MEDIA ROOTS — Los
Angeles-based Margot Paez of Insight
Out News continues to bring you unembedded, grassroots news that matters to
the people, as the corporate media seeks to smear the Occupy Movement and its
plain and sincere demands for socioeconomic justice on various levels.
After marching in solidarity Monday and
Tuesday against the, apparently Federalised, anti-First Amendment police state crackdowns
on the Occupy Movement from NYC to Oakland, Occupy LA and ReFund California Coalition demonstrators
attempted a sit-in at the CSU Chancellor’s Office in Long Beach yesterday morning. Something of a tug-of-war ensued between cops shielding the Chancellor’s Office and demonstrators demanding a
hearing of their
grievances when a door frame warped causing a glass door to break. Insight Out News provides detailed analysis
of the incident dispelling allegations of protester violence.
Messina
***
Margot Paez of Insight Out News reports on this morning’s incident at the CSU Chanellor’s Office in Long Beach.
MEDIA ROOTS – On Thursday,
November 17, 2011, Media Roots correspondent Felipe Messina spoke with Russia Today TV
(RT) about the violent mass arrests by militarised platoons of local
police, as they
waged a coordinated national campaign to crush the Occupy Movement. He pointed out the Federalised character of the coordinated crackdowns
against the Occupy Movement. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan had recently admitted
in a radio interview that she was on a teleconference call with many other
mayors across the country coordinating their crackdowns against the Occupy Movement.
MR
***
Felipe Messina, Media Roots Correspondent, is interviewed in this RT segment.
RUSSIA
TODAY– The latest demonstrations spanning the entire
country come as the movement marks its two-month mark on November 17. What
began as a small occupation of a small park near Wall Street turned into a
nationwide movement, and soon after spread across the globe, from Toronto to
Tokyo. Cities across the planet have embraced in the will to deliver a strong
message of frustration with corporate greed, inequality and spreading poverty,
while the very few people in control of this system impose their will.
Felipe
Messina, a correspondent for the independent Media Roots news organization,
believes police are purposely going beyond the call of duty to nip the protests
in the bud.
“Clearly,
what we are seeing here is the attempt to really crush the Occupy Wall Street
movement,” he told
RT. “Clearly, they’ve tried to hit the protests with the ‘shock and awe’ and
tried to devastate them – that backfired. So now they are trying to find
different pretexts.”
The
correspondent points out that protesters have learnt from past mistakes, and
the present tactics of peaceful demonstrations are proving to be effective.
“I think
that in the United States, with the WTO battle in Seattle situations, the
protesters have really learnt a lesson about non-violent direct action. And
it’s really very effective,” he said.
“And Port of Oakland – it’s really sent a message to the political
establishment that, you know, people are really seeing the two party
dictatorship, and they are really fed up with it, and they are just not going
to stand for it anymore.”
“According to [one Justice Department] official, in several recent conference calls and
briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to
evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing
curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show
of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular,
the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation
suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time
when the press was the least likely to be present.”
By Wednesday (11/16) the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) worked on damage control claiming worries over Federal involvement in the crackdowns were overblown.
Yet, DHS admitted taking an official role in at least one Portland,
Oregon crackdown. And, of course, this admission may be attributable to
the fact that DHS agents of the Federal Protective Service variety were
photographed in action at Occupy Portland, Terry Schrunk Plaza, on October 31, 2011. So, it’s conceivable other DHS agents may have been involved elsewhere.
In conversation with RT, I
described how in Oakland the ostensibly liberal Mayor Quan, initially tried to
co-opt Occupy Oakland through photo-ops on October 15 with establishment activists of MoveOn. But faced with
the horizontal principles of the Occupy Movement equalising Quan’s position of
authority to genuine cooperation, feeling snubbed or assenting to pressure from above, gave the green
light, before conveniently skipping town (in similar fashion to Obama’s trip to
the Pacific Rim), to the militarised police state platoon raids and crackdowns.
