What if you are so outraged at ALEC’s hidden activities with corporate lobbyists that a simple call, click or letter though the usual channels isn’t enough? I’ve got some ideas for you.

One thing I’ve found in my years on your planet is to recognize people’s unique talents when you ask them to help you. I’m a communications guy with an understanding of media, technology and corporations so I use those skills for the causes I support. But there are lots of different activist methods for people with unique skills they can use to fight the right. So let’s match some skill sets and interests to ways you can get involved.

1) Are you the performer type? Do you enjoy speaking in public? Do you run to the microphone to ask questions at lectures?
You can be the “talent” who is the focal point of a citizen activist team’s video story.

2) Are you a filmmaker and knows how to put together a short edited video with a few titles and load it up on YouTube?
You can be the “director” who films the “talent” and preps a video to go viral.

3) Are you a researcher and writer? Do you know exactly what to say when someone is “answering” a questions with words that are clearly a dodge, a lie, or an obfuscation on a topic that you know something about? But would you rather write these pithy, witty responses down on your computer than say them out loud to someone in public?
You can be the “screen writer” who educates the “talent” on the issue for their questions in a public forum and ensures the “director” has a solid narrative and a point of view.

4) Are you a connector? Someone with lots of friends and followers on social media. Do you know how to throw a good party to support a cause or fight back?
You can be the “producer” who introduces the “talent” to the “director” and “screen writer” and suggests they work together.

I’ve been training small teams like this to go to town halls and other locations. It really can be an amazingly powerful group. As you can see, I use the terminology of Hollywood because in our current environment so much of what gets covered by the media is theater. Politicians are always performing, saying what they think the audience wants to hear. Their people know how to stage manage events. They know what people like to see, they want to “control the box” by dictating the venue, the attendees, and if they are pretending to be open, only the “right” kind of media are allowed in. They will use all the methods at their disposal to block teams like this because they have the potential to create Macaca Moments. [cont'd.]

There is a huge opportunity for teams like this in all sorts of situations, not just the events that are scheduled and stage managed by organizations like ALEC. ALEC has a hilarious “media policy” which, if actually enforced equally, even Fox News couldn’t attend. If you are interested in training sessions for people who want to participate in these teams contact me at spockosemail AT gmail. com.

But what if your talent isn’t in any of these areas and you still want to help?

Corporations donate millions of dollars to ALEC. They often hide their donations. What kind of methods can you suggest that can uncover these donations? Has a company revealed info in a quarterly document that nobody noticed? Might you suggest a method of questioning of the corporations in shareholder meetings about these expenditures? Sure some institutional shareholder fund managers understand that buying politicians and legislation has a great ROI for the long term, but maybe they want that cash this quarter. Maybe they are a corporation that says one thing in public, but funds the opposite in private by giving to ALEC. Shouldn’t the CEO be asked about the apparent disconnect between their stated mission statement and where they are spending the shareholders money?

Two of my favorite financial writers are William Black and David Cay Johnston but I’m sure there are other people working in finance (or retired) who could educate someone enough to know what to look for and ask about in a forum where it can’t be ignored. Maybe you need to team up with some “talent” and a “director” to get the story out there after someone asks your questions. This is necessary because you can be pretty sure that the financial press or the main stream press aren’t going to ask those questions.

The title of these two Florida “Education” bills are designed to be misleading. They play on parent’s feeling of loss of control over their kid’s education while taking any semblance of local democratic control away. They do this because not many people would vote for the:

“We Will Steal Your Kid’s School, Remove Your Local School Board and Replace them with Unelected for-profit Corporate Executives Who Have A Fiduciary Responsibility to Enrich The Corporation Bottom Line Instead of Provide a Quality Education To Your Kids While Setting Up A Potentially Worse Performing School that Your Kids Probably Can’t Get into Anyway Because of Their Low Test Scores” bill.

So they call them House Bill 1191, or the Parent Empowerment Act — and HB 543, or the Parental Involvement and Accountability in the Public Schools Bill.
Now right now these bills are at the stage where they are supposed to get public comment. That’s you! So if you are in Florida, call your legislator now.
And I’ll bet there are ALEC Bills coming to your state too! Follow @ALECexposed for updates or go to ALECexposed.org for more details.

All of these skills can be used if you actively want to challenge, defund and hamper the funders and leaders of an organization like ALEC.

Good luck.
LLAP,
Spocko

@spockosbrain

spockosbrain.com

Spocko is a media activist who trains people to tell their stories to the press and public.

There will be a billion pixels spilt on these stories that you can read elsewhere by scholars, experts and journalists. What I’m most interested in is what works/worked for the media activists out there.

