- Angry New Yorkers organized an initiative called "Occupy
Wall Street." Beginning September 17, they called for "tak(ing)
the bull by the horns," referring to the familiar New York financial
district symbol.
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- Its web site statement said:
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- "The one thing we all have in common is that We
Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the
1%."
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- Saying "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired,"
civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer's epitaph said it her way.
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- Today, we're all sick and tired of corrupted officials
letting Wall Street crooks steal public wealth at the expense of millions
ripped off to enrich them lavishly.
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- Occupy Wall Street activists are angry about "profit
over and above all else." Because of political Washington collusion,
it dominates public policy in America.
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- Comparing their initiative to Arab Spring uprisings,
they said:
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- "On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000
people flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades
and occupy Wall Street for a few months."
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- "Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece,
Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic
of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the
use of nonviolence to achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants."
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- One of many protester signs read:
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- "The corrupt fear us. The honest support us. The
heroic join us."
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- Adbusters organized the protests. On September 16, ahead
of its September 17 inaugural, it published an "Orientation Guide,"
saying:
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- "Saturday's occupation begins at noon in Bowling
Green Park....See you at the bull....The first people's assembly will start
at 3pm at One Chase Manhattan Plaza and continue until our one demand is
agreed by all."
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- Suggested ideas include:
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- revoking corporate personhood;
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- reinstating Glass-Steagall, decoupling commercial from
investment banks and insurers, among other provisions to curb speculation;
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- imposing a Tobin tax on large financial transactions;
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- making corporations and rich Americans pay their fair
share;
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- demanding Obama establish an "American Democracy
Reform Commission" to end "monied corruption in Washington;"
in other words, get money out of politics;
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- creating a similar commission for banking to assure for
starters too-big-to-fail banks don't exist;
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- perhaps an "END THE MONIED CORRUPTION OF AMERICA
MANIFESTO;" or
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- all of the above and more to create a level playing field.
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- Most important is returning money power to Congress as
the Constitution's Article 1, Section 8 demands, saying:
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- "The Congress shall have Power....(t)o coin Money,
(and) regulate the Value thereof...."
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- It didn't say bankers have a divine right to control
the most important of all powers. More on that below.
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- "Agree to be bold (and) decisive against the financial
corruption of America," say Occupy Wall Street organizers.
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- Kick it off there, then spread it nationally. Tough tasks
take time, impossible ones a little longer. Anything is possible with enough
sustained commitment. Survival depends on generating it.
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- On September 17, "our Tahrir moment beg(an)....strength,
courage, nonviolence!"
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- Web sites, social networks, and one-on-one contacts spread
the word to fight corrupt politics, corporate power, and Wall Street crooks.
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- Adbusters editor-in-chief Kalle Lasn said:
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- "We need to shake up the corporate-driven capitalist
system were in. To do that, we need something radical."
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- Media Reaction
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- Major media scoundrels first said nothing, then dismissively
gave it short shrift. As America's lead wealth and power voice, The New
York Times barely noticed. Then it did offensively in Ginia Bellafante's
September 23 article headlined, "Gunning for Wall Street, With Faulty
Aim," saying:
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- Occupy Wall Street is "a noble but fractured and
airy movement of rightly frustrated young people...."
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- "(A) default ambassador (is) a half-naked woman
who called herself Zuni Tikka....Ms. Tikka had taken off all but her cotton
underwear and was dancing on the north side of Zuccotti Park, facing Liberty
Street, just west of Broadway."
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- Bellafante arrogantly called real grievances "street
theater." She mocked social injustice, calling protesters "a
diffuse and leaderless convocation of activists...."
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- She scorned their "lack of cohesion and....apparent
wish to pantomime progressivism rather than practice it knowledgeably...."
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- She downplayed crowd size, grit, anger and nonviolence.
She mentioned scores of arrests but ignored police brutality.
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- Cops always do it, especially defending social injustice.
Trends analyst Gerald Celente calls them "enforcers for crime bosses."
They serve and protect America's super-rich, not ordinary Americans they
attack for demanding their rights.
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- Since September 17, they've been out in force in New
York, practicing their stock and trade (no pun intended), beating up on
nonviolent protesters instead of supporting them.
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- They were pepper sprayed, maced, thrown to the ground,
beaten, handcuffed, dragged off, and locked up. Even though hundreds, not
thousands, turned out, they were committed, spreading the word, and urging
others to join them.
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- Nonetheless, on September 26, Wall Street Journal writer
Gordon Crovitz called last week's protests "a bust," saying "over-educated
and under-employed" participants "learned a lesson: Just because
it's on social media doesn't make it true."
