"Occupy group tries to draw attention from primary
MANCHESTER, N.H. - A small circle formed in Veterans Park yesterday as members of Occupy N.H. Primary strummed guitars and banged on drums, a tambourine, and an empty water jug. “Our streets, our towns, right here, right now. We are the love police,’’ they chanted, over and over.
While most attention focused on the Republican presidential candidates, around 50 people gathered in the park to protest both parties. A group of activists from Occupy New Hampshire, a continuation of the Occupy Wall Street movement protesting income inequality, has been gathered since Friday. Though they do not sleep in the park, the protesters have been meeting from morning until night, with lectures, rallies, films at a nearby church, and street theater.
John Ford, of Plymouth, Mass., wore a button “No one for President.’’
Ford said he doesn’t believe any of the candidates will protect his civil liberties.
Mark Provost, an economic journalist from Manchester, said he does not think either party will address issues of wealth inequality. The goal of the movement is to “raise awareness and change the narrative,’’ said Provost, who has been involved in the Occupy Boston and Occupy New Hampshire movements.
Kendra Ford, the minister of a Unitarian church in Portsmouth, N.H., has spent two days at the protest. “The problem is money is making decisions,’’ she said. “People’s thinking should be making decisions.’’
Few passersby seemed to pay much attention to the protest. Pat and Jay Morris from Goffstown, N.H., said they came to Manchester out of curiosity about the circus surrounding the primary. “The whole thing is going to the extreme,’’ Pat Morris said of the Occupy movement.
“It’s dragged on,’’ Jay Morris added. “It’s old news. No one seems to pay attention anymore.’’
Sort of like newspapers, 'eh?
--more--"
Ah, memory lane:
"68 arrested at NYC Occupy site" associated press, January 02, 2012
NEW YORK - Sixty-eight Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested on New Year’s Eve and charged with tearing down barricades at Zuccotti Park, the former home of their camp that was dismantled several weeks ago.
About 500 protesters gathered in the New York park Saturday evening, where they rang in the new year with songs and their now-familiar chant of “We are the 99 percent.’’
About 11 p.m., after a relatively quiet evening, some protesters began to tear down the barricades that have surrounded the park since New York police officers evicted Occupy Wall Street members on Nov. 15, protesters said yesterday. Police then moved in.
The Police Department said 68 people were arrested, and at least one person was accused of assaulting a police officer, who suffered cuts on one hand. Other charges included trespassing, disorderly conduct, and reckless endangerment.
“They [police] got very aggressive and started pushing people and pepper-spraying people,’’ Jason Amadi, 27, a protester from San Jose, Calif., said yesterday. “I got pepper-sprayed in the face.’’
Related: Globe Grinds Pepper Spray Protest Story
The protesters said they worked at sections of the park in teams of twos and threes, retreating only when police converged and pulled the barricades back.
“People were collecting all the barricades and making kind of a big heap of them in the middle of the park,’’ said Melanie Butler, 30, of Brooklyn.
--more--"
What would MLK have done?
"Obamas mark Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in church worship service" January 16, 2012|Globe Staff, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - In New York, Occupy Wall Street demonstrators joined artists, celebrities, and others at a candlelight vigil last night.
The vigil was at Riverside Church, which hosted a program that included performances by Patti Smith and other artists, and speeches by Yoko Ono and Russell Simmons.
Related: King For a Day
Members of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union gathered outside a midtown Manhattan hotel for a separate candlelight tribute to King.
King, a Baptist minister and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, was born Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta. He was assassinated 44 years ago in Memphis, Tenn.
See: Slow Saturday Special: King-Sized Insult
A new memorial to King, which opened in August in Washington, celebrates the ideals he espoused. Quotations from his speeches and writings conjure memories of his message, and a 30-foot sculpture depicts King emerging as a “stone of hope’’ from a “mountain of despair,’’ a design inspired by a line of his famous “I Have a Dream’’ speech.
Related: Obama Misses MLK's Message Again
I know it will be offensive to some, but King failed. The message has been co-opted, and the ceremonial honors bestowed by the very power structure that killed him. Thus the message is race only. The wealth inequality and wars that would have broken his heart (Bush I began the first attack on Iraq on MLK's birthday, another slap in the face). I think Michael Jordan being allowed to own a basketball team wouldn't have cut it with him. Had he lived King would be horrified at what the world has become.
--more--"
"King’s legacy cited in protests of voter ID laws; Crowds honor civil rights leader’s life" by Jeffrey Collins | Associated Press, January 17, 2012
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Thousands commemorating the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday yesterday outside South Carolina’s capitol heard a message that would not have been out of place during the halcyon days of the civil rights movement a half-century ago: the need to protect all citizens’ right to vote.
What good is the right to vote if elections are rigged and fraudulent?
A similar tone was struck at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King preached from 1960 until his death. There and in South Carolina, speakers condemned the voter identification laws they said are meant to suppress black voter turnout.
For most of 13 years in South Carolina, the attention at the NAACP’s annual rally has been on the Confederate flag that still waves outside the State House. But yesterday, the civil rights group shifted the focus to laws requiring voters to show photo identification before they can cast ballots, which the group and many other critics say is especially discriminatory toward African-Americans and the poor.
Republicans only care about vote fraud when they want to suppress some.
Republicans only care about vote fraud when they want to suppress some.
South Carolina’s new law was rejected last month by the US Justice Department, but Governor Nikki Haley vowed to fight the federal government in court....
“The right to vote is not only the cornerstone of our governance, it is the lifeblood of our democracy. And no force has proved more powerful, or more integral to the success of the great American experiment, than efforts to expand the franchise,’’ US Attorney General Eric Holder said....
