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Today's Top News
Wall St Protesters March on New York Stock Exchange
NEW YORK - About 500 Occupy Wall Street protesters marched from a New York park on Thursday to the stock exchange for a protest that the movement against economic inequality hoped would attract tens of thousands of people.
City officials were also prepared for a large crowd to converge around Wall Street in a bid to disrupt workers from getting to their desks in the financial district.
Scores of police were on duty and streets around the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street had been barricaded off. The protesters had acknowledged that they were unlikely to get too close to the heart of American capitalism.
The march is due to kick off a day of action at the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street movement two days after police cleared a camp of hundreds of protesters from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan on Tuesday.
"I feel like this is a beautiful moment to take back our streets, especially after the eviction. We need to prove we can exist anywhere. It's gone beyond a single neighborhood, it's really an idea," said Rachel Falcone, 27, from Brooklyn.
Most rallies by the 2-month-old movement have numbered in the hundreds of people in New York. A spokesman for the protesters said on Wednesday they expected tens of thousands for this one.
Peter Cohen, 47, anthropologist from New York, wore a suit for the protest in a bid to improve the movement's image.
"I have a job and (the suit) on because I'm tired of the way this movement has been characterized as a fringe movement," he said. "I'm not looking for money, I'm not looking for a job, I'm not a professional activist, just a normal citizen."
Inspired by the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street protesters set up camp in Zuccotti Park on September 17 and became the epicenter for the movement, sparking rallies and occupations of public spaces across the United States and re-energizing similar movements elsewhere in the world.
Protesters say they are upset that billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks during the recession allowed a return to huge profits while average Americans have had no relief from high unemployment and a struggling economy.
They also believe the richest 1 percent of Americans do not pay their fair share of taxes.
The clearing of the Occupy camp in New York followed recent evictions in Atlanta, Portland and Salt Lake City. Unlike action in Oakland, California, where police used tear gas and stun grenades, most protesters left voluntarily.
Megyn Norbut, 23, from Brooklyn, said she holds down three jobs and joined the protest on Thursday "because we got kicked out of Zuccotti and we need to show that this is a mental and spiritual movement not a physical movement."
"It's not about the park," Norbut said.
(Writing by Michelle Nichols, editing by Doina Chiacu)
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Show AllOWS surrounds NYSE... live feed.
http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
The 1% are in control. Occupy is human, spiritual, mental and Physical.Our Occupy Santa Fe has Consensed that the encampment is an ESSENTIAL component of Occupy Santa Fe.Everybody out today! All Power to the People!
"The Sky People ( the 1%) have sent us a message… that they can take whatever they want. That no one can stop them. Well, we will send them a message. You ride out as fast as the wind can carry you. You tell the other clans to come. Tell them the 99% calls to them! You fly now, with me! My brothers! Sisters! And we will show the Sky People… that they can not take whatever they want! And that this… this is our land!"
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Just to inform those who are not aware…. This is not my creation, it is from the movie AVATAR and I do believe that James Cameron is a visionary. I just added my 2% worth.
"Inspired by the Arab Spring,..." Really??
I have the notion that the OWS movement was inspired by the greedy banksters and corpora-fascists, and by our Constitution and the Rights it guarantees to American citizens for peaceful assembly and free speech to petition our 'representative' government to address our grievances.
I think the OWS groups have succeeded so far, especially in demonstrating that we are inching ever-closer to a fascist police state...which has already usurped many of our liberties (the Patriot (?) act), shipped our means of production overseas, and is continuing to steal the wealth created by our labor as well as our children's future as a free people in a democratic society.
Actually I think it WAS inspired by the Arab Spring. It didn't happen in 2008 or 2009 or 2010, it happened after we saw people camping in Tarir Square. Everything you say about the Constitution and the anger and everything else is true, but this movement didn't get cohesive till everyone here saw what they were doing there and in Europe. Credit where credit is due.
I have the same problem with "Arab Spring". It's a media/political term dreamt up by the neo sides of both parties and multinational corporations. It ranks right up their with "Iraq's WMDs".
You seem to be implying that the Arab peoples had no collective determination to take part in their own future-- that their movement was as illusionary as "Iraq's WMDs". If this is indeed what you mean, I heartily disagree.
Of course the Arab revolts were spun by Western media-- what isn't? That doesn't mean that there was a substantive rejection of the status quo made by the people of North Africa and the Middle East.
I also find it likely that OWS demonstrators were inspired by the Arab movements.
I fully support the protest and today's march. I feel guilty for not being there today, but it's difficult for some people who live a distance away to get into the city with tolls, train fare, traffic, etc, who otherwise would like to be there.
Will the churches in Manhattan open their doors to give the protestors a warm place to sleep? Of course not, just like they lock out the homeless on cold winter nights.
If the one percent think taking the tents down has solved their problems, they need to hire new consultants. Because the advice they are getting is really flawed.
Now that the movement is mobile and not physically centered, I think they are going to be hard pressed to know where it's going to come from next. This movement wasn't about a "campout".
I strongly agree. If demonstrators are smart about it, they can choose places for demonstrations that will resonate in the public's mind, and make life uncomfortable for those who have long abused their power. Maybe Bloomberg's office is next? How about his mansion? The offices of Goldman Sachs?
