Thursday, July 12, 2012
Monday, November 14, 2011
"Occupy" Remains Peaceful Just Like the PLO
OAKLAND, Calif. - A man has died after being shot just outside the Oakland encampment that anti-Wall Street protesters have occupied for the last month.
"Occupy Oakland protesters gathered for their general assembly meeting and withdrew a resolution calling for future demonstrations to remain peaceful. A faction of the protest group has advocated for violence as a 'diversity in tactics' approach to demonstrating."
ALT LAKE CITY — At least four people were arrested Thursday following a fight that reportedly involved an estimated 30 people in Pioneer Park near the Occupy Salt Lake base camp.
Michele Bachmann was forced off stage at a speech in South Carolina Thursday after a group of Occupy Charleston protesters swarmed the event and began shouting down the congresswoman
- CBS News
"Occupy Oakland protesters gathered for their general assembly meeting and withdrew a resolution calling for future demonstrations to remain peaceful. A faction of the protest group has advocated for violence as a 'diversity in tactics' approach to demonstrating."
- San Francisco Chronicle
ALT LAKE CITY — At least four people were arrested Thursday following a fight that reportedly involved an estimated 30 people in Pioneer Park near the Occupy Salt Lake base camp.
- Deseret News
Michele Bachmann was forced off stage at a speech in South Carolina Thursday after a group of Occupy Charleston protesters swarmed the event and began shouting down the congresswoman
- Yahoo News
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Did These Kinds of Things Ever Happen at Tea Party Events?
Mayor Sam Adams said this morning that the person who planted a Molotov cocktail in a stairwell of the World Trade Center was linked to the Occupy Portland camp.
He said in an interview with OPB's "Think Out Loud" that the suspect was seen "by others" returning to the encampment after planting the device. The explosive, reported by someone who called 9-1-1 about 9:10 p.m. Tuesday, damaged the exterior stairwell but no one was hurt. And no one has been arrested.
- The Oregonian
"Occupy Portland protesters became enraged when Pizza Schmizza ran out of breadsticks to accompany their entree order. They threatened to assault employees and vandalize the restaurant."
A police spokesman told TSG that the incident Sunday evening involved a man and woman who became upset when they were told that the pizzeria had temporarily run out of breadsticks and that they would have to wait 15-20 minutes for a new batch. The customers, cops noted, told a Pizza Schmizza employee, "Your job is bullsh--, you know you work for a big corporation."
- The Smoking Gun
The arrest of a Crown Heights man last week on charges of sexually assaulting a protester at Zuccotti Park added to an already raucous public discussion of lawlessness at the site, where a revolving group of demonstrators has been camped for nearly eight weeks. While New York City police officers are stationed at the periphery, the department seems to have ceded patrols of the park interior to the protesters.
- The New York Times
He said in an interview with OPB's "Think Out Loud" that the suspect was seen "by others" returning to the encampment after planting the device. The explosive, reported by someone who called 9-1-1 about 9:10 p.m. Tuesday, damaged the exterior stairwell but no one was hurt. And no one has been arrested.
- The Oregonian
"Occupy Portland protesters became enraged when Pizza Schmizza ran out of breadsticks to accompany their entree order. They threatened to assault employees and vandalize the restaurant."
A police spokesman told TSG that the incident Sunday evening involved a man and woman who became upset when they were told that the pizzeria had temporarily run out of breadsticks and that they would have to wait 15-20 minutes for a new batch. The customers, cops noted, told a Pizza Schmizza employee, "Your job is bullsh--, you know you work for a big corporation."
- The Smoking Gun
The arrest of a Crown Heights man last week on charges of sexually assaulting a protester at Zuccotti Park added to an already raucous public discussion of lawlessness at the site, where a revolving group of demonstrators has been camped for nearly eight weeks. While New York City police officers are stationed at the periphery, the department seems to have ceded patrols of the park interior to the protesters.
- The New York Times
Friday, October 28, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Hypocrisy In The OWC Crowd
This is my favorite quote in the story below from one of the "occupiers": "If you're going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back," Digioia said. "There's a lot of takers here and they feel entitled."
So the people that feel like they are entitled to march on Wall Street and demand that they receive a portion of other peoples' labors and have been getting donations and handouts from sympathetic dumbasses are now upset because the homeless want their share of the handouts. Priceless!
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/occupy_wall_street/2011/10/23/2011-10-23_where_vagrants_excons__takers_find_a_home.html
So the people that feel like they are entitled to march on Wall Street and demand that they receive a portion of other peoples' labors and have been getting donations and handouts from sympathetic dumbasses are now upset because the homeless want their share of the handouts. Priceless!
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/occupy_wall_street/2011/10/23/2011-10-23_where_vagrants_excons__takers_find_a_home.html
Monday, October 24, 2011
The OWS Crowd Turn on Each Other
I think this is Hilarious. Below is an article from New York magazine. The OWC crowd elected a "General Assembly" that started collecting taxes and making laws and the rest of them are now pissed off.