Oh, I'm so sick of the platitudes.
Related: Mexican Mischief
I'm sick of criminal government officials, too.
Critics have likened the laws to the poll taxes and tests used to prevent blacks from voting during the civil rights era. Supporters, many of whom are Republicans, say such laws are needed to prevent fraud.
“I signed a bill that would protect the integrity of our voting,’’ Haley said in a statement welcoming Holder to South Carolina.
Rallies and memorial events were held in cities across the nation yesterday to observe King’s legacy.
At the Atlanta church where King once preached, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock said some in America disrespect King’s legacy by “cutting off those for whom he died and the principles for which he fought.’’
He called voter ID laws an affront to the memory of the civil rights leader. “You cannot celebrate Dr. King on Monday, and undermine people’s ability to vote on Super Tuesday,’’ Warnock said.
In New York, about 100 Occupy Wall Street protesters marched from the city’s African Burial Ground to the Federal Reserve, saying their own fight for more economic opportunity is akin to King’s.
Yeah, it is what he was working on when he was killed. He was in Memphis to support sanitation workers (you know, those icky public service union folk).
A smaller group also protested yesterday at a Bank of America branch in Manhattan. Police arrested four people on charges of trespassing.
The protesters prayed and sang “We Shall Overcome’’ at the burial ground, which is a national monument and marks the cemetery where free and enslaved Africans were buried during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The group then marched a few blocks south to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where they huddled in 30-degree weather to listen to speakers who criticized what they called corporate greed. The demonstrators carried signs reading, “We oppose economic inequality’’ and “Democracy for sale no more.’’
In Washington, President Obama and his family marked the day by helping to build bookshelves in a local school library. The president said there was no better way to celebrate King’s life than to spend the day helping others.
Which is strange because the movement he led and which they are celebrating was helping itself.
--more--"
What do you mean they are still out there?
"Occupy protesters descend on Capitol" Associated Press, January 18, 2012
Oh, I'm so sick of the platitudes.
Related: Mexican Mischief
I'm sick of criminal government officials, too.
Critics have likened the laws to the poll taxes and tests used to prevent blacks from voting during the civil rights era. Supporters, many of whom are Republicans, say such laws are needed to prevent fraud.
“I signed a bill that would protect the integrity of our voting,’’ Haley said in a statement welcoming Holder to South Carolina.
Rallies and memorial events were held in cities across the nation yesterday to observe King’s legacy.
At the Atlanta church where King once preached, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock said some in America disrespect King’s legacy by “cutting off those for whom he died and the principles for which he fought.’’
He called voter ID laws an affront to the memory of the civil rights leader. “You cannot celebrate Dr. King on Monday, and undermine people’s ability to vote on Super Tuesday,’’ Warnock said.
In New York, about 100 Occupy Wall Street protesters marched from the city’s African Burial Ground to the Federal Reserve, saying their own fight for more economic opportunity is akin to King’s.
Yeah, it is what he was working on when he was killed. He was in Memphis to support sanitation workers (you know, those icky public service union folk).
A smaller group also protested yesterday at a Bank of America branch in Manhattan. Police arrested four people on charges of trespassing.
The protesters prayed and sang “We Shall Overcome’’ at the burial ground, which is a national monument and marks the cemetery where free and enslaved Africans were buried during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The group then marched a few blocks south to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where they huddled in 30-degree weather to listen to speakers who criticized what they called corporate greed. The demonstrators carried signs reading, “We oppose economic inequality’’ and “Democracy for sale no more.’’
In Washington, President Obama and his family marked the day by helping to build bookshelves in a local school library. The president said there was no better way to celebrate King’s life than to spend the day helping others.
Which is strange because the movement he led and which they are celebrating was helping itself.
--more--"
What do you mean they are still out there?
"Occupy protesters descend on Capitol" Associated Press, January 18, 2012
WASHINGTON - Several hundred protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement converged on the West Lawn of the Capitol yesterday to decry the influence of corporate money in politics and voice other grievances.
Organizers had portrayed the rally, known as Occupy Congress, as the largest national gathering of Occupy protesters to date and secured a permit that would have allowed up to 10,000 people to participate. By mid-afternoon, the protest appeared to have fallen far short of those goals.
Still, participants said they were optimistic about the strength of the Occupy movement, which began in September when protesters pitched tents in a lower Manhattan park. The movement spread to dozens of cities. While many, including Boston, have moved to evict the protesters, the National Park Service has allowed encampments to remain in two public squares near the White House....
Oh, so it is STILL an ONGOING EVENT, huh?
While the rally was mostly peaceful, there were some scuffles between police and protesters....
There are your AGENT PROVOCATEURS at work!
The Occupy movement includes activists who want to change government from within and anarchists who oppose all government.
That's the banner provocateurs go under. And I don't want to change government; I want it to leave me alone.
Tension between the two camps was evident yesterday as some protesters taunted police while others participated in earnest group discussions about how to influence their elected representatives.
I'll let you decide who is who.
Last night, an apparent smoke bomb was thrown over the fence of the White House as hundreds of Occupy protesters massed outside the gates.
The crowds were then dispersed, and US Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie says there were no arrests in the incident.
Ogilvie said there were 1,000 to 1,500 protesters at one point. He said something appearing to be a smoke bomb was thrown over the fence and that the device was being removed.
At the Capitol protest, small groups of protesters entered House office buildings in a bid to meet with individual members of Congress. Participants also planned to march to the Supreme Court.
--more--"
Looks like new news to me.