More to the point, the movement is in the minds of ordinary citizens, and will become (or already has become) a point to rally around and to push back against the plutocracy.
Just look at what is happening in NYC today. If they were smart, the "authorities" would have let protestors stay in the park. At least they were somewhat contained there.
Now, anything goes.
Here is the deepest analysis and insight into the reality of the corporate/financial/militarist Empire, which merely "poses" as the U.S. 'government', and this camouflaged global 'Vichy' Empire's violent actions to confront and destroy the efforts of the Occupy movement:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011/pers-n17.shtml
This insightful (and inciting) WSWS article, by Joe Kishorn, focuses on this seminal truth:
"Through its own actions, the ruling class is demonstrating to millions of people that the state is not a neutral arbiter. It is their state, staffed by their political representatives. The interests and needs of the majority of the population have absolutely no effect on the course of government policy."
My only correction / addition of Joe's conclusion is that throughout this article the term "government" should be replaced with and more accurately described with the term "EMPIRE".
We are not dealing with, we are not trying to expose, we are not confronting, we are not intent on excising any "government", since that is already fully captured, perverted, and controlled. We need to be focused on "Occupying Empire", "Exposing Empire", "Confronting Empire", and finally "Excising Empire".
It may only be by accurately and clearly articulating that this movement, this revolt, this revolution is "Against Empire", and not against any from of legitimate or representative 'government' of the people, that the vast majority of Americans will actively join the 99% that Occupy is appealing to.
As long as the Occupy movement can be distorted by the Empire's corporatist media weapon as being in any way an anti-government movement, the vast majority of the movement's potential recruits, to fill out the full 99%, may be falsely dissuaded from becoming as fully active as Occupy needs more to become.
What real percentage of Americans will join what they understand to be a Second American Revolution "Against Empire", compared to how many might join a movement that they are being propagandized into thinking might be an anti-government movement?
Best luck and love to Occupy
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality
over
violent/Vichy
empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Best luck and love to Occupy Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality over violent/Vichy empire.."
That doesn't need a tent camp to validate it. It's time to stop being defined by the media, the 1% and their consultants. The teaparty agreed to that, the 99% don't need that sort of validation. Our numbers are our validation.
And they know exactly how many of us are out there. They keep track of how many of us they fire and foreclose on. Just like they knew how many blacks and women were seeking equal rights. They just thought money was more powerful than the individual.
You've only delivered this lesson about EMPIRE about 300,000 times on CD threads over the past few years, so now I'm beginning to get it. It's not a government, it's a 'Vichy' sham Empire, a global camouflaged 'Vichy' Empire, and until we use the term EMPIRE over and over to describe the problem, we will never understand its true nature. Most importantly, we must intone that word incessantly if we expect it to go away. Nothing else will do.
Not nearly enough Americans will join the Occupy movement unless and until we clearly articulate that this is a movement "Against Empire" ( and yes, I've read Parenti's books and fully agree with his analysis). Once we've gotten Americans to clearly see how this is a movement against Empire, and not just against a government or its corporate overlords, they will pour into the streets in the millions and this Empire will be brought to the ground. I think I'm understanding how easy it is. Just keep saying 'Empire' and 'Vichy' repeatedly, and the Occupy movement will clarify into the coherent movement it should become, and Empire will dissolve before our very eyes.
Do you want to end empire or end this empire? Empires rise and fall and rise again. The reason they rise again is because the conquering group creates a new foundation built on the ground of humanity that is. This ground is empire. This ground of our humanity is what needs to fall but in essence that is a death or a change to something totally new. If you want empire to end then you need to root it out in the hearts and minds of all people where it exists. Many say that in that regard 99 percent are empire and only 1 percent have changed their humanity. That is why I say we must do the inner work to root out Empire where it has it's greatest grip, in our being. How are you being? Are you acting for Empire or against it in your daily life, your day to day interactions? It is easy to say your are against empire it is much harder to claim you act against it. I am still in the process of dismantling empire within and healing and changing. I feel this needs to be done as an important two pronged approach, evict it where it resides within, and your work of evicting it where it resides without is much easier, clearer. Then you can supplant the old with the new. What kind of world will we build then?
The easy way to take over the Middle East was to stir up and devide the nation to weaken it, and the same is happening here in the states. Playing right into the Koch's hands. It also is pushed in order to divert our attention on the up coming wars with Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and most resently-China. The US want all the rights to the OIL in the China South Sea. The US has enabled the Phillippines with vessels. to be a backup.- We have became Germany of 1933 since 2001. Will one day Israel and the United States be isolated like Germany once was?
The value of marching so close to the New York Stock Exchange is that it places a sense, among those Exchange members, that they are not beyond the reach of Citizens. Although the bravado of the Exchange is apparent, deep down they know they no longer can sustain the looting of America. Their tipping point is on the horizon. They have been put on notice peacefully. The alternative is not something they can survive and they know it. Sociopaths will meet reality, and lose.
and..... Occupy Earth
Occupy justice
Occupy information
Occupy leadership
Occupy love
I am so excited about this new development, a step closer toward the truth, the way to reclaim our freedom. How about an Occupy Obama (his campaign) or Occupy Congress? Or occupy the Federal Court house? It is all connected. It is all ours or- (OWS) :O/
Occupy justice
Occupy information
Occupy leadership
Occupy love
>Occupy J I L L