Yetta Kurland and myself negotiating with police and Newscorp security. Photo via Jenna Pope
Occupy Wall Street brought in the 2013 New Year on an all too familiar foot, as the New York Post made an evidence-free allegation that connected OWS to individuals arrested with bomb making materials.
This time though, something was different. This time we decided to fight back.
Here's the press release for today's petition delivery protest at the New York Post.
For background -- concerned OWS activists had quickly coalesced to protect OWS, starting with a petition to Rupert Murdoch and the New York Post. We sent it out through the ‘Your Inbox: Occupied’ mailing list (which I help manage), and it instantaneously gained steam.
This online action provided ample evidence to reporters like Nick Pinto at the Village Voice to cover the New York Post’s slander of OWS with a message that we were starting to push back.
And indeed, this petition proved to be but a first step along an escalation route bringing us to Rupert and the New York Post’s front door this afternoon.
Using the contacts we collected through the petition alongside another campaign email blast to our mailing list, we galvanized a petition-delivery protest. To mark the occasion we made 8 big banners of the thousands of signatures and messages we received.
Here's a photo stream and the livestream video.
Eve Silber of OWS Alliance Building was instrumental in organizing the action, bringing in a variety of Occupy Faith speakers, as well as utilizing her musical talents to the fullest by playing a special NY Post rendition of her OWS song.
After that we packed up the signatures to deliver.
Which went well:
All in all a very successful action! I broadly couldn’t be happier that there is growing energy in OWS to fight back against the lies.
And fight back we must, particularly in light of what Digby and the progressive blogosphere at large have termed 'Cokie's Law'. To our ‘village’ establishment media, when a charge like this is made by Rupert Murdoch or his minions, "It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's out there."
The New York Post flagrantly declared war on us long ago, with far too little resistance. Making them have to pay even a bit more for putting such shameful lies ‘out there’ couldn’t be more important.
