Wall Street March Urges Bankers Behind Bars, But It Has Not Happened Yet

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

WALL STREET, September 15 -- Amid chants of "Bank of America, bad for America," marchers headed Saturday at dusk from Manhattan's Washington Square Park south on Broadway toward Wall Street. Video here.

 

Police on foot, scooters and in vans trailed them, then suddenly plunged into the crowd just north of White Street. Inner City Press, inside the march, was grabbed then released by NYPD. The march continued south to Zuccotti Park, the past and perhaps future Liberty Square.

 

There, marchers were allowed single file past NYPD and Brookfield Office Properties security officers into the park. There were mic checks about Occupy Trinity, and the upcoming September 17 attempts to shut down the New York Stock Exchange.

 

How much has changed in the year since Occupy Wall Street began here. Banks are near failing in Spain; austerity is protested there and in Greece. Some euphoria about the Arab Spring has dissipated among extremist attacks. Still Syria was cited among the marchers' chants.

 

A sign in the crowd read "Bankers Behind Bars." This has not happened. As Inner City Press noted from Washington on Thursday, while the Department of Justice brags of some fines that it has levied, Citigroup executives like Robert Rubin have escaped unscathed, still pontificating about foreign policy and the Euro. Still there are attempts to try to hold these to account. Watch this site.

Police Push Occupy Wall Street Out of Zuccotti Park Again, American Spring?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 17 -- When Occupy Wall Street rallied Saturday night in Zuccotti Park, police began to assemble on Broadway and Liberty Street. In the part, a small green tent went up, no more than a tarp hung on a line between two trees.

There was chants about an "American Spring," and against banks: "hit the road, banks, and don't ya come back no more." Then the police moved in.

First they surged in from Broadway, pushing the crowd back. Some were arrested and pulled up to Broadway where a paddy wagon was filled.

To the south of the park, a march arrived with a band playing Irish music on bagpipes, on this St. Patrick's Day. The police shut that down too. An MTA bus showed up, "Not in Service," to be filled with other arrestees. From inside an arrested tweeted there were 16 others; it was Bus Number 6694.

A woman flopped on the sidewalk; people said she had a seizure. Photos on www.twitter.com/innercitypress; video here

While the crowd was focused on that, police and security from Brookfield Properties, the owner of the prviate public public, rushed in with metal barricades to close off the park again. Meanwhile more NYPD vehicles showed up.

As Inner City Press sought information about the woman with the seizure, a three wheel police scooter drove up fast and did not stop. It was Vehicle Number 3530, in from the 78th Precinct.

Soon a wall of police was pushing the crowd south on Broadway to Thames Street. The police pushed, and some people fell down. But the police kept pushing forward.

Who ordered this crackdown, several in the crowd asked. There was some ugly back and forth. Buzz went through the crowd of more arrests, further north, and a march set off. American Spring? One hopes the focus remains on the banks, which continue to get over. We'll see.

Occupy Wall Street Mission to Egypt Debated, Rain Falls, Banks Let Off Hook?

By Matthew Russell Lee

LOWER MANHATTAN, November 22 -- Should Occupy Wall Street spend $30,000 to send observers to Egypt's parliamentary elections on November 28? The proposal was debated at length on Tuesday night in lower Manhattan, not in Zuccotti Park from which tents were evicted a week ago but in another privately-owned "public" space at 60 Wall Street.

Back on November 10 the money was allocated, and turmoil in Cairo's Tahrir Square has increased since then. But Tuesday night's amendment said "the November 15 eviction from Liberty Plaza has taxed our human and capital resources" and "there is no unanimity on whether sending an observer delegation from New York is the best way we can help the movement in Egypt."

An opponent of the amendment called it merely budgetary, an attempt to save money. (One point of information was that the $1,500 per ticket was inflated, as these were available online for $820.) But others said, "OWS is global, we have to show solidarity."

One critique of the amendment was that the sponsor wouldn't give his name. He maintained that position, saying "I am White Hat, I am known as that."

There were five Blocks, several of whom said it was their "first block ever." These were whittled down but not eliminated so a vote seeking modified consensus -- 90% vote -- was taken. A count of voters was taken, but more than 10% voted against.

The proposal failed, leading one member of the "Movement Building" group to complain, we don't want to go, we are not going!"

Palm tree, not in Egypt but 60 Wall Street, (c) MRLee

Another Movement Building member mentioned concerns about security, while from further back in the crowd there was grumbling about expensive plane tickets and hotel rooms.

Reporting from the United Nations as Inner City Press shows that there are other elections on November 28, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Also at the UN earlier on Tuesday, when Inner City Press asked for a response to the use of tear gas at University of California - Davis, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said that an investigation was "appropriate."

But the UN is tone-deaf on entanglements with bailed-out financial institutions like Bank of America. And Occupy Wall Street, while initially and still intermittently targeted at banks, bogged down Tuesday night on a proposal to spend $350 for a legal filing fee to sue the NYC Department of Sanitation to not, at least yet, throw out the belongings seized during the November 15 eviction of Zuccotti Park.

Penny wise, pound foolish said a bearded wag back in the crowd. Indeed. Watch this site.

