As appalling as the first few seconds of this video are - UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike casually walking along a line of seated students and pepper-spraying them point blank in the face - it's worth watching to the end to see how brilliantly the students handle it.
Human microphone :
"Mike check ... mike check .... We are willing ... to give you a brief moment ... of peace ... so that you may take your weapons ... and our friends ... and go. ... Please do not return ... We are giving you a moment of peace ... We are giving you a moment of peace ... You can go ... and we will not follow you ... You can go you can go you can go you can go you can go you can go ....."
And after a brief show of waving their paintguns about and shaking up their pepper spray cans ... the police retreat. Score one for #Occupy.
Later, UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza explained the pepper-spraying of the row of seated students was necessary because the police were afraid for their own personal safety :
"There was no way out of that circle," Spicuzza said. "They were cutting officers off from their support. It's a very volatile situation."
Another angle showing the open expanse of lawn behind Lt. John Pike that so alarmed the "encircled" police officers.
Up here in BC, that's known locally as the 'stapler defence'.
Monday Update : Police Chief Spicuzza, Lt. Pike and one other pepperspraying police officer placed on administrative leave. Statements from the university chancellor and this from the president of the University of the California system :
"The time has come to take strong action to recommit to the ideal of peaceful protest."
"If they don’t have a clear power structure organized around specific demands first, then I'll never be able to completely tune them out due to a political conflict of interest or an inability to comprehend complex, detailed economic concepts. These people really need to get their act together."
Once Occupy Wall Street has a concrete set of objectives in place, the majority of Americans said they would go back to waiting for the sluggish economy to recover while blindly accepting things the way they are."
Commissioner Raymond W Kelly October 11, 2011
New York City Police Department
One Police Plaza
Room 1400
New York, New York 10038
Facsimile: (646) 610-5865
Re Zuccotti Park
Dear Commissioner Kelly:
As you know, for over three weeks, Zuccotti Park (the "Park") has been used by "Occupy Wall Street" and other protesters as their home base. The Park is owned by a Brookfield affiliate and was recently renovated at Brookfield's considerable expense as an amenity for the general public. It is intended to be a relaxing tree-filled oasis in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Lower Manhattan. We fully support the rights of free speech and assembly, but the manner in which the protesters are occupying the Park violates the law, violates the rules of the Park, deprives the community of its rights of quiet enjoyment of the Park, and creates health and public safety issues that need to be addressed immediately.
Within the Park, the protesters have set up living spaces with tarpaulins, mattresses, sleeping bags, tables, bookshelves, gasoline-powered generators and other items that are inconsistent with the rules and normal use of the Park. At all hours of the day and night, protesters are sleeping on benches and walkways, blocking normal normal pedestrian access to the general public and preventing cleaning and maintenance workers from performing necessary upkeep. When not blocked by protesters, the walkways throughout the Park are blocked by various items and equipment brought to the Park by protesters.
We are extremely concerned about dangers posed by damage that may have been incurred within the Park and by materials and equipment brought into the Park by the protesters. Brookfield protocol and practice is to clean the Park on a daily basis, power-washing it each weeknight, and to perform necessary inspection, maintenance and repairs on a regular, as-needed basis. Since the occupation began, we have not been able to perform basic cleaning and maintenance activity, let alone perform more invasive repairs. For example, if the lenses to the underground lighting have become cracked, water could infiltrate the electrical system, putting occupants of the Park at risk of an electrical hazard or causing short-circuiting which would result in repairs requiring the Park to be torn apart for re-wiring. Any such repairs would force the Park to be closed to the public for indeterminate periods of time, depriving the city of a vital green space. Moreover, we are concerned about the fire safety hazard that gasoline and the gas-fired generators pose to the Park's occupants.
After weeks of occupation, conditions at the Park have deteriorated to unsanitary and unsafe levels. The Park has no toilets and while the existing trash receptacles have always been more than adequate to accommodate normal waste in the Park, those receptacles are no longer even close to sufficient and the resulting trash accumulation is attracting rodents.
Additionally, we have received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from concerned citizens and office workers in the neighbourhood. Complaints range from outrage over numerous laws being broken including but not limited to lewdness, groping, drinking and drug use, to the lack of safe access and usage of the Park, to ongoing noise at all hours, to unsanitary conditions and to offensive odors. We have received complaints of harassment, one woman stating that she was verbally abused in front of her 5-year-old child and complaining that she had a package stolen from her as she tried to cross the Park.
We are also concerned with the constant deliveries of materials to the Park. Delivery vehicles have now been appearing on a daily basis with packages of all shapes and sizes for the Park's occupants. None of these deliveries are being screened by our security team or the police for suspicious or harmful materials. The Park's location in the financial district makes this activity particularly concerning.
For all of these reasons, we cannot currently ensure that the Park is safe nor can we perform the necessary cleaning, inspection, damage assessment and repairs. In light of this and the ongoing trespassing of the protesters, we are again requesting the assistance of the New York City Police Department to help clear the Park so that we can undertake this work at the earliest possible time. We will defer to the Department's judgment on how best to accomplish this, but the Department's intervention is necessary both to ensure our ability to comply with our obligations a owners and to make the Park safe for the neighborhood and public.
