I never in a million years thought that I would be typing what I'm about to type. The broadest coalition I've ever heard of is about to descend on Wall Street: The SEIU, New York City's working families party, at least one teachers union, the local 100 transportation workers union, more members of Anonymous, Ron Paul supporters, and today I saw a working father standing in the square with his children holding signs, so basic decent American Families with no organizational affiliation are out in the streets with us.
Our message is clear: We've had enough.
And this is just the beginning.
I have a lot of news and other information to share with you, so follow me below.
NYPD Admits that they cannot clear the square.
We've got this confirmed by several sources. Zuccotti Park - Liberty Plaza - is private property. It's also open to the public. The NYPD can't push people off of private property that's open to the public.
Recently, the park's owners claimed that they had the right to remove anyone from the park that violated the park's rules. Specifically, they banned sleeping bags, tarps, and personal property. My current understanding (and what the NYPD seems to be saying) is that the NYPD cannot enforce such private rules. Private security would have to do so. No one wants the bad press and law-suits that would result from attacking the protesters with private security forces, especially when there are plenty of us there without personal property, tarps, and sleeping bags. Even if they pushed a few of the people out, there would be people back the next day. I'd be one of them.
So the situation seems to be a stalemate at this point, with neither the NYPD or the park's owners willing to take steps to go after the protesters, especially when the police brutality we've experienced legitimized us.
NYPD Command is furious, not with their officers, but with us.
There are plenty of higher ups in the NYPD who still think Anthony Bologna (AKA Tony Baloney) is in trouble for doing his job. Lawrence O'Donnell may be right that this investigation will be a sham to provide a smoke screen for the police when they're caught breaking the law. Bologna was promoted to his current post out of Internal Affairs, the police who investigate other police. He's probably got plenty of friends there who will want to protect him.
Being that they're furious they got caught, the powers that be in the NYPD ordered the protesters to tear down the Media tent yesterday (it's illegal to put up structures like tents without a permit, apparently). The order came two minutes before a storm was due to hit. The idea, we think, was to destroy the protester's capability to communicate via the internet. We've all seen the videos of camera wielders being attacked by police. That's obviously not doing what NYPD command needs, so they were attempting to shut down all routes of communication.
The protesters were smart enough to obey the order immediately. If they hadn't, I'm sure the laptops would have been "accidentally" damaged in the ensuing scuffle. They managed to stow most of their equipment before the rain hit, and I'm told that nothing was damaged. They attempted the same thing today as well, demanding that the protesters remove the tarps protecting computer equipment. Again, nothing was damaged. Perhaps next time they'll give the order while it's raining.
On the General Status of Funds and Funding
The General Fund and Media Funds are seperate. There's also someone asking for funds to start a newspaper to be distributed in the square. All of the funds that I know of are legitimate funds focused on supporting the protests with food, materiel support, and media support. As for the Media Fund, we've been keeping very careful track of the money and where it goes. We have receipts for every single expenditure we've made, including computer equipment and flags. We're slowly expanding our capabilities, and will post the full list of our expenditures with receipts when that capability arrives. Money corrupts, but sunshine is the best disinfectant, and we're going to let the sun shine.
We're working on quite a bit of logistical support. In addition to the lack of any real reporting on this issue outside of Lawrence O'Donnell, there are literally hours of video that simply haven't gotten out because we don't know who has it. Many of the protesters don't have internet access, so we're their route for getting video out if they have it. I'm going to make a request for video at GA today. There is other video we've shot that we don't have the software to edit (we have separate files for audio and video because it was simultaneously recorded on several pieces of equipment.)
Take that, people who say we've been editing video illicitly! We can't even do that yet!
As for the General Fund, it currently has around $27,000. There was an erroneous report that the protesters was low on food.
Mail
The UPS Store
Re: Occupy Wall Street
118A Fulton St. #205
New York, NY 10038
Money orders only please, cannot cash checks yet. Non-perishable goods only. We can accept packages of any size. We're currently low on food.