• How we can replicate this to fight the right?
  How can we press the advantage?
  Why the left will NOT press the advantage.

• How will the Right defend against this in the future and who will they enlist to help them?

BTW, can anyone else see the fingerprints and style of Ari Fleischer all over Brinker’s media interviews and statements?

(Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” it’s a safe bet that he would approve and suggest someone who mirrors his style.)

• What steps will the PR experts at Ogilvy take to try to repair the brand?

The right has often taken tactics and methods used first by us, discredited them until they have time to become big in them (by throwing money and automating at them) and then using them to serve their agenda.

• How can we defend against it when it is turned on us?

I’ve already seen several stories about the power of social media in breathless posts about the role of Twitter and Facebook in the Komen debacle. It reminded me of the early days of blogs and before that email campaigns.

I will point out one insight that I got after Mike asked me a question, “Why did the SOPA story work and the push for Net Neutrality go down the wonk hole?”

I wondered about this and why the overwhelming response on SGK’s action regarding Planned Parenthood. Part of it is because we on the left know how to respond to overreach. We aren’t as good going on the attack and creating outrage.  [cont'd.]

Some people have talked about keeping the pressure on SGK, doing oppo research on the board members and using it against them. I think keeping the pressure on is the right idea, but that’s the wrong approach.

There can be exposure, but not out and out attacks. At this point one of the best ways to put pressure on them is by helping them rip themselves apart from inside. Find and expose the people inside who didn’t agree with the board. Show the world how good people inside fought the board. Some resigned. The board will have to attack “themselves” vs. attacking us for attacking them.

After I made an impact on KSFO and got dozens of advertisers to leave, I backed off exposing them in public. I started letting their new parent company management and board know what the hosts who “apologized” were still doing to the brand. I showed them the sexism, bigotry and continuous violent rhetoric that was still coming out of them. I also enlisted the State Department, the Iraq Embassy staff and the internal news staff at ABC to drive a wedge between the hosts and management. I showed ABC Radio management and journalists how Lee Rodgers was attacking them on the air. “Does it bother you that Rodgers is calling your staff liars, Presidential butt kissers and dopes?”

This turned their anger on Rodgers, not me. Rodgers was an expensive embarrassment who would not apologize to anyone for anything, so I helped the management see that in regards to their own brand.

Rodgers got fired. He blamed the Muslims and a management that listened to them. How do you think the management and Muslims found out about his comments? They don’t listen to the show.

I like to fight the right and force an error or overreaction on their part because then I’m the victim. The left knows how to support victims, but we don’t know how to support our warriors. I rarely get institutional support because attacking the right isn’t really in any groups’ mission statement. Even Media Matters is about, “correcting misinformation”

INTERFERING WITH THE MONEY STREAM IS NOT ALLOWED

My friend Sara Robinson, now a senior editor at Alternet, agrees with me.

You know why Glenn Beck got fired even when he got good ratings on Fox? Because I pointed out to the shareholders he wasn’t making them the kind of money he should have.

(See my post, Rupert and Me, where I called up Rupert during the NewsCorp quarterly financial call and asked him how long he was going to be subsidizing Beck.)

The focus to investors was on the negative financial impact of this nut. I wanted the institutional investors to know about it, so I talked to them in a language they understand. The bottom line.

“…corporations (both for- and non-profit) [need] to learn that putting right-wing ideologues into places of power is a risky, dangerous thing to do. It Does Not Pay, and no board that takes its fiduciary responsibility seriously should ever consider it.

(photo: Leo Reynolds/flickr)

Bank Transfer Day and the Occupy Movement have received tremendous attention, and for the first time we have market research data to measure the impact on the financial services industry. Javelin’s research estimates that 5.6 million U.S. adults with a banking relationship changed providers in the past 90 days. Of those switchers, 610,000 US adults (or 11% of the 5.6 million) cited Bank Transfer Day as their reason and actually moved their accounts from a large to a small institution.

People switch bank providers for a host of reasons, we cannot attribute all the switches to a Move Your Money type of campaign. Maybe you moved and your old bank doesn’t have a branch in your new area. But Javelin Strategy adds that this level of switching is three times the normal rate. And one-quarter of all transferring customers cited high fees as the reason for their switching.

This is significant. Account closures are up at Bank of America and the other big banks. They can put a brave face on this and say they actually lose money on small accounts, so this is a relief to them, but that’s really just bunk. We’re talking about tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in lost deposits. Surely nobody on Wall Street would tell you that they couldn’t do anything productive with that money.

It took a few years, but Move Your Money looks like a real movement. We’ll have to see if it continues.

