Links. Will be updating throughout the day.
One of the better short recaps of last night/this morning that I've seen.
Rosie Gray, a writer for the Village Voice tried to beg her way into gaining access to the plaza, which the police quickly quarantined during the raid, preventing media from seeing what was happening. "I'm press!" Gray reportedly exclaimed, to which a female officer replied, "not tonight."
Josh Harkinson from Mother Jones reported being "violently shoved" by police as he tried to photograph a man being placed into an ambulance on a stretcher, in addition to being removed from the park's area even when he told police he is press and has the "right to be here and observe what is going on." As the officer dragged him from the square, he told Harkinson if he stayed in the park he "could get hurt."
A roundup of reports of press suppression. If half of these are accurate, Jesus.
Reuters liveblog.
OccupyNYC livestream, which is getting hammered at the moment. OccupySeattle has apparently set up a mirror.
Another liveblog at BoingBoing.
An Occupy librarian tells the story of the library's destruction.
Everything we brought to the park is gone. The beautiful library is gone. Our collection of 5,000 books is gone. Our tent that was donated is gone. All the work we’ve put into making it is gone. I’ve spent the last month and a half there. Currently I’m homeless so I’ve been completely dependent on the community that has sprung up there. I don’t know what is next and I don’t know how these next few steps will play out, however, I know that the one thing no amount of cleaning and bullying and policing can destroy is the tenacity of the human spirit. WE WILL OVERCOME!
Charles Pierce is amazing as usual.
Your right to peaceably assemble for the redress of grievances, and how you may do it, and what you may say, will be defined by the police power of the state, backed by its political establishment and the business elite. They will define "acceptable" forms of public protest, even (and especially) public protest against them. This is the way it is now. This is the way it has been for some time. It's just that people didn't notice. And that was the problem with the Occupy protests. They resisted the marginalization - both literal physical marginalization, and the kind of intellectual marginalization that keeps real solutions to real problems out of our kabuki political debates. They could not be ignored. In 1831, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote of his own cause:
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; - but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD.
That was the real problem with the Occupy people. They were being heard.
Seven initial reactions to one photograph.
The police officer in the photograph above is very angry. I believe he is angry because he was ordered to do what he is doing in the dark of night, hidden from the press or other witnesses, and thus he knows that what he was ordered to do is something other than lawful, honorable and just. And I believe that he is angry because, realizing that, he chose to skulk about in the dark following those orders anyway, and thus he has just learned something unpleasant about himself.
It now looks like the reports of the total destruction of the library may not have been totally accurate? The mayor's office says so, anyway.
Again, I feel like maybe I should apologize for being all Occupy all the time lately. But you know what? No. Not going to.
And I was going to work on a new short story this morning. Bugger.
[Just a heads up] I'm @dynamicsymmetry on Twitter and I'm updating there much faster than I am here. I don't RT everything but I try to catch especially interesting/important stuff.
This entry was originally posted (with
comments) at my Dreamwidth.
Rosie Gray, a writer for the Village Voice tried to beg her way into gaining access to the plaza, which the police quickly quarantined during the raid, preventing media from seeing what was happening. "I'm press!" Gray reportedly exclaimed, to which a female officer replied, "not tonight."
Josh Harkinson from Mother Jones reported being "violently shoved" by police as he tried to photograph a man being placed into an ambulance on a stretcher, in addition to being removed from the park's area even when he told police he is press and has the "right to be here and observe what is going on." As the officer dragged him from the square, he told Harkinson if he stayed in the park he "could get hurt."
A roundup of reports of press suppression. If half of these are accurate, Jesus.
Reuters liveblog.
OccupyNYC livestream, which is getting hammered at the moment. OccupySeattle has apparently set up a mirror.
Another liveblog at BoingBoing.
An Occupy librarian tells the story of the library's destruction.
Everything we brought to the park is gone. The beautiful library is gone. Our collection of 5,000 books is gone. Our tent that was donated is gone. All the work we’ve put into making it is gone. I’ve spent the last month and a half there. Currently I’m homeless so I’ve been completely dependent on the community that has sprung up there. I don’t know what is next and I don’t know how these next few steps will play out, however, I know that the one thing no amount of cleaning and bullying and policing can destroy is the tenacity of the human spirit. WE WILL OVERCOME!
Charles Pierce is amazing as usual.
Your right to peaceably assemble for the redress of grievances, and how you may do it, and what you may say, will be defined by the police power of the state, backed by its political establishment and the business elite. They will define "acceptable" forms of public protest, even (and especially) public protest against them. This is the way it is now. This is the way it has been for some time. It's just that people didn't notice. And that was the problem with the Occupy protests. They resisted the marginalization - both literal physical marginalization, and the kind of intellectual marginalization that keeps real solutions to real problems out of our kabuki political debates. They could not be ignored. In 1831, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote of his own cause:
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; - but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD.
That was the real problem with the Occupy people. They were being heard.
Seven initial reactions to one photograph.
The police officer in the photograph above is very angry. I believe he is angry because he was ordered to do what he is doing in the dark of night, hidden from the press or other witnesses, and thus he knows that what he was ordered to do is something other than lawful, honorable and just. And I believe that he is angry because, realizing that, he chose to skulk about in the dark following those orders anyway, and thus he has just learned something unpleasant about himself.
It now looks like the reports of the total destruction of the library may not have been totally accurate? The mayor's office says so, anyway.
Again, I feel like maybe I should apologize for being all Occupy all the time lately. But you know what? No. Not going to.
And I was going to work on a new short story this morning. Bugger.
[Just a heads up] I'm @dynamicsymmetry on Twitter and I'm updating there much faster than I am here. I don't RT everything but I try to catch especially interesting/important stuff.
This entry was originally posted (with
comments) at my Dreamwidth.