MEDIA ROOTS – On Thursday, November 17, 2011, Abby
Martin of Media Roots spoke with Russia Today TV about the violent mass arrests by militarised platoons of local police, as they wage a coordinated national campaign to crush the Occupy Movement. Abby reminds viewers that the banks are costing the City of Oakland far more than the justified civil disobedience of the Occupy Oakland Movement. Indeed, civil disobedience is the only way to go for the Occupy Movement nationwide and around the world.
MR
***
Abby Martin, Media Roots Founder, is interviewed in this RT segment.
***
RUSSIA TODAY– Violent arrests have taken place in New York during a huge anti-Wall
Street rally. RT correspondents as well as independent commentators
bring the latest from the scene.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has marked its two month anniversary
with coast to coast protests. Activists flooded US cities in what they
called “A Day of Action”, all this as part of the protest against
economic inequality.
In New York, the heart of the movement, tens of thousands of activists marched across the city, literally occupying streets.
All that was accompanied by brutal crackdowns and violent arrests, with almost 300 arrests being made in New York alone.
RT’s
Marina Portnaya, reporting from New York, has said that an eyewitness
told RT the police attacked one of the activists – whether the police
were or were not provoked is not clear. According to the witness, five
or more police officers jumped on a young activist and started to beat
him.
Independent journalist Abby Martin, talking to RT from
Oakland, does not agree that the police’s general approach has been
helping to restore public order. Though she admits the rallies could
cause some anger of the public, the response and support for the
movement is stronger than annoyance by inconveniences.
“Civil
disobedience is the only way to go. People are waking up to the fact
that the police are now militarized, and these absurd methods of crowd
control – tear gas into thousands of people if one person throws a
bottle – [take place]. All this could potentially cause some anger as
people are trying to get to work, but overall I think it’s a great
response we are not going to take it anymore and we are not going to
step back. If the cops kick us out of Zuccotti Park and outside downtown
Oakland, we are going to reconvene and show up stronger”.
Martin also draws attention to the fact that, as she says, banks are actually costing the city more money than the OWS protests.
“If
you look at the amount it has cost the broke city of Oakland for this
heavy-headed police response, upward to US$ 500 000 for the latest raid.
What’s costing the city so much? Banks were exempt US$7 million from
taxes just last year.”
MEDIA ROOTS — Abby Martin of Media Roots was interviewed on The Bob Tuskin Radio Show for 1 1/2 hours to discuss an array of issues including the Occupy Wall Street Movement, Occupy Oakland and the “Black Bloc”, Project Censored and the role of citizen journalism.
MEDIA ROOTS — On
Monday, November 14, 2011, Abby Martin of Media Roots went to Occupy Oakland (OO) at 4 am to
cover the second police state raid on the peaceful OO encampment. Under direct orders from Oakland Mayor Jean
Quan, over 500 riot cops in another
coordinated, increasingly fascistic, multi-police
agency operation stormed the peaceful OO encampment at Oscar Grant Plaza (aka
Frank Ogawa Plaza) in an attempt to crush the OO movement once and for
all.
Mayor Quan’s legal adviser resigned at 2 am in protest to the
heavy police repression at OO. Quan’s Deputy Mayor also resigned in protest a few hours later.
Media Roots documents the intensity in the air leading up to the
police raid, as the peaceful protesters brace themselves for another show of
force by the heavily militarised riot platoons.
This footage evidences the insane level of militarised police presence, which showed up to crackdown and destroy the camp in yesterday’s
predawn raid.
Meanwhile, similar raids occurred this weekend with mass
arrests against Occupy Movement encampments across the nation. This morning in another predawn raid, Occupy
Wall Street at Zuccotti Park in NYC was ordered cleared under the pretext of
sanitation concerns. Mass arrests were
carried out at OWS, involving police beating arrestees with batons and the use of pepper spray. And now, OWS
protesters have been told they will not be allowed to return with tents or
tarps as the winter chill approaches.
One may wonder if notions of America, land of the free, still carry any meaning in Obama’s
post-P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act/anti-First Amendment political climate. If they do anywhere in the U.S., it’s at the
fiercely idealistic Occupy encampments across the nation.
Messina
***
Abby Martin
of Media Roots covers the latest police state raid against Occupy Oakland.
