FAIL: SF Chronicle sees seemliness, not significance of Occupy SF

Gary Kamiya, co-founder of Salon.com and five year veteran of the SF Examiner, describes the ongoing failure at the San Francisco Chronicle in this piece posted on Salon.com on 10/29/11:

Great city forced to read swill: The San Francisco Chronicle’s Occupy SF problem

It’s the most significant progressive protest movement in years. And yet in America’s most left-wing city, pundits for the San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s daily newspaper, are coming across like the smarmy voice of the Chamber of Commerce. They’re so obsessed with the Occupy San Francisco movement’s illegal encampment, its effects on local businesses and the unruliness of some of its members that they have failed to grasp its historic significance.

You’d expect this from a paper in Salt Lake City. But San Francisco? The place famous for nurturing the Beats and the hippies, the women’s and gay rights movements? The free-spirited city-state that has always laughed at American Babbitry and fought for social justice? We deserve better than this.

After providing detailed examples and analysis of the Chronicle’s failings, Kamiya concludes:

There is an inevitable tension in this nascent movement between the homeless and the middle-class, between the hardcore types who welcome confrontation and the moderate types who don’t. But the tents at the foot of Market Street are literally big enough for all of them. And San Francisco, of all cities, should welcome those tents. They may be ugly, but there is something beautiful about them. Saint Francis, for whom this city is named and who began his saintly career when he gave his clothes to a poor man, would have understood that.

Full story here

[Elsewhere on Salon.com:  “OWS has transformed public opinion: For the first time since the Great Depression, the majority of Americans favor wealth redistribution,” Robert Reich, 10/31/11.

And “Report: NYPD steers drunks to Occupy Wall Street“, 10/31/11]

Finally, OccupySF – Weekly Recap – 10/31/11 video

@Occupy Oakland: Police Infiltrators exposed

In this video, Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs

Copwatch identifies Occupy Oakland protesters who are actually police officers.

Here are a couple frame grabs for easy identification.

OPD officer Fred Shavies has a history of violence (click for more)

The first is officer F. Shavies, who if the same officer Fred Shavies was among several OPD officers sued last year for attacking a KGO-TV cameraman and breaking his camera in 2009.  Shavies’ attack is captured in the first ten seconds of this video (explicit language).

A couple others in the Copwatch video appear undercover below, the one on the left shown getting a little aggro, in the midst of a protest movement that has rapidly spread worldwide due in no small part to its absence of aggression.

UPDATE (via Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner)

In response to the above video going viral, OPD Officer Fred Shavies “speaks about infiltration, the Occupy movement, activism, and his allegiance to the 99%… produced by Justin Warren.”

http://vimeo.com/31830746

Teen denied cancer treatment finds her place at OccupySF

From the Guardian (UK), 10/28/11.

As 18-year old Miran Istina puts it, she has been living on borrowed time since she was 14. Diagnosed with cancer, she was given just months to live after her health insurer refused to provide her with life-saving surgery.

After spending three years traveling the US in search of a health care provider who would treat her, only to repeatedly and ultimately come up empty, Istina was attracted to the Occupy movement because “she ties the corporate influence on American politics to the decision that has sentenced her to death.”

“The decision was absolutely influenced by some corporation or some bank saying, ‘we can’t afford her. She’s not worth our money.’ In end terms, corporate greed is going to cost me my life.

Occupy San Francisco protester Miran Istina stands outside the US Bank building on Market Street, San Francisco. Photograph: Martin Lacey, Guardian UK

“I used to be really upset about it. I’m not as much any more. I’m angry, for sure, but I think me being here might help it never happen again. That’s why I’m here. It’s that there are other people this is going to happen to if this movement doesn’t succeed and that’s not healthy. I’m done being the victim. However long I have left is dedicated heart and soul to this movement, no matter what it takes.”

She has immersed herself in the movement, becoming the chief media relations officer for Occupy SF and organising fundraising events around the city. On Thursday afternoon she led a CNN television crew on a walk through the camp, to show how they were living, explain their motives and refute claims that the living conditions are unsanitary.

She said of her new life: “My heart is finally satisfied.”

Full story at the Guardian.

Are Bankers People too?