Footnote: Inner City Press has written and uploaded many of its Occupy Wall Street pieces from 60 Wall Street, where the day of the eviction the public Interest was shut. Now amid cold November rain, the OWS General Assembly has moved indoors. It is next to Wall Street and that should be used.

From Manhattan to Brooklyn, Occupy Wall Street Questions Banks, Obama

By Matthew Russell Lee

BROOKLYN, November 17, updated with video -- A raucous march over the Brooklyn Bridge on Thursday marked the two month anniversay of Occupy Wall Street, and two days since the eviction of its Zuccotti Park encampment. Regrouped in a park in downtown Brooklyn, the mood was not diminished; a winter of protest in the snow was promised.

Thursday evening's march was filled out with union workers, from SEIU, 1199, Verizon and others. The police diverted the front of the march from Foley Square the long way around City Hall Park, where electric candles were passed out.

At the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge a blinking sign read, Ped[estrians] on the roadway are subject to arrest," a reference to the mass arrests of October 1. The march took hours to cross from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Inner City Press marched behind a brass band of tubas and trombones, the crowd appreciative, stopping the applaud when slogan of the 99% were projected on Verizon's walls.

Once in Brooklyn the riot equipped police were surprised by the mood. A General Assembly was convened in Veterans' Park, with report-backs from Occupy The Bronx and the destroyed then reconstituted library. The crowd was so large that three separate mic checks started up.

#OccupyWallStreet on Chambers Street, with police (c) MRLee

Unbeknowst to many of the marchers, SEIU earlier on Thursday had endorsed Barack Obama for a second term. On the march there were questions for and about Obama: where was he, who was he, why did he spend so much time and energy raising money from New York Wall Street titans? See video, at Minute 1

Earlier on Thursday the target was more focused: the New York Stock Exchange. Thursday evening was about movement building. On the bridge a gray haired man chanted, "What do the Sixties look like? This is what the Sixties look like!"

In the park in Brooklyn one of the mic-checkers said, This is not just about money, we have to show we care about each other. That was the mood, far too rare. With or without Zuccotti, the movement is needed and seems to have legs. Watch this site.

After Bloomberg Evicts Occupy Wall Street, Exile on Canal, 60 Wall Street and Public Internet Shut Down

By Matthew Russell Lee

LOWER MANHATTAN, November 15 -- Two months after Occupy Wall Street began in Zuccotti Park, and two days before a called-for actual occupation of Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange, Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent hundreds of riot equipped police to remove all demonstrators from the park, which they had renamed Liberty Square.

Text message alerts began at 1 am, and by 3 am structures in the park were coming down: the tent from which protesters had been fed, the much publicized library with its lights run by bicycle powered generators, the First Aid tent.

The evicted and their supporters regrouped ten blocks north in Foley Square, where protests to major banks' "robo-signing" foreclosures had taken place.

During its (first?) two months based in Zuccotti Park, the Occupy Wall Street movement marched on nearby JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, and headed to midtown Manhattan to Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. To some, the call to target the New York Stock Exchange itself on November 17 triggered Mayor Bloomberg's reaction.

In Foley Square, it was announced that a court order - a Temporary Restraining Order - now allowed the demonstrators to return to Zuccotti Park, at least until an 11:30 am hearing. A march set off around City Hall -- "hey hey, ho ho, our billionaire mayor has got to go" -- and then up to Canal Street and Sixth Avenue. There the police stopped it, telling Inner City Press, if you do not move back you will be arrested.

It was 10:30 am, with only an hour left on the (first?) court order. And so Inner City Press headed back south.

There, the police refused to obey the court order, which was soon to be overturned. On Wall Street, the "public" atrium on 60 Wall Street was closed, and its Internet turned off. And yet... this story. Watch this site.

At Occupy Wall Street in Oakland Echo, Goldman Sachs Indictment

By Matthew Russell Lee

WALL STREET, October 26 -- As the Occupy movement spreads from coast to coast, an attack in Oakland, California on protesters Tuesday night was the buzz of an impromptu march on New York's lower Broadway on Wednesday night.

Amid chants of "New York is open, open is New York," demonstrators moved freely with a growing police presence behind them. Inner City Press photographed, beside City Hall, police horses of the type injured in Times Square only ten days ago.

Down in Zuccotti Park. riot police with white plastic handcuffs stood in groups on Liberty Street. "Join us!" several protesters called to them. "They'll cut your pensions too!"

At times the focus on the financial giants which triggered but dodged the world financial crisis slither out of focus. But a "people's indictment" of Goldman Sachs is scheduled for November 3.

Much of the talk was of Iraq war veteran Scott Olson being put into a coma with a skull fractured by a "police projectile" in Oakland. More than one marcher wondered if it would be raised at the United Nations, barely a hundred blocks uptown.

(c) MRLee
Just another Wednesday night at #OWS, NY is open, open is NY

Earlier on Wednesday a block from the UN, a couple mused about the movement. One said it would help Obama, by shifting the media's debate from the national debt to jobs. The other was curious, how people could indict a bank without a court. We'll see on November 3.

Ironically, the Goldman Sachs director indicted and arrested on Wednesday for insider trading, Raj Gupta, was and is still listed as a UN adviser on management. Inner City Press asked the UN spokesman about it on Wednesday, but he had no comment. Occupy the UN?