I've talked to some of the organizers, and they've assured me that this is not the case. This movement is leaderless in the sense that it has no one with any actual power. It does, however, have people who've been delegated with responsibilities, such as cooks, medics, and treasurers. I spoke to several of those delegates, shall we say, who explained that they're receiving enough cash and materiel donations that they don't need to dip very deeply into the general fund at this time. Indeed, hot, healthy, and often vegan food arrives regularly. Soon, they'll be cooking it themselves instead of ordering, which will take even less money.
Anonymous communication during a leaderless nonviolent revolution which has been met with extreme brutality? There's an app for that.
NY Daily News Reports that the protesters are using an anonymous phone app to communicate:
The “Vibe” app allows users to post tweet-like messages to other users' mobile phones without revealing their identities, as no registration is required.
Users can decide how long their “vibes” will exist - 15 minutes, an hour, a day, seven days, or forever. After the selected time is up, the message disappears.
Users can choose how far their messages will travel. A “whisper” can only be seen within 150 feet of the user’s mobile phone; a “speak” can be seen up to 1,500 feet away; a “shout” 3 miles away; a “whistle” 30 miles away; a “yell” 300 miles away – and a “bellow” can be seen worldwide.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/...
Anonymous is Terrifying
The MSM just doesn't know what to do with a leaderless movement. If there aren't celebs, if there isn't an official spokesperson, if there isn't an easy narrative, they just don't want to pay attention. That's because doing actual in depth reporting is hard and boring, and no one wants to stand out in a square with a bunch of ragged revolutionaries when they could be sitting up in the towers interviewing wall streeters while sipping single malt and enjoying free cocaine. Can you blame them? So I'm going to talk a bit about who Anonymous is and how they're helping.
Anonymous has promised us they're on our side, they're telling us to stand strong in the square, and they still scare the hell out of me. Not only have they released Anthony Bologna's home address online, as well as the addresses and phone numbers of his entire family, children included, they're doing the same for the family of a Wall Street CEO every day that our demands aren't met. All of them.
That's a pretty hefty list right now.
But that's who Anonymous is. They're not something new. They're the great terror of the French Revolution. It's just that they have computers instead of Guillotines, and in the modern day, they're nonviolent. You can't stop them, but they wont kill you. Even if you could arrest them all, there isn't the jail space on earth to hold them, and most of them live in countries where you can't just hold on to people forever (I hope). They know how to cover their tracks. If you do manage to find and arrest one of them acting in a leadership capacity, another one with the same skills steps up to the plate within five minutes.
Aaron Barr of HB Gary, the last guy who tried to attack them (at the behest of Bank of America and the US government) was accused by Colbert of essentially sticking his penis into a hornets nest. Anonymous shut down his company's website and hacked his personal and business email, releasing it online. They then took the information that HB Gary was planning on selling to the FBI and e-mailed it TO the FBI. They would rather go to prison then let someone make money attacking them. They crashed his company's server and deleted it's backup files, and even went so far as to remotely log into his iPad and wipe it. This was a computer security company whose entire business model was designed around securing companies from hackers. And just to add insult to injury, they posted the Barr's home address and social security number online.
Anonymous essentially destroyed an anti-hacker private security company hired by the US Government and the US Chamber of Commerce. That's what they can do. But more than all of that, anons are standing in the square with us. They're incredibly well organized, and they know what they're doing.
And they're with us.
Last night, they released addresses for James Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, and several of his family members and colleagues, which included things like political contributions.
What Anonymous does, releasing someone's personal information, isn't illegal. Each and every one of us has a long trail of information we've left behind online. Mistakes have been made by people handling our information. When you have hundreds and thousands of research experts crawling the internet looking for information on one person, they can compile a dossier full of information very quickly, all of it legally obtained. Sometimes, that includes social security numbers accidentally posted online by banks, charitable organizations, or the users themselves. Compiling information posted freely online and releasing it in a single document is not illegal. It's just very, very mean, and quite frightening.
