AM Update: Severe Weather Threatens Occupy Wall Street, Remembering Paul Goodman

October 28th, 2011 - by: danny

Viva Los Cardinales—St Louis Takes Down Texas in the World Series…Eat Your Heart Out Rick Perry

Listen to this week’s News Dissector Radio Show on our podcast on iTunes and on the Progressive Radio Network website. Jeremy K. Kessler of Yale and the really cool N/1 literary magazine, and comic Lee Camp joined me to discuss the problems and prospects at Occupy Wall Street.

Paul Goodman Changed My Life Too

I am thinking of Paul Goodman Tonight, the great author of Growing up Absurd and many, many other books, a public intellectual before that term developed currency, and an anarchist who would I suspect be very happy with the Occupy Movement despite his disillusion with late sixties radicalism.

Paul is memorialized in a much see documentary, Paul Goodman Changed My Life. (At the Film Forum in Manhattan). In some ways he changed mine too even if he once reprimanded me, probably correctly, back in the early 60’s at a Civil Rights forum at Columbia University at which we both spoke. He was always provocative and yet many of his ideas were rooted in common sense. It was good to see Taylor Stoer who collected all of Paul’s literary work in the film. We knew each other at Cornell where Paul also spoke.

Paul was an adviser to our Northern Student Movement and a great influence on the educational side of our movement and me personally. Seeing the film which didn’t really explore his politics (or for that matter his own views on his up front bisexuality) is worth seeing, Check out the film website..

11:AM, New York: An Icy Rain Is Falling.

Weather Alert

The weather is changing. Many of the Occupy Wall Street community spent yesterday marching against the banks, bringing 6000 signed letters from Americans pissed off at their practices. They made copies of the letters into paper airplanes which they hurled at the buildings. (And then cleaned them up. Many New Yorkers cheered them on with applause and donations.

Early in the morning, the NYPD and the Fire Department raided the park and seized six generators which a day earlier seemed to survive an inspection. The City Of New York, Michael Bloomberg, emperor, seems to want to help the weather make life as miserable as possible for the occupiers. (This is the same city that refused to allow a dumpster for garbage and porta potties for you know what!)

True to form, Da Mayor is slated to host a dinner for 1% biggies Sunday night up at the mansion to win support to pressure Congress’s so-called Supercommitee to make even more savage cuts in human services, according to Democrats.com.)

The NY Daily News reported: “”The city has stripped Occupy Wall Street protesters of their power. Dozens of firefighters and police officers entered Zuccotti Park Friday morning to confiscate generators and gas canisters. Fire trucks and police vans pulled up on the corner of Broadway and Liberty St. at about 8:30 a.m. and asked the encamped demonstrators to bring the items to them, saying they were a health and fire hazard.”

The nasty weather is already a negative impact. I spoke to a doctor from the Medical tent who confirmed many cases of colds and poor health thanks to a lack of sleep and over exposure to the elements. Many are dehydrated because they don’t drink as much as they should because of the lack of ready to use toilets. The City knows this. During Thursday’s storm, they forced the library to pull down a tent, putting many books in danger of water damage.

Nasty! Nasty! Nasty!

Good News: No Snow or Storm As of 6 Am This Morning,

Move On sent out an Urgent Appeal:

“The weather forecast for this weekend here in New York is bad—snow or icy rain is expected to hit tomorrow.

Occupy Wall Street’s ability to keep speaking up for the 99% depends in part on their ability to hold out against the winter weather. And that depends on their having the right supplies—sub-zero sleeping bags, long underwear, and warm hats and gloves.

If you have any of these items—or can go buy them today—and are willing to donate, please bring them to 52 Broadway (at the corner of Exchange Pl, next to the Amalgamated Bank). Items can be dropped off there until 9 p.m. tonight or from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. tomorrow. (Donations outside of these hours can be brought directly to the Comfort table on the east side of Zuccotti Park.)

Your contributions will make a huge difference in ensuring that Occupy Wall Street can keep up their good work. Let us know you’re bringing supplies by clicking this site:

Greg Palast, Goldman Sachs and Occupy Wall Street’s Bank

Goldman Sachs and Occupy Wall Street’s Bank: The Real
Story

When Goldman got huffy at a credit union honoring OWS and pulled its anniversary dinner funding, much more was at stake

Mega-bank Goldman Sachs (assets $933bn), has declared
war on one of the smallest banks in New York (assets
$30m), the customer-owned community bank that happens to
also be the banker for Friends of Liberty Plaza, Inc,
also known as Occupy Wall Street. And you thought
Goldman didn’t care.

The trouble began three weeks ago when the occupiers
suddenly found their donation buckets filling with
thousands of dollars, way more than needed for their
pizza dinners. Suddenly, the anti-bank protesters needed
a bank. Citibank and Chase certainly wouldn’t fit. So
OWS opened an account at the not-for-profit Lower East
Side Peoples Federal Credit Union. Peoples has a unique
federal charter – designated to open accounts for low-
income folk from all over NewYork, available to those
families earning less than $38,000 per year…=

Trick or Treat? Halloween is coming

Press Advisory:Unemployed Superheroes Kick Off Occupy Halloween Events in Zucotti Park
Working Class Superheroes Fight for the 99%?: “We are the Heroes We’ve Been Waiting For”

Who: Unemployed Man, Wondermother, Master of Degrees, Zilch, and other heroes-for-hard-times.

What: A comic showdown on Halloween morning to kick off the activities of Occupy Halloween in New York City.??

When & Where: Zucotti/Liberty Park at 10 am, 1 Liberty Square, New York, NY?

