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***Update 11/15 2:36pm***From Occupywallst.org:
Judge REJECTS temporary restraining order to allow Liberty Square reoccupation.
***Update 11/15 11am*** From the NYC’s NLG website:
For Immediate Release: November 15, 2011
Contact:
Yetta Kurland – 917-701-9590
Daniel Alterman – 917-945-2599
Gideon Oliver – 646-263-3495
Margaret Kunstler – 917-331-8012New York, NY: At around 6 AM on November 15, 2011, attorneys associated with the New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild working as the Liberty Park Legal Working Group obtained a temporary restraining order against the City of New York, various City agencies, and Brookfield properties directing that occupiers be allowed back on the premises with their belongings.
Earlier, at approximately 1 AM, the NYPD began massing around Zuccotti Park “aka Liberty Park.” In the following hours reports surfaced that the NYPD entered the park with police in riot gear backed up by numerous police vehicles, including a bulldozer, evicting occupiers. In the process they destroyed property and arrested dozens of occupiers and protestors including NYC Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez and District Leader Paul Newell.
In the coming hours, days and weeks the LPLWG will pursue all legal options to enable the occupiers to continue to exercise their first amendment rights to speech and assembly for speech. Attorney Yetta Kurland, one of the attorneys from the LPLWG, said, “This is a victory for everyone who believes in the First Amendment. We will continue to fight for everyone’s right to continue the occupation.” In response to the injunction, Daniel Alterman, also an attorney with the LPLWG, stated that, “This is a victory for all Americans, for the constitution and for the 99%.” Gideon Oliver, another attorney with the LPLWG reacted by saying, “The LPLWG has been fighting to ensure their right to free speech from day one of the occupation. The occupiers right to free speech is based in our most core legal principles and we will be here till the end to fight for those rights.”
The order is available for download here.
The Liberty Park Legal Working Group is a group of volunteer attorneys and legal workers dedicated to defending the rights of those engaged in constitutionally-protected assembly or protest.
Dear occupiers and supporters, our brothers and sisters on Wall St are being evicted RIGHT NOW. Please tune into livestream.
From Occupywallst.org
Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park), home of Occupy Wall Street for the past two months and birthplace of the 99% movement that has spread across the country and around the world, is presently being evicted by a large police force.
EVERYONE should get to the park immediately for eviction defense! Subway stations and bridges are closed. Please either take a cab or use Canal St. subway station (which is currently open.)
Call 311 if you’re in the NYC area. NYPD 1st Precinct: 212.334.0611 NYPD Central Booking: 718.875.6303 NYPD Internal Affairs: 212.487.7350 City Hall: 212.788.3058
More information to follow.
Updates
2:03 a.m. Massive Police Presence at Canal and Broadway
1:59 a.m. Reports that 4 and 5 Subway Stations at Wall Street only stations open.
1:43 a.m. Helicopters overhead.
1:38 a.m. Unconfirmed reports of snipers on rooftops.
1:34 a.m. CBS News Helicopter Livestream
1:27 a.m. Unconfirmed reports that police are planning to sweep everyone.
1:20 a.m. Subway stops are closed.
1:20 a.m. Brooklyn bridge is closed.
1:20 a.m. Occupiers chanting “This is what a police state looks like.”
1:20 a.m. Police are in riot gear.
1:20 a.m. Police are bringing in bulldozers.
Portland on Sunday. Oakland on Monday. New York on Tuesday! This is a coordinate attack on our movement. It deserves a coordinate response. Anger can be power! Let fury have the hour! Channel your anger into conscious and determined rebellion. Now is the time!
