500 arrested after protest on NY's Brooklyn Bridge
 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...10-01-21-27-07

NEW YORK (AP) -- About 500 protesters demonstrating against corporate greed, global warming and social inequality, among other grievances, were arrested Saturday night after they swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic for several hours.

Some demonstrators spilled onto the roadway in the late afternoon after being told to stay on the pedestrian pathway, New York police said. Most of those arrested face disorderly conduct charges, while others were charged with resisting arrest. The bridge reopened hours later at around 8 p.m. after it had been cleaned, police said.

Erin Larkins, a graduate student at Columbia University who says she and her boyfriend have $130,000 combined in student loan debt, was among the thousands of protesters on the bridge. She said a friend persuaded her to join the march and she's glad she did.

"I don't think we're asking for much, just to wake up every morning not worrying whether we can pay the rent, or whether our next meal will be rice and beans again," Larkins wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "No one is expecting immediate change. I think everyone is just hopeful that people will wake up a bit and realize that the more we speak up, the more the people that do have the authority to make changes in this world listen."

Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have been camped near the Financial District for two weeks and clashed with police on earlier occasions. Mostly, the protests have been peaceful, and the movement has shown no signs of losing steam. Celebrities like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon even made recent stops downtown to encourage the group.

Elsewhere in the U.S., protesters assembled in Albuquerque, N.M., Boston and Los Angeles to express their solidarity with the movement taking place in New York.

On Friday night, more than 1,000 demonstrators in New York took their protest to police headquarters, where they protested the police response to their downtown protest.

The crowd may have swelled because of a false rumor that the band Radiohead would appear. Since the protest began two weeks ago, turnout has varied, but the numbers have reached as high as about 1,500 previously.

Critics have accused officers of being heavy-handed, saying they have roughed up people who did nothing wrong. The NYPD has disputed that claim.

Earlier Saturday, thousands who joined two other marches went over the Brooklyn Bridge without problems. One was from Brooklyn to Manhattan by a group opposed to genetically modified food. Another in the opposite direction marched against poverty.

In May 2008, more than 200 people were arrested, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, as demonstrators blocked traffic at the height of the evening rush hour on the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the acquittal of three detectives in the 50-bullet shooting of an unarmed black man on his wedding day.

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I've heard some people calling this the leftist version of the Tea Party.
I guess it's spontanious like the Tea Party, but the participants are different. The Tea Party is mostlly middle age Whites. From the photos that I have seen these people seem mostly to be young Whites in their 20's - 30's.

Since these protests seem to be more leftist, I wonder if the MSM will smear and demagogue this group like they did to the Tea Partiers. Cnn's Anderson ooper slured the Tea party as "tea-bagger's", Nancy Pelosi called them Nazi's and said it wasn't an authentic grass root inspriation, but was "astro turf". The Daily Kos and Huffington post reguraly derided the Tea Party as racist and vile, others said the Tea party was controlled by the Koch brothers and other Neocon usurpers .

It will be interesting to see how the left and MSM media deals with this new uprising. Some how I doubt they will be as negative and harsh as they were with the Tea Party.

It will also be interesting to note how the Tea Party and the conservatives will deal with this new group. Some how I suspect they will be much more open and accommodating then the left was.

Anyone hear anything about "Occupy LA", a demonstration effort in front of the LA City council billed as similar to that in Brooklyn? I see nothing about it in the MSM, paper or TV.

I've read some propagandistic babbling about

"...It's not right that 99% of the population are having their cars and homes repossessed to benefit 1% of the corporations"...;

"...The population has the right of employment, public education and health services, that immigrants have the right to work, that corporations don't have control over politics";

"...We are seeing a crazy situation of super rich and super poor, that now the people are reacting, not standing for so much injustice, that the corporations have more power in politics than our own citizens"...

"...It's ridiculous that 1% of the population is sitting down drinking champagne while 99% are losing their houses. Our generation is already tired of it"...

..."a part of this week Occupy LA has "realized" [maybe "taken"] actions against corporations and banks, and the first thing they see is Bank of America charging to use debit cards"...

Spanish Language racist whiner rag La Opinion 10/02/2011 page 1A, continued on page 8A.

I was initially sympathetic to these people.