You may have seen this nasty leaflet that’s making the rounds on the ‘net, reportedly dropped by someone at the Chicago Board of Trade on top of “Occupy Chicago” protesters Wednesday afternoon as they rallied alongside unions in the city’s financial district.

The text, which dates back to more than a year and a half ago, is so vicious that it makes one wonder if it wasn’t somehow written expressly to demonize financial traders themselves.  If there’s any question what a livelihood devoted to greed and craving does to one’s soul, the misery of the leaflet’s author speaks for itself.

Are bankers really people too?

The more enlightened among us would respond with compassion, and the reminder that bankers are people too, and unlike the above example, some of them are very nice people at that.

But at rarefied moments of global tumult such as this, we can’t help but wonder, “What would Noam Chomsky say?”

When you look at a corporation, just like when you look at a slave owner, you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual.  So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous.

But the individuals participating in them may be the nicest guys you can imagine:  benevolent, friendly, nice to their children, even nice to their slaves; caring about other people—as individuals they may be anything.

In their institutional role, they are monsters, because the institution is monstrous.  The same is true here.

—Noam Chomsky, in the award-winning documentary The Corporation

"They are monsters, because the institution is monstrous."

Update:  “Did You Hear the One About the Bankers?” NY Times Op-Ed, 10/29/11.

Shot Heard ‘Round the World: Tahrir Square march in support of Occupy Oakland

When folks say “The whole world is watching,” this is an example of what they’re talking about.

“As they vowed earlier this week to do, Egyptian pro-democracy protesters marched from Tahrir square to the U.S. Embassy today to march in support of Occupy Oakland—and against police brutality witnessed in Oakland on Tuesday night, and commonly experienced in Egypt.”

There is a rare beauty in the humanity of this historical moment, as we watch it unfold around the globe.  It’s not just that the whole world is watching; it’s that the whole world is actively participating.

Click for more photos from Egyptian blogger Mohammed Maree, via boingboing.net

And as we’re witnessing, the corporate media can no longer control the narrative.

Although, they continue to try:

Brooklyn-based journalist Caitlin Curran, pictured here, got fired the next day when her boss saw this picture. Via boingboing.net

Curran tells her story, along with Lisa Simeone’s, in a piece on Gawker:  How Occupy Wall Street Cost Me My Job.

Similar to Curran, Simeone was fired as host of the public radio program “Soundprint,” and then NPR canceled distribution of “The World of Opera”, which Simeone hosts, after conservative site The Daily Caller criticized her (and NPR) for supporting Occupy D.C.  The national media watch group FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) has an action alert petition in response to NPR’s appalling attack on Freedom of Speech, as well as an outline of the facts and ethical issues.

Fear is a natural response to moving closer to the truth. — Pema Chödrön

There’s a reactive violence in these firings not unlike the escalated police violence in Oakland on Tuesday, rooted in fear, as traditional, coercive means of controlling whose truths get told increasingly give way to a multiplicity and transparency which refuse to be contained.

It’s feeling more and more like this is the Truth that Shall Set Us Free.

Update:  In follow-up to the firing of Caitlin Curran, “Stop Forcing Journalists to Conceal Their Views From the Public,” authored by Conor Friedersdorf, the journalist whose words are quoted in the poster held aloft by Curran. The Atlantic, 10/30/11, via boingboing.net.

“Forbidding newspaper reporters and public radio producers from being regular citizens only empowers the enemies of the press”

Stay Peaceful: Defending Against Tear Gas

From Mother Jones: Flier to OWS Protesters: “Defending Against Tear Gas”

"Stay Vigilant. Stay United. Stay Informed."

Possessive Fantasy of Empty Luxuries: “Maharaja” Reviewed

“Maharaja: The Splendor of India’s Royal Courts” exhibition at the Asian Art Museum reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle, 10/27/11:

“Maharaja” leaves a most peculiar impression of vacillating between nostalgia for empire and for a pre-colonial authenticity, between imperialist chagrin and a vague hope for riddance of hereditary elites, chiming incidentally with the global protest events of recent months.

But more depressing than the downward narrative arc of “Maharaja” is the fainter arc it traces faintly from museum projects centered on artworks to ones centered on emptier luxuries whose value makes itself felt only in possessive fantasy.