We don't live in a world where people can hide behind a badge or a desk anymore, feeling the security of rank, feeling as if they can act with impunity. Anonymous and people like them refuse to tolerate petty tyrants. Anyone unprepared to deal with that world, anyone like the CEOs of Wall Street or thugs with badges like Anthony Bologna, is in for a very nasty surprise. The world has changed. The release of a Police Deputy Inspector's personal information is a new event in the history of nonviolent resistance.
The world has changed, and it will keep changing. If we get out and fight for it, we can make sure that it's a change for the better.
I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do, but Anonymous is giving the abusers something to fear. Abusers who, too often, have treated barbaric acts by their fellow officers with laughter. For example, the following comments are being posted on the "Law Enforcement Forum" at Officer.com. The comments posted there by people claiming to be police officers are disgusting. Since writing this last night, the thread in question has been taken down. I'll post a few choice quotes, though:
Crass Cop, who posted a thread titled "Dirty stinky hippies in NY dont like how theyre treated when they azz up.." identifies himself as a Patrolman in the Kansas City Police Department, posted
Theres a few videos on the link. man I LOVE how OC works wonders at clearing a sidewalk!!!
[Link to HuffPo]
Yeah...I love how the chick just falls to her knees and starts screaming!
Many of the officers making similar comments self identify as NYPD. They call the protesters dirty commies among other things, and say they want to break out the fire hoses so they can give the dirty hippies a bath. Not one single comment respected the fact that this was an illegal attack. Then, they made fun of gay people for a few minutes.
Now I know this isn't reflective of the entire NYPD. Most officers, the vast majority of them, are good people who are trying to do their job. The ones who don't outright support us are at least respectful of the fact that the people in Liberty Plaza are exercising their constitutional rights. There are a handful of officers, however, who want to raise hell. Lawrence was right. Within the police departments of the US, there is a "look the other way" boys club.
I have no idea what Anonymous is going to do to these guys, but the website is already swarming with new users. Whatever it is, it'll be as fun as taking a hornets nest and... you know.
Street police, meet internet police.
In any case, those posts prove Lawrence O'Donnell right. Anthony Bologna shouldn't be investigated by Internal Affairs, especially when he is a former member of Internal Affairs. This should be investigated by someone outside the police department. If I commit a crime, I don't get to ask my closest friends to investigate it. The same standard should apply to police. Currently, it doesn't. Lawrence himself explained that investigations like we're about to see are always a sham designed to protect the police.
That being the case, what else are we supposed to do? This system is completely broken.
I don't know that what Anonymous did was right. They scare me. But I do know that without their work compiling video and photographs to identify Bologna, we wouldn't have his name, we wouldn't have his badge number, and we'd be looking at a bunch of blurry video, not knowing who to investigate.
Thanks to them, we know who did this. Thanks to them, there will be an investigation, even if it is a sham of an investigation. They're already hard at work trying to identify several other officers involved in brutality. This isn't over yet, not by a long shot.
The world has turned upside down. Instead of the government and corporations telling the people "If you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear," the people are now saying to the same to their government.
More Celebs Have Appeared
Cornell West:
Former Governor Patterson:
Occupations are beginning across the country. We have a window, a very small window, within which we can affect significant changes. We must act before that window closes.
Join us.
Excerpt From "Revolution" by Joseph Bovshover
And you, all you sanctified moneybags
Bandits anointed and crowned
Your counterfeit towers of justice
And ethics will crash to the ground
I'll send my good sword through your hearts
That have drained the world's blood in their lust
Smash all your crowns and your scepters
And trample them into the dust
And though you may choke me and shoot me
And hang me your toil is in vain
No dungeon, no gallows can scare me
Nor will I be frightened by pain
Each time I'll arise from the earth
And break through all your weapons of doom
Until you are finished forever
Until you are dust in the tomb.
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