an era of change
2011-Oct-26, Wednesday 04:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtigger"Where were you during the Occupation?" I'm certain now that it will be a question that people ask in the future. This movement appears to be the beginning of many things.
The police asked mainstream media to leave... and they did... and then this happened in Oakland, California.
Additional video footage available: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Large numbers of police arrived from other cities with full riot gear including gas masks. They used tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbags launched from canisters, "flash bangs", and rubber bullets (and unconfirmed reports of LRAD use) on unarmed civilians whose crime according to the bullhorn announcement in one video was simply "unlawful assembly". All Occupations are claiming First Amendment rights to peaceful assembly. Mayor Quan calls this action a "generally peaceful resolution".
These photographs from the eviction in Oakland, California, include: someone in wheel chair escaping the tear gas, a man injured near his eye by rubber bullets, a navy man with Veterans For Peace displaying a copy of the U.S. Constitution, a bean bag launched by police from a canister, and the tattered remains of a First Amendment poster.
Why isn't this coverage blasted all over mainstream media? They offered a bonanza of reporting during the riots in third world countries, but media attention here still tries to depict the Occupations as hippies being filthy. Speaking as head of the Sanitation committee at #occupyMN, I challenge you to find an equally traveled area in Minneapolis that's cleaner than our plaza! China began its coverage by shaming American media's blackout, and now China itself has cracked down on coverage as they fear a spread of the protests to their country too. The truth of events has been coming from citizen journalists.
Police earlier this year began sending requests to YouTube asking that they remove video depicting police violence. So far, Google has righteously refused to comply. I hope they continue to resist as American government response gets increasingly violent. Meanwhile, this is what your national government is doing with information:
Nobody is capable of arresting an idea. We want government to serve the people rather than the powerful, whether those moneyed interests come from corporations or government itself. We think you agree with us. The Occupation in Minneapolis conducts its General Assembly every day at 7pm. We are a non-violent assembly of peaceful people discussing the failures of our government, the abuses by our corporations, and what demands we will make to correct these problems.
The police asked mainstream media to leave... and they did... and then this happened in Oakland, California.
Additional video footage available: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Large numbers of police arrived from other cities with full riot gear including gas masks. They used tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbags launched from canisters, "flash bangs", and rubber bullets (and unconfirmed reports of LRAD use) on unarmed civilians whose crime according to the bullhorn announcement in one video was simply "unlawful assembly". All Occupations are claiming First Amendment rights to peaceful assembly. Mayor Quan calls this action a "generally peaceful resolution".
These photographs from the eviction in Oakland, California, include: someone in wheel chair escaping the tear gas, a man injured near his eye by rubber bullets, a navy man with Veterans For Peace displaying a copy of the U.S. Constitution, a bean bag launched by police from a canister, and the tattered remains of a First Amendment poster.
Why isn't this coverage blasted all over mainstream media? They offered a bonanza of reporting during the riots in third world countries, but media attention here still tries to depict the Occupations as hippies being filthy. Speaking as head of the Sanitation committee at #occupyMN, I challenge you to find an equally traveled area in Minneapolis that's cleaner than our plaza! China began its coverage by shaming American media's blackout, and now China itself has cracked down on coverage as they fear a spread of the protests to their country too. The truth of events has been coming from citizen journalists.
Police earlier this year began sending requests to YouTube asking that they remove video depicting police violence. So far, Google has righteously refused to comply. I hope they continue to resist as American government response gets increasingly violent. Meanwhile, this is what your national government is doing with information:
- They propose changing the Freedom Of Information Act to allow hiding the very existence of records from the public.
- They pay computer programmers to rig voting machines in their favor.
- They use voting machines that can be changed by remote control.
- They announce research for improving the science of propaganda.
Nobody is capable of arresting an idea. We want government to serve the people rather than the powerful, whether those moneyed interests come from corporations or government itself. We think you agree with us. The Occupation in Minneapolis conducts its General Assembly every day at 7pm. We are a non-violent assembly of peaceful people discussing the failures of our government, the abuses by our corporations, and what demands we will make to correct these problems.