I saw this policeman whacking a protester with his baton, and I didn't care for it (1:18).
I didn't see what precipitated the incident. I was looking elsewhere when I heard the crowd shouting "Shame." The beatdown occurs at 1:18 mark, by an officer wearing helmut #4562. The video isn't clear, and flash photography washes it out at points. I'm not going to editorialize much on the content, just wanted to offer it up as part of the record of the day.
It doesn't appear by the video, and I didn't witness the young man do anything to provoke the cop into his sudden burst of baton thumping. I have to say, it took me a little aback. It seemed yet again, totally unnecessary. It was shocking in the moment, to me and to the other witnesses, as the audio shows.
Some pics and commentary on my visit this morning.
I wasn't that impressed initially at the turnout. For the record, Zucotti Park is surrounded by police gates and they apparently only allow people in through a few spots. Well. So much for making the park accessible to the public. It's looking far more foreboding than it ever did before. What NYC general public wants to R & R in a concrete police pen?
Once we got into the narrow streets of the Financial District, the crowd looked much bigger. The goal appeared to block or inhibit access to the Stock Exchange and surrounding areas, disrupting, at least momentarily, the start of the work day.
Banksters, America's coming for you, even if the government won't.
Pic above from Occupy Wall Street:
Thousands marched on Wall Street this morning, blockading all entry points to the New York Stock Exchange. 'People's mics' have been breaking out at barricades, with participants sharing stories of struggling in an unfair economy.
He's not a bankster. But he plays one on protest day.
Protesters lock arms, blocking the Wall Street (the actual street). "Whose street? Our street!"
This didn't end very well, when cops cleared the street, they really charge the crowd at the 0:19 second mark:
"Class Warfare: They started it."
"Let's be friends."
Yeah. Today may not be the day.
Scrum.
Josh tells a camera crew he and his wife were motivated to travel to New York City from Iowa City, IA after Bloomberg's eviction. Our tourist board appreciates Bloomberg's efforts.
Cheers erupt. Alternet reports why:
9:12am: Potentially big news, via Jaffe: "Huge cheers to announcement 'the new york stock exchange bell has been delayed!'" This is unconfirmed, as the bell doesn't ring until 9:30. Waiting to hear more.
9:32am: The Stock Exchange bell has rung, and trading has begun. More arrests and kettling being reported. Police buses on the scene. Wall Street workers having a hard time getting past the protesters. Protester's reportedly ringing their own "People's Bell."
Since I have your attention, a few thoughts...
Probably my perspective on all this is colored by my life experience. Well, of course it is.
I survived the 1980s, but many of my friends didn't.
Like many of my generation, I watched my peers drop like flies to a fast spreading, fatal epidemic. By 1986, AIDS had claimed more American lives than eight September 11ths. Still, our President's attitude could be most generously described as "indifferent." Our allies in Congress were also indifferent or impotent, or scared, or some combination of the above.
Then a scrappy bunch of outsiders, dirty homos, got together and they decided they'd had enough lobbying our friends, protesting the President, begging and pleading for scraps and crumbs the FDA, CDC and others deigned to toss at the problem. They wanted answers, results, treatments, funding, not excuses.
- They shut down the New York Stock Exchange.
- They disrupted the New York City General Post Office on the night of April 15, 1987, to a captive audience of people filing last minute tax returns.
- They blocked the Oakland Bridge during San Francisco's morning rush hour.
They were told that inconveniencing people would only lose them friends and allies. They were only hurting themselves. They were told they were embarrassing the gay community. But they could no longer be ignored. And it was clear, they would no longer be easily placated.
And suddenly, things started to get real.
And low and behold, in a short time it was discovered, that yes, the Center for Disease Control could study the problem of AIDS, the Federal Drug Administration could fast track drugs to the market, and the Federal budget could break off a few more shekels to look into the problem of homosexuals dropping dead by the thousands.
These were my early experiences. Later a seminal moment came for me when, shortly following his first arrest at the White House, Lt. Dan Choi spoke to Newsweek magazine. He said:
When I get messages from people who want to be a part of this I ask back: what are you willing to sacrifice? We are tired of being stereotyped as privileged, bourgeois elites. Is someone willing to give up their career, their relationships with powerful people, their Rolodex, or their parents' love to stand up for who they are? I'm giving up my military rank, my unit—which to me is a family—my veterans' benefits, my health care, so what are you willing to sacrifice?
This really resonated for me. Not the idea that everyone has to go out and get arrested, although, granted I eventually did.
But more, the idea of actually sacrificing. Change would come when we all united to just taking a single step outside our own comfort zone, wherever that may fall.
It seems to me the OWS movement is headed for a reckoning between those who are band wagon, fair-weather supporters, and those who are true believers.
One of the finer pieces I've read is The Nation's essay Why Occupy Wall Street Has Left Washington Behind. Gordon Lafer makes the point:
OWS is clearly inspired by Tahrir Square. Yet Egyptians succeeded in toppling the Mubarak government not because they occupied the square but because their occupation exerted direct pressure on the country’s most powerful business interests. As SUNY Stonybrook sociologist Michael Schwartz has detailed, by shutting down the tourist industry, disrupting construction projects whose financing had already been committed and initiating general strike actions that threatened to shut the Suez Canal, the occupiers of Tahrir threatened the interests of the economic elite—and that is what brought down the regime.
Clearly, something similar—nonviolent action that directly challenges the economic elite—is required here if we’re to succeed in making serious change. It’s daunting, but there is a precedent. Before there were civil rights laws, people broke the back of Jim Crow by picketing, boycotting, getting beaten and arrested by the tens of thousands, in direct action against the most powerful forces of their society.
Real consequences that "threaten the economic elite" are necessary, otherwise, it's just entertaining theater.
To real people who depend on the social safety net, how this idealistic fight ultimately resolves itself could literally have life and death consequences.
Are the supporters of OWS just playing at the idea this is an American Tahrir Square? I wonder sometimes. I see people suggest that the evictions are justistified because people are not abiding by the rules of engagement, as Mayor Bloomberg and his 1% friends have laid them out for us.
But neither did the protesters of Mubarak respect the rules his regime laid out for them, and it bothered Americans not one bit as we cheered them on that they were breaking Mubarak's curfew rules. It did not cross our minds that some locals might have preferred the protester go about it more quietly, or that they pack it in at a reasonable hour, say 9 pm and return the next morning.
Is America just toying with the idea of civil disobedience, just so long as it doesn't inconvenience anyone? Just so long as it isn't too rude?
How badly do we want to save the social safety net?
How badly do we want to strike a new deal that puts Main Street's interests over Wall Streets?
Enough to make a few Wall Street workers late for work?
Things to consider.
It isn't nice to block the doorway,
It isn't nice to go to jail,
There are nicer ways to do it,
But the nice ways always fail.
Update
Announcer on live feed said about 100 arrests today. Fifteen minutes ago,
@OccupyWallStNYC tweeted:
Zucotti getting raided again, mass arrests Live feeds: http://bit.ly/... http://bit.ly/... #occupywallst #ows
Live feed below:
Upate 2: Mass arrests appear to be a false alarm. Live stream reports the influx of cops were crowd control not riot cops. Reports of unprovoked assaults and an undercover cop assaulting a protester unprovoked.