by @sgarbata

Today #OccupyWallStreet had a peaceful march on sidewalks up to City Hall but more than 5,000 people came to the event. So the occupiers did everything they could to follow any NYPD requests; even after the police brutality suffered by many last week, and even after all the harassing demands they have used with them down in Wall Street.

via @NewYorkist

One such of those demands has been their insistence on prohibiting umbrellas at Zucotti Park, were the Occupiers have set up residence. Not content with enforcing the ban on tents, the police has made their lives miserable by forcing them to be exposed to this inclement weather, to the point of also prohibiting the use of chairs, sticks, boxes or anything that could prop up tarps of plastic covers over them they have been promptly undone with threat of arrests by the NYPD.

via @Colin_Jones

The Occupiers have tried to accommodate the increasingly hostile and abusive demands of the New York Police Department. And today was the same. When the marchers were told by the NYPD to go onto the bridge, they did. It was a trap as the NYPD rushed to close both ends of the bridge to entrap them.

Here are records of their entrapment.

via @OccupyWallStreetNYC
First person account:

 read more »

Here's the text of the message Noam Chomsky sent to #OccupyWallStreet that the reporter refers to:  read more »

I have personally been switching my money (credit cards, accounts, mortgage) away from the big bad mega-banks that screwed Americans with predatory lending and took taxpayer handouts with better banks and financial institution. And I invite you to join me. It is a way of moving your money at least a step away from the worst of Wall Street.

Green America (which I have been associated with since they were Co-op America) has some resources:

* The basics about socially responsible investing

* How to retire with one million dollars in a just and sustainable world

* How your savings and checking accounts can build healthy communities through community investing

And I have some suggestions below.  read more »

For some time now, there has been an ongoing group-protest on Wall Street and New York’s financial district. The protesters are mainly young Caucasian brothers and sisters, who are totally fed up with where society, capitalism and democracy have been heading for too long now. It is no secret that significant numbers of enlightened folks nationwide are fed up with the many ways money corrupts the political system; and the many ways greed, connections, influence, self-over-indulgence, indiscretion, recklessness, power, unethical behavior and the like, corrupts the economic system. It’s becoming clearer everyday that our nation’s political, economic and social systems are devolving into places where we really shouldn’t want to go. Morality is now a matter of convenience and not consistency. Morality is no longer about values and ideals, but about personal gain and/or self-aggrandization.

We are a nation in crisis. To read the newspapers and/or listen to the network news it is all about economics: the “great recession” to be exact. But it’s not. It’s way beyond that. It’s way beyond greed and corruption. It’s about so many other things. It’s about over-consumption and waste. It’s about the natural and political environment. It’s about a legacy of racism and the attendant ills: caused by racism’s octopussian-tentacles protruding into every aspect of American life. It’s about racism’s denial by most Americans (black, white and other) and the fact that there are real problems therein. It’s about an education system that fails to graduate most citizens, and then set them all up for a life of moral failure. And by morality -in this particular context- I am talking about the way we interact with, are predisposed to, accept, respect, treat and deal with other human beings; especially people who don’t look, dress, talk, worship, sound, believe, and/ or act like we do.

It’s about the five hundred families whose total wealth surpasses the combined wealth of over 250 million people here (that’s 250 million folks/try to wrap your head around that). It’s about the cavernous gap between rich and poor. It’s about the widening wealth-gaps between black and brown and white.  read more »

We always need to keep in mind, that there are different types of political activists out there; just as there are different levels of involvement and activities; and there is a co-relation. There are those whose activism has been driven by family heritage: generations of political involvement and community activism from close relatives. Then there are those whose activism has been driven by religion, or philosophy, or something ideological from within. Then there are those whose involvements come via the “academic” route: professionals, bureaucrats, technicians, students, teachers, professors, journalists, reporters and the like.

Furthermore, there are those who get involved because of issues and/or personal need(s). For example, some type of situation comes up within the school system in which their kids are being educated -and from there on in they are moved to be active participants in the political process: because of a newly found awareness.  read more »