You’ve been infiltrated people. The equal opportunity GA and the consensus vote make it way too easy to keep the movement OFF TOPIC. Remember, you are dealing with really, really, really smart people who have all the time in the world (that’s what a 100 million/year does for people, makes them very comfortable, patient and methodical.) Remember what they did to MLK, MX, JFK, RFK, Ghandi, etc… You don’t have a leader and inciting PDX police violence did not work, but distracting you is just way too easy. Dont’ be lulled into hubris (and you have been) by believing that all those folks who showed up on Sat/Sun will show up this Sunday..they won’t. The Sat/Sun crowd was absolutely a VERY different demographic than the ones who did the original Oct. 6 march. AND, the Oct. 6 march was in support of the original OWS Mission Statement…the Sunday march press release and mission statement of an open letter to PDX citizens encouraging them to march with you to emphasize the disagreement with the parks eviction (as I understand from the GA meeting tonight) will only serve to further alienate and confuse the broader constituency… it’s WAY OFF TOPIC…AND it’s going to SNOW on Saturday night….you DO know that MIT has an MBA program..don’t you? Sorry, Reedies, they are WAY smarter and more focused than you and the rest of us. In order to save yourselves and this movement, you MUST start setting boundaries for participation…otherwise, you are doomed. I am so not a conspiracy theorist, but if you believe that big business has co-opted and infiltrated our democratic process, then infiltrating and outnumbering and distracting a GA process is child’s play ( I could do it with 100 friends). Sam Adams is pleading with you to get focused…listen to this guy as the only reason he is mayor is due to the benefits of freedom of speech and an ongoing civil rights movement…he is doing everything he can within the constraints of his oath of office to help…read between the lines and start listening…PLEASE. They are playing with you, using your own very inclusive process against you and chuckling over their very expensive, very peaty scotch.
Peace out and keep your freak flag flyin’
read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/business/banks-quietly-ramp-up-consumer-fees.html?src=me&ref=general
OWS/debit fee action – 1
Banks, other fees – 10 and counting
losers – the american people
they are winning…
concentrate on a national convention and congressional action, starting at the local PDX level.
It’s interesting to me that occupy enthusiasts never concur to any of the negative impacts of their encampments. It seems that they think everything they do is right. If someone simply suggests that things aren’t working well or that someone is being negatively impacted by the occupations, they are told things like “it’s all good in the name of cause”, “you must be part of the 1%”, “we’re doing this for you” etc. Pretty self-righteous and not very respectful of other citizens of this country. Economic injustice is not so important that people should be losing their lives in the camps or that violence sexual or otherwise is overlooked in the name of a fight over money. Nor should innocent business owners be impacted adversely. They have families to feed and it is not your place to interfere with their livelyhood.
Sure, there are many good points the cause is making – but the execution is sloppy at best and deadly at worst. The police haven’t killed anybody, but people are dying within the camps. In Portland, a car was pulled over leaving the camp with glass jars filled with firework mortars. I guess when lit and thrown they blast glass everywhere. Who is responsible for that? I would assume the occupying community would take responsibility but they don’t. They brush it off like it’s not happening and that the most important thing is that they are “peaceful” and the “state” is attacking them. Face it, the camps are generally unsafe and that is why they are being disbursed by their respective communities as the week continues on. I think the “Occupy” movement should get past “occupying” because they aren’t going to be allowed to do it anywhere anymore. The cops in every city are now prepared to keep it from happening. The response I get when this is stated is that the occupiers are intent on occupying, that is the only thing they now how to do, and complain that they aren’t being treated fairly – so far. I ( and many others) suggest that you find a cleaner, safer, more effective, and more responsible method to achieve your goals.
My final concern (as is a concern of many) is the underlying militant mind-set of many in the group. We keep hearing “peaceful”, but some in the organization are likely more than eager to take stronger action, and frankly are very happy to engage with the police sent down to keep the areas safe for the community at large. The tactic of occupying public places will be over by within a couple of weeks and the cause will have to come up will a much more sophisticated method by which to have a long-term impact on the state of the people, business and government of this country. Storming and toppling buildings and fighting with the riot police will only pit society against you, you are looking for sympathy but you are not going to get it, not by the larger populace. And they are supposedly the “99%” you say you are doing this for. Will you listen to them or only do what you think is best for everyone.
In order to have any success with this endeavor, you are going to need to get people from your organization running for public offices from the ground up until they can get in a position to make decisions at the top – that is going to take a very long time 10, 20 or 50 years. It will take at least that long to change the fabric of our democracy. Short of overthrowing the government (which some would just assume do I am sure) – you will need to elect leaders into our current system if you ever want to have a chance of changing it.