Why: Costumed working class and unemployed superheroes will convene at Occupy Wall Street to confront corruption and lawlessness in the form of street theater. Their intention is to celebrate the heroic nature of the daily struggle that millions of everyday people are enduring during the economic crisis, while taking to task economic supervillains running the economy. “Change will not be brought about by politicians. We are the heroes we’ve been waiting for,” states The Master of Degrees, an unemployed grad student superhero shackled by debt.

?”Isn’t it time that superheroes started fighting the real criminals?” adds Unemployed Man. This event is an official event of Occupy Halloween, an official project of the Arts & Culture Working Group of the Occupy Wall St. NY General Assembly. The Public is invited to participate.

LBN: Oakland Activists Re-Occupy Plaza

Anti-Wall Street protesters in Oakland have re-occupied the plaza after being forcibly evicted Tuesday pitching more than two dozen tents despite a ban on overnight camping. Last night, over 1,000 people attended a vigil for Iraq War vet Scott Olsen, who was injured by a projectile during protests following the Tuesday eviction. Meanwhile, an attempt to clear a Nashville protest encampment was blocked by a judge who refused to sign warrants for 30 protesters who had been arrested.”

I had a conversation with a journalist in Oakland who expressed the hope that Occupy Wall Street Will send some of their activists out because the local media is interviewing every spaced out and incoherent protester they can find.

• A sign in New York signaled that Occupy Tiajuana Needed help.

• Drudge reports: ‘Occupy Madison’ loses permit due to public masturbation.”

• There were incidents by police and arrests reported in Nashville and Rochester, N.Y.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich: Backs Occupy Wall Street

An Iraq War veteran who survived two tours of duty gets his skull fractured in … Oakland! ?53 activists arrested in Atlanta. SWAT teams deployed to boot out peaceful protesters. ??Recent actions against Occupy protesters are irresponsible and tragic. They’re an assault on our democracy.

These protesters are bravely exercising their right to freedom of expression, to bring attention to a political and economic system that’s rigged against most Americans. I stand with them; and, all Americans — left and right — should join me in protecting their freedom to non-violently create change. ??

This isn’t a Democratic or Republican movement. It’s not about one party or one policy. It’s about standing up to a financial system that’s completely backwards. Wall Street banks get billions in bailouts and emerge with massive profits. Most Americans see a program of austerity in a painful economic climate — benefit cuts, high unemployment, declining wages, and crumbling infrastructure. Congress moved swiftly to “save” banks (something I strongly opposed), and now Congress is paralyzed, unable to create jobs and to save our middle class. ??

It’s no surprise Americans are standing up. Our country’s economic policies have consolidated and accelerated wealth to the top. One percent of Americans now control 42% of our wealth. It’s not radical to think this is out of balance or to demand a government that is of the people and for the people. I’ve been to these protests, and I can tell you they’re filled with honest, hard working Americans who are concerned with the direction of our country and our economic future.

Read Whatever Mike Davis Writes

Essay Via Portside:org– Mike Davis writes “No More Bubble Gum”

Who could have envisioned Occupy Wall Street and its
sudden wildflower-like profusion in cities large and
small?

John Carpenter could have, and did. Almost a quarter of
a century ago (1988), the master of date-night terror
(Halloween, The Thing), wrote and directed They Live,
depicting the Age of Reagan as a catastrophic alien
invasion. In one of the film’s brilliant early scenes,
a huge third-world shantytown is reflected across the
Hollywood Freeway in the sinister mirror-glass of
Bunker Hill’s corporate skyscrapers.

They Live remains Carpenter’s subversive tour de force.
Few who’ve seen it could forget his portrayal of
billionaire bankers and evil mediacrats and their
zombie-distant rule over a pulverized American working
class living in tents on a rubble-strewn hillside and
begging for jobs. From this negative equality of
homelessness and despair, and thanks to the magic dark
glasses found by the enigmatic Nada (played by “Rowdy”
Roddy Piper), the proletariat finally achieves
interracial unity, sees through the subliminal
deceptions of capitalism, and gets angry.

Very angry.”….

Overseas

Headlines That Tell The Story

NY TIMES: WEST SEES LIBYA AS RIPE AT LAST FOR BUSINESS: Rebuilding After War

And This: Al Qaeda Flag Flies Over Benghazi

Rory here from VICE. Wanted to kick this over ASAP. Our fixer for the Vice Guide to Libya has been sending me little dispatches from Benghazi. Good guy; worked as a translator for in Iraq, etc. He wrote up a little thing about the Al Qaeda flag (which started, I think, as the Al Qaeda in Iraq flag) flying atop the Benghazi courthouse, the headquarters of the revolution in the east.

“Prosecutors Cursed”

NY Times: Officers Unleash Vitriol As Peers Are Charged in Ticket Fixing

Chants from the NY Finest: “Down With The DA” and “Ray Kelley, hypocrite.” Kelley is the Police Commissioner in the land of Bloomberg,

NT Times: CANDIDATES PART OF 1 PERCENT: “Almost All of The Presidential Candidates Rank At The Very Top Of The Country’s Earners

Media: Salon Asks Why Iran is Intensely Covering Occupy Wall Street. It does not ask why the U.S. Media is Not. The OWS press people told me yesterday that US coverage is in a “lull” and falling back,

Leslie Griffith, former Oakland TV Anchor, writes on Reader Supported News: “‘Occupy Oakland’ participants are taking a few rubber bullets to the butt at this very moment. One thing is clear, the people are mad and they are not going to take it anymore. This is not satire, this is real. And, when all is said and done … we are in this mini-revolution in no small part because there are precious few reporters allowed to do their jobs.”

That’s the News Dissector Blog for this Saturday. Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org

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