Today in Occupy-related news:
- Police action to disperse Occupy Oakland this morning resulted in at least 85 arrests:
The police action at the plaza near City Hall began at 4:45 a.m. and involved hundreds of officers from at least 10 law-enforcement agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, the Alameda County sheriff's office and various East Bay police departments. [...]
At 4:50 a.m., some loud bangs were heard after officers lobbed "flash-bang" grenades, and smoke rose into the air. After a protester apparently released a smoke bomb, officers began putting on gas masks. A police helicopter flew overhead with its spotlight on.
- Across the bay:
KGO ABC News San Francisco reports that a group of clergy members joined the 99 Percent Movement yesterday for a march to San Francisco’s financial district, including the office buildings for JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. The demonstrators hailed from different parts of the Bay Area and carried a golden calf, which “represented a young version of Wall Street’s golden bull.”
- Occupy Wall Street facing a major hurdle: self-government. Over drumming. Frankly, it's a depressing read.
- A box of rocks labeled "riot equipment" was found at the Occupy Minnesota encampment. Protestors believe it to be the work of a(n extraordinarily non-subtle) provocateur.
- The most recent push by the conservative gasbag brigade (well, it's not a brigade, exactly, more like a loose confederation) is to claim the Occupy movement is simply a construct of the scary liberal media. Their evidence consists of any reporter or pundit who ever said anything even abstractly sympathetic to the movement.
As you read that, keep in mind the tea party movement, which was branded by Fox News, heavily promoted and advertised for by the same, and which saw prominent Fox personalities both (1) at the protests themselves, expressing support or (2) explicitly supporting the tea party movement from within the confines of their comfy studios. But that was completely different, for some reason that Rush Limbaugh or Andrew Breitbart cannot possibly explain.
- One of the terribly partisan reporters cited in that article, Matt Taibbi, has written another excellent post on the motivations of the Occupy movement.
And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.
- Irony alert: due to widespread lack of confidence in the stock market, banks now have more cash than they can use.
- Elizabeth Warren, who has been dedicated for quite some time to curbing Wall Street corruption and consumer exploitation, supports Occupy Wall Street. Republicans think that is very, very bad, and are looking to make an issue of it. Given the support among the public for Occupy Wall Street: good luck with that, GOP.
- Reporting on the reporters: here's a look at how the media is covering Occupy Wall Street.
- It's as official as it's going to get: Occupy Wall Street is at least as popular as the tea party. I expect Fox News to begin its fawning coverage any minute now. Have they started yet? No? All right, how about now? No? Hmm, this may take a bit longer than I thought.
In general, the Republican reaction to Occupy Wall Street seems to be becoming more McCarthyesque in nature. First they laughed it off: that didn't work. So now we're in the stage where everyone involved is probably a secret communist or something, or are just jealous of rich folks or the like. The obstinance with which critics refuse to even acknowledge that the protests are about wrongdoing by the financial markets and government leaves little question as to what side of that wrongdoing they're on.