. We know who our enemies are. The banks. The war machine. The corporate media. The health insurers and pharmaceutical corporations. Ever corporate interest is hell bent on bleeding us dry. We are literally fighting for our lives. No arrest will stop that. One way or another, every person who is with us will live the rest of their lives knowing what they stood against. This is no longer a protest. It is a movement.
The conversation is changing. The loudest critics of what we are doing are our clearest enemies, the bought off and corrupt, but all over the world people are talking. Twitter can try and block it from "trending", News Corporation may slander it, that won't change what everyone is seeing, and after the lies in Iraq, the collapse under Bush and the return to the same greed It may not be in the corporate media, but what started in Iran on Twitter has crossed the world. We are changing the world as we speak. You are doing so right now, by engaging in your own education here online and discussing with people the things that the corporate world will not discuss. That has become a revolutionary act. By rejecting the bullshit you see in the papers, and making yourselves aware of what is being omitted. That has become a revolutionary act. By becoming "The Other", the other 99 percent, you have rejected the idea that we live to serve our "job creators" or the gatekeepers of power.
The corrupt fear us. The honest support us. The heroic join us.
Help fight back
If you'd like to help out the protests directly . . .
1. Get this message out there. Get the word out about these protests of Wall Street's greed to everyone you know. Raise awareness, even if it is via word of mouth, every little bit helps.
2. Use the twitter hashtags #OccupyWallStreet and follow on facebook and twitter accounts related to the ongoing protests. Help put this video on your facebook pageand any other social media that you use. Make it viral.
3. Make a donation to WeAreTheOther99%'s media fund. They need funding to stay active, and without huge corporate interests backing us up like the Teabaggers have, the only way this works is with your small donations.
4. Go to OccupyWallSt.org and make a donation to our General Fund to support the ongoing protests.
5. To send care packages to Liberty Square, go to OccupyWallSt.org for more information.
6. Find out if there will be an #Occupation event in your neighborhood and participate and contribute there if you can't come to NYC.
7. Be a better person to your brothers and sisters around you.
This is Jesse LaGreca, reporting on Day 15 from the frontlines of the class warzone, wishing you good health and prosperity to you and yours, and reminding you that they only call it class war when the working class fights back.
You can follow me on the Twitter Machines @JesseLaGreca