The people that are running the country now have no interest in changing the system and you will not be able to force them to do it. So someone from the group in each city needs to run for city council to start, get the larger percentage of the population to vote for them based on your ideals and go from there. Best of luck in achieving your goals (I mean that)…. but this defiance thing you have going on right now is juvenile. Get serious and get yourselves into office at the basic level and move your way up. Who knows, maybe someday someone from your group will be President.
Just know that if you are successful – once you have things the way that think they should be, another group might come along and disagree with your way of doing things and want to overthrow you. And you will have to allow them the same voice and accommodations that you are demanding. It is quite likely that you won’t want to provide those accommodations when they are fighting against YOUR ideals because it will be unlikely that you will want to give up your power to someone else who doesn’t like the way things are under your direction, and you will be the one who is squashing democracy. Sound familiar? That’s called the full corcle. I hope you have thought of that and are prepared for that reality.
Finally – be cautious and aware – with “no leadership” any number of people or groups can fraction off at anytime and start committing violent acts. This can go from peaceful to aggressive very quickly. You are attracting a few radical and crazy folks (not all, but you must agree SOME). LIke your friends (they were there to defend YOUR camp Saturday night) who had the mortars in glass jars in an area where innocent bystanders and children were. I work one block from there and live 10 blocks away. Love hearing bombs go off from “peaceful” protestors right down the street from my apartment. They didn’t do it because they got pulled over and the police got their little bombs and arrested them. This is happening at exactly the same time as other protestors are calling for civil and constitutional rights. Please stop occupying and start working for votes into public office. Hopefully that is not too sophisticated or conformist for you to tackle. If you just want to occupy and confront, expect to be confronted and thrown out. Remember, there are only a couple hundred in each camp in each city – that means there are several million that aren’t down there – that several million aren’t down there because they don’t think it’s a good idea. A couple thousand show up and you think you have the support of the local community and I have heard some say “the world”. If you only have 200 people in the camp and the the rest of the million people in that city are at home letting you camps get raided, then I don’t see how you can say you have the “whole world” in agreement with your practices. I think a reality check is in order. Best of luck to you and I hope you can get things in order to have some sort of reasonable “non-occupying” success. If “occupying” is your only plan, then you don;t have a plan, because no one is going to let you occupy anymore.
@equalize: wrong. Violence will only serve to bring the movement to its knees and ultimate end, which is pretty much where it’s at right now. Public opinion must be considered, and seeing as that’s what you’re after, seek it in an intelligent, non-destructive manner. If youi must, go pee on the side of a building if it’ll make you feel better. Read satori’s response; he gets it.
anger != violence.
rebellion != violence.
To be clear:
I strongly support non-violent action in our response.
But,if you are not angry, you must be dead. There is nothing wrong with anger. It is real and it is natural. I was very angry last night as I watched the blitzkrieg on Occupy Wall Street and wrote those words.
The power comes from channeling that anger into constructive and determined behavior. Which I am doing.
Maybe better said: Channel your anger into conscious and determined non-violent rebellion.
Solidarity with non-violence.
But, also,
Solidarity with determined action. Without fear, Stand up for your rights!
Here I am quoting all these song lyrics…
Peter Tosh ‘got it’.
The Clash ‘got it’.
And, Satori certainly does not ‘get it’.
Satori:
“inciting PDX police violence did not work”
That didn’t happen! Were you there? We were righteous.
And, your whole message denies the power of the people. And your idea that they are so overwhelming smart is ridiculous on the face of it. With our numbers. Our righteousness. And our determination. We hold the power. Their money cannot buy that. We demonstrated that power last night. They attack us in the dead of night or after we have become exhausted defending ourselves because they fear our strength.
Of course you are all getting evicted.
The real 99% of the population is fed up with you.
The beginning is near!
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Admits Cities Coordinated Crackdown on Occupy Movement:
http://capitoilette.com/2011/11/15/oakland-mayor-jean-quan-admits-cities-coordinated-crackdown-on-occupy-movement/
They say NO. We say YES.
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/new-york-occupy-wall-street.jpg