Once we have completed our cleanup and maintenance, we would ask that the Department assist Brookfield on an ongoing basis to ensure the safety of all those using and enjoying the Park.
As you know, we have discussed this situation with you and/or others under your command on a daily basis seeking assistance. The situation continues to worsen and we need your assistance to ensure public safety.
I appreciate your time and consideration in addressing this important and pressing matter. Please call me at (212) 417-7063 with any questions or if you wish to discuss our request further.
Sincerely,
[signed : CEO Richard B. Clark]
Brookfield Office Properties
Brookfield Global Real Estate
Sheesh. If anything needs cleaning up here, it's Wall Street, not OWS.
"the right to assemble and protest does, in fact, trump private property rights when the private property in question is commonly used as a public amenity as Brookfield itself has admitted. Brookfield did not create the plaza out of altruism, but rather created the plaza in exchange for significant allowances in building height restrictions from the City of New York. In other words, they were required to build a PUBLIC plaza in order to build their building.
The real constitutional question we should be asking is why the protesters are not allowed to camp on Wall Street itself - a public street and a public right of way which is somehow off limits to our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech - as if it is located in another country and not subject to the constitution. But then again, it kind of embodies what the protesters are complaining about anyway, doesn't it ?"
Chairman of the board of directors for Toronto parent company Brookfield Asset Management Inc. - assets $120-billion - is Frank McKenna. Other directors include Jack Mintz, Jimmy Patterson, the Vice Chair of Rogers Comm., the former Chair of HSBC, the CEO of Canada Oil Sands and Chair of Syncrude. New York Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend Diana L. Taylor is a director of the NY subsidiary office Brookfield Office Properties which sent the letter to the NYPD.
Dear Occupy Toronto : : Brookfield Office Properties in Canada : Brookfield Place, 181 Bay Street, Suite 330, Toronto, Ontario M5J 2T3 Tel: 416-369-2300
Just sayin'.
Leadnow.ca has a petition to stop the eviction, due to begin at 7am Friday, and to make Canadians aware of a Canadian corp's role in the eviction.
OWS responds : "Tell Bloomberg: Don’t Foreclose the Occupation. Join us at 6AM FRIDAY for non-violent eviction defense."
"Bloomberg says the city was notified shortly before midnight that Brookfield wanted to postpone the cleanup of Zuccotti Park. He says the property owner hopes to work out an agreement with the protesters. Bloomberg also says Brookfield has received "lots of calls" from elected officials siding with protesters."
Yesterday CBC continued its ongoing snide, dismissive, and condescending coverage of the third week of Occupy Wall Street with an interview with author/activist/Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges on its "inside the business world" show, the Lang and O'Leary Exchange. After the by now obligatory opening protestations of puzzlement as to what OWS is all about - "low budget" and "pretty nothing burgers" as blowhard host Kevin O'Leary described it - he then responded to Hedges' patient explanation by calling him "a left wing nutbar".
Since Holly Stick kindly left me the link this morning, Let Freedom Rain has posted a link and commentary on O'Leary's FoxNews behavior but I'm putting the vid and a transcript up here because Hedges' argument bears repeating and also because, as appalling as O'Leary's behavior certainly was, even more appalling is that O'Leary affects to be completely unable to follow Hedges' logic as to what exactly went wrong that caused OWS to happen.
He and other CBC talking heads either don't get it or pretend not to get it but you got it right away, didn't you? A more damning example of how completely dissociated our state broadcaster is with the plight of the 99% I cannot imagine.
The show opens with a clip of Obama talking about Occupy Wall Street :
"I think it expresses the frustrations that the American people feel that we have the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street. And yet you're still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practises that got us into this problem in the first place."
Introduction to Hedges and Occupy Wall Street movement ...
O'Leary : So what exactly is everyone complaining about? And also give me a sense of how much momentum this movement has because it's pretty nothing burgers so far - just a few guys, guitars. Nobody knows what they want - they can't even name the names of the firms that they're protesting against - very weak, low budget.
Hedges : I wouldn't agree with that assessment at all. They pulled thousands of people into the street last night and here in Washington when everyone marched past the Bank of America, they were shouting Shame! Shame! Shame! They know the names of these firms and they know what these firms have done not only to the American economy but to the global economy, and the criminal class who runs them.
Fill-in for Lang : Well Kevin made this point that nobody knows what they want. What do you say to that? We know that this is a very diverse group, there are many different agendas at play ... what is the sense you have of what this movement would like to see happen?
Hedges : They know precisely what they want ; they want to reverse the corporate coup that's taken place in the US and rendered the citizenry impotent and they won't stop until that happens and frankly if we don't break the back of corporations, we're all finished anyway since we're rapidly trashing the ecosystem on which the human species depends for survival. This is literally a fight for life - it's that grave, it's that serious. Corporations, unfettered capitalism, as Karl Marx understood, is a revolutionary force - it commodifies everything - human beings, the natural world which it exploits for profit until exhaustion and collapse. The bottom line is we don't have much time left - we are on the cusp of perhaps another major banking crisis in Europe, defaults in Greece, followed by Spain, Portugal. There's been no restrictions, no regulations on Wall Street - they've looted the US Treasury, they've played all the games that they were playing before and we're about to pay for it all over again.