The Organizers vs. the Organized in Zuccotti Park
By: Alex Klein – New York Magazine
It began, as it so often does, with a drum circle.
All occupiers are equal — but some occupiers are more equal than others. In wind-whipped Zuccotti Park, new divisions and hierarchies are threatening to upend Occupy Wall Street and its leaderless collective.
As the protest has grown, some of the occupiers have spontaneously taken charge on projects large and small. But many of the people in Zuccotti Park aren't taking direction well, leading to a tense Thursday of political disagreements, the occasional shouting match, and at least one fistfight.
It began, as it so often does, with a drum circle. The ten-hour groove marathons weren’t sitting well with the neighborhood’s community board, the ironically situated High School of Economics and Finance that sits on the corner of Zuccotti Park, or many of the sleep-deprived protesters.
“[The high school] couldn’t teach,” explained Josh Nelson, a 27-year-old occupier from Nebraska. “And we’ve had issues with the drummers too. They drum incessantly all day, and really loud.” Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out," said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group.
But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.
“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music," said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it ... they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”
To Shane Engelerdt, a 19-year-old from Jersey City and self-described former “head drummer,” this amounted to a Jacobinic betrayal. “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest," he said. "They didn’t even give the drummers a say ... Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.”
The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting."
All belongings and money in the park are supposed to be held in common, but property rights reared their capitalistic head when facilitators went to clean up the park, which was looking more like a shantytown than usual after several days of wind and rain. The local community board was due to send in an inspector, so the facilitators and cleaners started moving tarps, bags, and personal belongings into a big pile in order to clean the park.
But some refused to budge. A bearded man began to gather up a tarp and an occupier emerged from beneath, screaming: “You’re going to break my fucking tent, get that shit off!” Near the front of the park, two men in hoodies staged a meta-sit-in, fearful that their belongings would be lost or appropriated.
Daniel Zetah, a 35-year-old lead facilitator from Minnesota, mounted a bench. “We need to clear this out. There are a bunch of kids coming to stay here.” One of the hoodied men fought back: “I’m not giving up my space for fucking kids. They have parents and homes. My parents are dead. This is my space.”
Other organizers were more blunt. “If you don’t want to be part of this group, then you can just leave,” yelled a facilitator in a button-down shirt, “Every week we clean our house.” Seth Harper, the pro-drummer proletarian, chimed in on the side of the sitters. “We disagree on how we should clean it. A lot of us disagree with the pile.” Zetah, tall and imposing with a fiery red beard, closed debate with a sigh. “We’re all big boys and girls. Let’s do this.” As he told me afterwards, “A lot of people are like spoiled children." The cure? A cold snap. “Personally, I cannot wait for winter. It will clear out these people who aren’t here for the right reasons. Bring on the snow. The real revolutionaries will stay in -50 degrees.”
“The sunshine protestors will leave,” said “Zonkers,” a 20-year-old cleaner and longtime occupier from Tennessee. (He asked that his name not be used due to a felony marijuana conviction.) “The people who remain are the people who care. You get a lot of crust punks, silly kids, people who want to panhandle ... It disgusts me. These people are here for a block party.”
Another argument broke out next to the pile of appropriated belongings, growing taller by the minute. A man named Sage Roberts desperately rifled through the pile, looking for a sleeping bag. “They’ve taken my stuff,” he muttered. Lauren Digion, the sanitation group leader, broke in: “This isn’t your stuff. You got all this stuff from comfort [the working group]. It belongs to comfort.”
And as I spoke to Michael Glaser, a 26-year-old Chicagoan helping lead winter preparation efforts, a physical fight broke out between a cleaner and a camper just feet from us.
“When cleanups happen, people get mad,” Glaser said. “This is its own city. Within every city there are people who freeload, who make people’s lives miserable. We just deal with it. We can’t kick them out.”
In response to dissatisfaction with the consensus General Assembly, many facilitators have adopted a new “spokescouncil” model, which allows each working group to act independently without securing the will of the collective. “This streamlines it,” argued Zonkers. “The GA is unwieldy, cumbersome, and redundant."
From today’s battles, it’s not yet clear who will win the day: the organizers or the organized. But the month-long protest has clearly grown and evolved to a point where a truly leaderless movement will risk eviction — or, worse, insurrection.
As the communal sleeping bag argument between Lauren Digion and Sage Roberts threatened to get out of hand, a facilitator in a red hat walked by, brow furrowed. “Remember? You’re not allowed to do any more interviews,” he said to Digion. She nodded and went back to work. But when Roberts shouted, “Don’t tell me what to do!” Digion couldn't hold back.
“Someone has to be told what to do," she said. "Someone needs to give orders. There’s no sense of order in this fucking place.”
The Organizers vs. the Organized in Zuccotti Park
By: Alex Klein – New York Magazine
It began, as it so often does, with a drum circle.