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- Mocking social grievances, he added:
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- Most in Zuccotti Park "were typical left-wing critics
of markets, Zionism and people who wear fur...."
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- "A tabloid headline, 'Violence Erupts at Wall St.
Protest,' proved overstated."
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- Billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg said nothing about
arrests and gratuitous abuse.
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- Police brutality victims were outspoken. On September
25, New York Daily News writers Matt Deluca and Christina Boyle expressed
them, headlining: "Wall Street protesters cuffed, pepper-sprayed during
'inequality' march," saying:
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- "Scores of protesters were arrested in Manhattan
Saturday as a march against social inequality turned violent."
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- "Witnesses said they saw three stunned women collapse
on the ground screaming after they were sprayed in the face."
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- "I saw a girl get slammed on the ground. I turned
around and started screaming," said a young Brooklyn woman who said
she was sprayed.
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- Another woman said:
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- "I was shocked because it seemed like one person
after another was being brutally tackled, and it wasn't clear why. I was
deeply disturbed to see (police) throw a man (down) and immediately they
were pounding on him. Their arms were going back in the air. I couldn't
believe how violent five people needed to be against one unarmed man."
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- Video images showed NYPD commander Anthony Bologna using
pepper spray. In fact, he and other New York cops were sued for police
violence during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
-
- At the time, 1,800 were arrested. Many were held incommunicado
under appalling conditions. The case will go to trial next year. Abused
nonviolent protesters want justice.
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- Crovitz mocked Wall Street demonstrators, saying:
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- "Wall Street has survived much worse than some ragged
protesters trying to occupy it....(S)ome ideas deserve to be sold short."
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- So do media scoundrels, making pimps, prostitutes and
dope peddlers look good by comparison.
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- Wall Street Protest Spirit Going Viral
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- On September 27, Occupy Wall Street began going national.
In Chicago, protesters camped out in front of the Federal Reserve. Others
rallied outside the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
-
- On September 26, Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon joined
New York protesters. They and others stressed that change never comes top
down, only bottom up.
-
- In early October, rallies are planned across America
in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, San Diego, Washington, Lexington,
KY, Seattle, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Boston, Tampa, New Orleans,
and dozens more communities including Canadian ones, hoping they'll show
up everywhere committed for long denied social justice.
-
- America's First Amendment guarantees free expression
and assembly rights. Thuggish police across America attack them. Peaceful
protesters are treated like criminals.
-
- Police indeed are "enforcers for crime bosses,"
and not just in New York.
-
- Money Power: The Root of All Evil in Private Hands
-
- This writer's new book explains, titled "How Wall
Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class
War."
-
- It discusses how Wall Street crooks transformed America
into an unprecedented money making racket, facilitated by government collusion
at the highest federal, state and local levels.
-
- As a result, working Americans got scammed. For years,
they've lost their savings, jobs, homes and futures to let privileged elites
get richer and more powerful. The book explains, pulling no punches in
exposing their criminality and duplicity.
-
- At issue is powerful bankers having control over money,
credit and debt for private enrichment. They've used it illegitimately
to bankroll and collude with political Washington to implement laws favoring
them and turn a blind eye to their criminal fraud and abuse.
-
- As a result, decades of deregulation, outsourcing, economic
financialization, and casino capitalism followed, producing asset bubbles,
record budget and national debt levels, as well as depression-sized unemployment,
depravation and anger.
-
- Today's contagion is global. Billions suffer. Economies
are wrecked to save banks. Washington is Wall Street occupied territory.
They've gotten trillions of dollars to socialize losses, private profits,
and run their printing press overtime for as much more as they want.
-
- Whatever Wall Street wants, it gets. Powerful banks run
America. Speculative fraud is their stock and trade. In their hands, corruption
became an art form. Markets are manipulated to serve them. Politicians
are used like handmaidens.
-
- For decades, war on working Americans raged, transferring
wealth to Wall Street, other corporate favorites, and super-rich elites
already with too much.
-
- Moreover, high-paying/good benefit jobs went overseas
to cheap labor markets. Fewer low-pay/low or no benefit temporary or part-time
ones replaced them. Essential social services eroded en route to eliminating
them altogether, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public
pensions.
-
- Worse still, corporate/government collusion conspires
to end all worker rights, return America to 19th century harshness, and
enforce it by police state brutality.
-
- America's well along toward the worst of all possible
worlds, a hellish dystopia no one should tolerate.
-
- Occupy Wall Street protesters know it. So do others across
America. Everyone needs to!
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- Join the struggle for what's possible no other way!
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- It's high time to fight back, putting bodies on the line
for long denied social justice!
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- There's no other way to get it!
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- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive
Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy
listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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