If you look closer at who they are and what they are saying, this is what I see: Young liberals who are upset at the people that they elected, which is that Obama and the Dems. didn't prosocute any of the Wall St. Titans that got our country into this ecenomic mess. Obama increased the bail-outs to the too big to fail that Bush started, and Obama hasn't made any real regulation changes to the financial system.

You can sense some frustration from these people at Obama, but it seems that most just blame the rich, or the Republicans for stopping any of the necessary changes.

It also seems that many of these people are students and they are upset about the debt that they are in because of the high tuition costs. Yet they don't see the connection between the ever increasing tuition prices and the government involvment in the insuring and supplying student loans, and the universities that take advantage of this situation.

What is interesting to me is that these people are angry at liberal government for not fixing the system, yet they think more liberalism is the answer . Even though Democratic politicians had total and unstoppable power in Washington for two full years, and controlled congress for 4 years, they would still rather blame Republicans, who were completely out of power in 09-10..

It seems to me that Obama rules this country just like Bush. Obama continued the Bush bail-outs, Obama continued the Bush wars, Obama pushes amnesty and high immigration rates just like Bush.

These people wanted change but instead they got more of the same. Yet they don't blame their own politicians.

They lost me at "immigrants have a right to work". I know what that means:mad:

While watching them on the news I saw the typical ANSWER.LA protest signs there among the crowd. Yes, it's the anarchists and pro-Muslim crowd mixed in with the far left openborders crowd. They are now seeing the consequences of the ideology they've been pushing forward, but refuse to take responsibility for now. Sure, big business went along with all the pandering to the "new customers" and cheap labor, but these leftist gave them a welcome mat in their schools, neighborhoods, workforce and voted the politicians that allowed big business the ability to exploit it all so easily.

They were so busy patting themselves on the back for getting their socialist in the White House, they didn't give a thought to him not being equipped for the job.

Watch them cry and then go after each other. You just wait and see, they'll start eating each other.

Occupy LA
 

[QUOTE=ilbegone;18047]Anyone hear anything about "Occupy LA", a demonstration effort in front of the LA City council billed as similar to that in Brooklyn? I see nothing about it in the MSM, paper or TV.


It started on September 17 and seemed pretty tame. LA ANSWER or an of the usual groups did not seem to be involved. They did however have large, professional banners someone paid for. ANSWER does seem to have gotten involved since. I heard they are camping out now, not I am not sure where they are.

Pics from the 17th in LA

http://www.saveourstate.info/showthread.php?t=4505


THIS MONDAY, OCT. 3
LA Emergency Mobilization
Mass March in Solidarity with Wall St. Protesters Arrested by NYPD
From Occupy LA at City Hall through downtown Financial District

http://www.answercoalition.org/la/

Monday, Oct. 3, 5pm
-Gather at Occupy LA, 200 N. Spring St., LA
(City Hall south lawn, 1st and Spring)
-March through downtown LA financial district

On Oct. 1, New York City Police arrested over 700 protesters marching from Occupy Wall Street to Brooklyn. It was a premeditated plan to suppress a peacefull protest of thousands.

At the same time, thousands marched to set up the Occupy LA encampment at City Hall. Our movements are not only intertwined, they are the same. The police attack on protesters in New York is an attack on us all. During the past 10 days in NYC, police have been beating peaceful demonstrators, running them over with police motorcycles and engaging in unprovoked pepper spray assaults in a frantic effort to drive demonstrators from Wall Street.

This Monday, 5pm, in Los Angeles there will be an emergency Mass March in Solidarity with the Wall Street Protesters who were arrested and those brutalized by New York City Police. It will start at the Occupy LA encampment at City Hall and then march through the financial district to make our voices heard.

The people are rising up

A new global mass protest movement has gripped the Middle East and Europe, and is taking shape now in the United States. Wherever the people are rising up against unemployment and austerity, government repression and corporate domination, they have been met with police repression. But these movements will not be stopped.

We cannot let the billionaire bankers and their paid thugs derail this movement against corporate domination and greed. Let's show a united, mass response to this attack on our sisters and brothers Occupying Wall Street. Police repression in New York will only lead to larger protests there and across the country. Join Occupy LA and hit the streets on Monday.

We demand justice, drop all the charges now! Stop attacks on Wall Street protesters!