O'Leary : Listen don't take this the wrong way but you sound like a left wing nutbar. If you want to shut down every corporation, every bank, where are you going to get a job? Where are you gonna work? Where's the economy gonna go?
Hedges : Corporations don't produce anything and
O'Leary : Oh really!?
Hedges : No. Financial corporations on Wall Street
O'Leary : Are you driving a car to the protest?
Hedges : They are speculators. I'm talking about the financial institutions like Goldman Sachs. They don't manufacture, they don't make anything - they gamble, they use money, and they believe falsely that money is real as we dismantle our manufacturing base and send jobs over the border to Mexico and finally into the embrace of China.
Fill-in for Lang : Well I see that you and Kevin could get into an actually huge argument here.
Hedges : Well you know I don't usually go on shows where people descend to character assassination. if you want to discuss issues, that's fine but this sounds like Fox News and I don't go on Fox News. Either you discuss the issues and ... look, you have had very eloquent writers - people like John Ralston Saul in Canada who have laid this out with incredible lucidity - and to somehow attack this critique by calling someone a nutcase engages in the kind of trash talk that's polluted the corporate airwaves.
O'Leary : Excuse me, let's debate the issues then. ...
Hedges : You were the one who started it - you were not debating the issues.
[crosstalk] ...I did not call you a nutcase, I called you a nutbar.
Hedges : You said [I] sounded like a leftwing nutcase .. bar
O'Leary : Yes, bar, nutbar.
Hedges : That's an insult.
O'Leary : Are you left wing in leaning at least would you say?
Hedges : No, I would say ..
O'Leary : You're a centrist?
Hedges : Can I finish?
O'Leary : Please.
Hedges : I would say that those who are protesting the rise of the corporate state are in fact on the political spectrum the true conservatives because they're calling for the restoration of the rule of law. The radicals have seized power and they have trashed all regulations and legal impediments to a corporate reconfiguration of American society into a form of neo-feudalism. And that's what we're really asking for - is the restoration of the rule of law.
O'Leary : Ok, but you don't see any value in the banking system providing a financial infrastructure ...
Hedges : That's not what I said.
O'Leary : I'm asking you.
Hedges : A banking system that functions as a banking system should. And in Canada you do not have a banking crisis because you did not tear down the walls between commercial and investment banks and turn all of your banks into hedge funds. If, instead of handing massive sums of money to CitiBank, Wells Fargo - which are basically zombie banks that still hold tremendous toxic assets - we had created ten regional banks with $10 billion each and leveraged them 10 to 1, people could have been saved. Six million people have been pushed out of their homes because of foreclosures and mortgages. We could have reinvested in communities, small businesses which cannot get credit would have gotten credit. Instead they're just sitting on the capital and not lending it.
O'Leary : So we're certainly giving you an opportunity to speak your mind. Just so we can come full circle, what do you suggest should be done with Goldman Sachs specifically?
Hedges : They should be prosecuted. When you shove sub-prime mortgages on families that you know can't repay it and then you dice up those mortgages as assets and sell them and bet against them through AIG, that's fraudulent activity.
Fill-in for Lang : Alright, well thank you so much for joining us - we like to hear your thoughts.
Hedges : Well it'll be the last time.
Update : Dianne Buckner was the other co-host. h/t to Christine in comments
So what is it they want? a puzzled media asks over and over again. What are their demands?
After a 30 second ad - sorry! - and a quick rundown on the events of Day 19, Keith Olberman reads the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street on Sept 29.
"A video posted on YouTube and NYDailyNews.com shows uniformed officers had corralled the women using orange nets when two supervisors made a beeline for the women, and at least one suddenly sprayed the women before turning and quickly walking away."
Good question, Georgia Straight. Let's see ...
CBC, Toronto Star**, G&M, PostMedia, CTV, Reuters Canada: ... zzzzzz ... crickets ... zzzzzz ...
Thanks so much for that, Canadian MSM.
Three Koch-funded tea-baggers communing in a bathtub have you all flying in film crews but the occupation of Wall Street somehow reminds you how important the Emmys are to all of us.
Roseanne Barr speaks at Occupy Wall Street and announces her run for presidency.
The most fascinating part of the livestream coverage for me over the weekend was the really incisive discussions and then, after the NYPD demanded no signs and no amplifiers for speeches, watching hundreds of people learn the logistics of direct democracy in a decision-making process : how to give everyone a voice without a hierarchy and how to use the "human microphone" to ensure all are heard.
Everyone watching via the net learned from this. An invaluable lesson.
* OK, so Kalle Lasn cowrote this one
** No Star coverage except for AntoniaZ on Friday: Is the Arab Spring coming to America?
. Monday evening update : Well, helloooo Canadian media! Welcome to day 3. Links to Canadian coverage noted in comments below.
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