All occupiers are equal — but some occupiers are more equal than others. In wind-whipped Zuccotti Park, new divisions and hierarchies are threatening to upend Occupy Wall Street and its leaderless collective.
As the protest has grown, some of the occupiers have spontaneously taken charge on projects large and small. But many of the people in Zuccotti Park aren't taking direction well, leading to a tense Thursday of political disagreements, the occasional shouting match, and at least one fistfight.
It began, as it so often does, with a drum circle. The ten-hour groove marathons weren’t sitting well with the neighborhood’s community board, the ironically situated High School of Economics and Finance that sits on the corner of Zuccotti Park, or many of the sleep-deprived protesters.
“[The high school] couldn’t teach,” explained Josh Nelson, a 27-year-old occupier from Nebraska. “And we’ve had issues with the drummers too. They drum incessantly all day, and really loud.” Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out," said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group.
But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.
“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music," said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it ... they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”
To Shane Engelerdt, a 19-year-old from Jersey City and self-described former “head drummer,” this amounted to a Jacobinic betrayal. “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest," he said. "They didn’t even give the drummers a say ... Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.”
The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting."
All belongings and money in the park are supposed to be held in common, but property rights reared their capitalistic head when facilitators went to clean up the park, which was looking more like a shantytown than usual after several days of wind and rain. The local community board was due to send in an inspector, so the facilitators and cleaners started moving tarps, bags, and personal belongings into a big pile in order to clean the park.
But some refused to budge. A bearded man began to gather up a tarp and an occupier emerged from beneath, screaming: “You’re going to break my fucking tent, get that shit off!” Near the front of the park, two men in hoodies staged a meta-sit-in, fearful that their belongings would be lost or appropriated.
Daniel Zetah, a 35-year-old lead facilitator from Minnesota, mounted a bench. “We need to clear this out. There are a bunch of kids coming to stay here.” One of the hoodied men fought back: “I’m not giving up my space for fucking kids. They have parents and homes. My parents are dead. This is my space.”
Other organizers were more blunt. “If you don’t want to be part of this group, then you can just leave,” yelled a facilitator in a button-down shirt, “Every week we clean our house.” Seth Harper, the pro-drummer proletarian, chimed in on the side of the sitters. “We disagree on how we should clean it. A lot of us disagree with the pile.” Zetah, tall and imposing with a fiery red beard, closed debate with a sigh. “We’re all big boys and girls. Let’s do this.” As he told me afterwards, “A lot of people are like spoiled children." The cure? A cold snap. “Personally, I cannot wait for winter. It will clear out these people who aren’t here for the right reasons. Bring on the snow. The real revolutionaries will stay in -50 degrees.”
“The sunshine protestors will leave,” said “Zonkers,” a 20-year-old cleaner and longtime occupier from Tennessee. (He asked that his name not be used due to a felony marijuana conviction.) “The people who remain are the people who care. You get a lot of crust punks, silly kids, people who want to panhandle ... It disgusts me. These people are here for a block party.”
Another argument broke out next to the pile of appropriated belongings, growing taller by the minute. A man named Sage Roberts desperately rifled through the pile, looking for a sleeping bag. “They’ve taken my stuff,” he muttered. Lauren Digion, the sanitation group leader, broke in: “This isn’t your stuff. You got all this stuff from comfort [the working group]. It belongs to comfort.”
And as I spoke to Michael Glaser, a 26-year-old Chicagoan helping lead winter preparation efforts, a physical fight broke out between a cleaner and a camper just feet from us.
“When cleanups happen, people get mad,” Glaser said. “This is its own city. Within every city there are people who freeload, who make people’s lives miserable. We just deal with it. We can’t kick them out.”
In response to dissatisfaction with the consensus General Assembly, many facilitators have adopted a new “spokescouncil” model, which allows each working group to act independently without securing the will of the collective. “This streamlines it,” argued Zonkers. “The GA is unwieldy, cumbersome, and redundant."
From today’s battles, it’s not yet clear who will win the day: the organizers or the organized. But the month-long protest has clearly grown and evolved to a point where a truly leaderless movement will risk eviction — or, worse, insurrection.
As the communal sleeping bag argument between Lauren Digion and Sage Roberts threatened to get out of hand, a facilitator in a red hat walked by, brow furrowed. “Remember? You’re not allowed to do any more interviews,” he said to Digion. She nodded and went back to work. But when Roberts shouted, “Don’t tell me what to do!” Digion couldn't hold back.
“Someone has to be told what to do," she said. "Someone needs to give orders. There’s no sense of order in this fucking place.”
Friday, October 21, 2011
Hottie of the Week
Based on my post earlier in the week, this weeks hottie should be no surprise. With a look like Marilyn Monroe, she makes you dream of classy beauties fromthe fifties. She harkens a day when women weren't stick thin. Which makes you remember the fondness you had for your Dad's Playboys. And maybe she reminds you of your middle school best friends mom. If you roll that way. Enjoy the marvel that is Scarlett Johanson.
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