“Essence of Indian Art” (25 years ago) equipped its visitors to look understandingly at things they had not yet seen. It presupposed – perhaps mistakenly – a widely shared curiosity and receptivity that “Maharaja” and its ilk no longer take for granted or seem interested in reigniting.

Read full review by Kenneth Baker.

What Oakland Police can learn from Albany: Defy Orders

In Albany, New York, city police officers defied orders to arrest #Occupy Albany protesters, despite pressure from Governor Cuomo and orders from Mayor Jennings.  Albany police were supported in their defiance by New York State troopers.

“We were ready to make arrests if needed, but these people complied with our orders,” a State Police official said. However, he added that State Police supported the defiant posture of Albany police leaders to hold off making arrests for the low-level offense of trespassing, in part because of concern it could incite a riot or draw thousands of protesters in a backlash that could endanger police and the public.

The following is in stark contrast to OPD.

A city police source said his department also was reluctant to damage what he considers to be good community relations that have taken years to rebuild. In addition, the crowd included elderly people and many others who brought their children with them.

“There was a lot of discussion about how it would look if we started pulling people away from their kids and arresting them … and then what do we do with the children?” one officer said.

Contrast this with the extreme police violence last night in Oakland, when police shot tear gas at a woman in a wheelchair, and allegedly shot an Iraq War veteran point blank in the head, leaving him critically injured with a fractured skull.

Albany County District Attorney David Soares:

“If law enforcement engaged in a pre-emptive strike and started arresting people I believe it would lead to calamitous results, and the people protesting so far are peaceful.”

Albany Police Chief Steven Krokoff, in a department-wide memo:

“At this time I have no intention of assigning officers to monitor, watch, videotape or influence any behavior that is conducted by our citizens peacefully demonstrating in Academy Park. … In the event we are required to respond to a crime in progress or a reported crime, we will do so in the same manner that we do on a daily basis.”

Commentary from AddictingInfo.org, by Wendy Gittleson:

I’m actually surprised more of this isn’t happening. Police officers are part of the 99%. Their jobs are being cut. Because of manpower shortages, they are put into more danger. Their unions are being busted. Their pensions are being threatened. More power to the police in Albany!

[Don’t miss the UPDATES in the Comments below]

A few facts about #Occupy

While the commercial media continues to question the globally expanding leaderless movement’s self-evident agenda (i.e. the greed that dare not speak its name), we thought we’d provide a few facts.

By the Numbers

Via Brian Holmes’ “Got Plutocracy?” post on his blog Continental Drift: the other side of neoliberal globalization, we learned that the Top 5% in the U.S. owns nearly 2/3 of the wealth in this country.

Wealth Chart: The 'rest of us' in the Bottom 80% possess less than 13% of U.S. wealth

Holmes continues:

Now go a little further, into the research she drew her chart from — a briefing paper of the Economic Policy Institute called “The State of Working America” — and you find that the top 1% holds over 1/3, or 35.6%, of the country’s net worth. Elsewhere, in The Nation, you will find such interesting tidbits as “In 2006, the top 0.01 percent averaged 976 times more income that America’s bottom 90%” — a thousand-fold gap between “them” and “the rest of us.”

He also includes a chart showing the actual distribution of wealth in the US, with the top 20% possessing 85% of the wealth, and the bottom 40% possessing 0.3%, so small it doesn’t even appear on the chart, if you can believe that.

The top bar shows real distribution of wealth in U.S. From Norton and Ariely, 2011 (click for source).

Zuccotti Park used to be Liberty Park

as Michael Kimmelman’s news analysis “In Protest, the Power of Place” in the Sunday NY Times (10/16/11) details:

That it happens also to be a private park is one of the most revealing subtexts of the story. Formerly Liberty Park, the site was renamed in 2006 after John E. Zuccotti, chairman of Brookfield Office Properties, the park’s owner. A zoning variance granted to Brookfield years ago requires that the park, unlike a public, city-owned one, remain open day and night.

This peculiarity of zoning law has turned an unexpected spotlight on the bankruptcy of so much of what in the last couple of generations has passed for public space in America . . .

Kimmelman spent time at Zuccotti with occupants, including this 21-year old organic farmer from Vermont:

“We meet every night to talk about how to keep this place clean and sober, to keep it an emotionally, physically safe space for everyone. Consensus builds community.”

Patrick Metzger, a 23-year-old sound engineer and composer, echoed the thought: “From Web posts, you never get information about race, class, age — who people really are. Fox News talks about flakes and mobs. But you can see how complicated the mix really is: students and older people, parents with families, construction workers on their lunch break, unemployed Wall Street executives.”

Kimmelman begins by pointing out that

no matter how instrumental new media have become in spreading protest these days, nothing replaces people taking to the streets.

and concludes, “on the ground is where the protesters are building an architecture of consciousness.”

Finally, it’s worth pointing out after this week’s failed attempt to vacate Brookfield-owned Zuccotti Park, that Mayor Bloomberg’s girlfriend sits on Brookfield’s board of directors.

#OccupyWallSt sign of the day: "It's Wrong." via boingboing.net. By Ben Furnas. 10/15/11. UPDATE: She got fired the next day! (click for story)

Occupy Everywhere

Update 7 (12/22/11):  65 Occupy sites planning to maintain encampments through the winter.

Update 6 (12/6/11):  We All Occupy
https://sites.google.com/site/wealloccupy/other-groups

Update 5 (11/26/11): Democracy Now!
Occupy Everywhere: Michael Moore, Naomi Klein on Next Steps for the Movement Against Corporate Power

Update 4 (11/22/11):

Occupy protests mapped around the world (Guardian UK)

Original Post:

Awesome. (Click map to find event near you.)

Insightful editorial in NY Times re the Occupy movement’s innovative resistance to being pigeonholed or easily contained, a characteristic it shares with socially engaged art:

Occupy Wall Street is best understood, I would suggest, as a new form of what could be called “political disobedience,” as opposed to civil disobedience, that fundamentally rejects the political and ideological landscape that we inherited from the Cold War. . .

Occupy Wall Street, which identifies itself as a “leaderless resistance movement with people of many … political persuasions,” is politically disobedient precisely in refusing to articulate policy demands or to embrace old ideologies. Those who incessantly want to impose demands on the movement may show good will and generosity, but fail to understand that the resistance movement is precisely about disobeying that kind of political maneuver. Similarly, those who want to push an ideology onto these new forms of political disobedience, like Slavoj Zizek or Raymond Lotta, are missing the point of the resistance.

Full story here.

UPDATE 1:

Reuters: “Wall Street protests go global; riots in Rome” (w/video)
CNN: “Europeans join ‘Occupy Wall Street’ amid threat of banking crisis” (w/video)

UPDATE 2:

Slate: “Occupy the No-Spin Zone: One of the best things about Occupy Wall Street is the way it confuses and ignores the shrill pundit class.” 10/26/11

“Mark your calendars: The corporate media died when it announced it was too sophisticated to understand simple declarative sentences. While the mainstream media expresses puzzlement and fear at these incomprehensible “protesters” with their oddly well-worded “signs,” the rest of us see our own concerns reflected back at us and understand perfectly. Turning off mindless programming might be the best thing that ever happens to this polity. Hey, occupiers: You’re the new news. And even better, by refusing to explain yourselves, you’re actually changing what’s reported as news. Because it takes a tremendous mental effort to refuse to see that the rich are getting richer in America while the rest of us are struggling. Maybe the days of explaining the patently obvious to the transparently compromised are finally behind us.”

UPDATE 3:  Nov. 5, 2011

In the 3 and a half weeks that have passed since this post was first created, the OWS movement has grown from 900 cities (in its first month) to now well over 2,000.  Occupy Together‘s Meetup page lists 2,515 communities in 2,355 cities worldwide as of today.

From video "We Are the 99% (as we gather together)," music by Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir, video by http://getgrounded.tv/

As corporate media works hard to spin it as violent, unsanitary, detrimental to small business, and vulnerable to seasonal change, it’s important to recognize the reality of the growing strength of the peaceful movement and the power of the people, and not forget what continues to increasingly bring us all together in resistance.