STAND WITH OCCUPY BUFFALO
Call City Officials Now

Occupy Buffalo saw their camp bulldozed at 2 a.m. this morning. Tell the city you stand with the protesters. Click here for phone numbers and a sample script:

Without warning, Buffalo city officials bulldozed Occupy Buffalo’s camp at Niagara Square last night at 2:00AM, confiscating and destroying their personal property and arresting 10 people.

Only two days ago, Occupy Buffalo was on the front page of the Buffalo News for their organizing efforts to oppose the NFTA’s plans to shut down bus routes that would strand working class residents in the suburbs and leave them without public transportation to their jobs. They have tirelessly stood at the end of bus lines and passed out over 7,000 flyers to let Buffalo residents know what the NFTA was planning, and packed public hearings with vocal opponents.

They have raised crony politico hackles by demanding the NFTA turn over the valuable Buffalo waterfront property that it owns back to the city, which has remained unused for decades.

They have opposed Governor Cuomo’s scam to use $1 billion in state funds to subsidize a public-private medical complex, funded with taxpayer money that destroys low income housing for the benefit of large corporations — free from public scrutiny and FOIA requests.

In short, they have attended every city council meeting, every public planning meeting, and every public hearing they could to shine a bright light on the corruption and mismanagement that has made Buffalo the third poorest city in the nation.

So last night the Mayor ordered the police to forcibly eject Occupy Buffalo from the park with no warning, using a tank similar to those used against anti-apartheid protesters in South Africa.

Local law enforcement and community members have repeatedly praised Occupy Buffalo for their ongoing cooperation with the city. But it is clear that corrupt officials are trying to cover their tracks by preventing Occupy Buffalo from engaging in meaningful community activism on behalf of Buffalo citizens.

Can you call Governor Cuomo, Mayor Brown, the Buffalo City Council and others in city government and tell them you stand with Occupy Buffalo against this heinous attempt to cover up their own corruption by suppressing free speech?

Riot police & UC Riverside students standoff via @OccupyUMD

University of California Riverside students gathered to protest a UC Regents meeting on January 19. They gathered to demand that the Regents stop raising fees, supporting layoffs and passing budget cuts. They organized to defend public education. But, their presence was met with a significant show of force from police clad in riot gear, especially later in the afternoon. The presence of riot police escalated the situation and ultimately led to at least one officer firing paint-filled bullets into a crowd of students.

UC Rebel Radio, an alternative source of news and entertainment produced by students, faculty and staff, reported:

…[A]t around 3:30 p.m. the students were notified by scouts that the police were gathering in the back to make way for the exit of the Regents. Students split their ranks and took both exits, but no Regents were seen. At 4:30 p.m. (give or take) the Riverside Police Department sent in re-enforcements and the police line started their push back on the back side of the HUB building next to the parking lot.

The students realized the riot police were going to move on them and they tried to get everyone to sit down. Seconds after, paint-filled bullets were fired.

A video posted by TheNand311 shows police in riot gear at about the 3-minute mark pushing and shoving students with batons. Then, students scream twenty seconds or so later. The firing of paint-filled bullets can be heard along with more screaming. Then there are shouts of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” And finally cries of, “Medic! Medic! Medic!” as a body of a student is carried out of the crowd. [cont'd.]

I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live. You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.

Well, I can admit I don’t quite measure up to Martin’s standard. The good news is, though, that with each passing year, I have become a better warrior. I have broken out of my little shell and have learned to be comfortable with strongly expressing my opinions in public settings. I’m a regular speaker at local board hearings that are often televised. While I’m no movie star, I frequently get an “oh, I recognize you” from people around town. I take seriously the maxim “think globally; act locally.”

I’ve helped organize a “Lefty” documentary film series at the local library. I was instrumental in securing funding and land for a community garden. I helped organize a successful campaign to protect a pristine forest from development. I’m currently working on getting a State Park reopened that was closed due to budget cuts. Perhaps most importantly, my actions, at least to a small degree, have encouraged others to speak out and get active. [cont'd.]

I’m also in the process of seeking support from my local Occupy group for an idea I’d like to implement. I’d like to build a list of “tough” questions for all candidates and then challenge them, in the press and at their campaign rallies, to answer the questions. I’m sick and tired of candidates, be they left, right or center, who say things like “I think we have to work harder to make people’s lives better.” What the hell does that mean? It takes a bit of courage to attend a campaign rally filled with exuberant candidate supporters and tell them the pablum they’re peddling is crap. If we don’t demand real answers instead of the usual candidate happy talk, nothing is ever going to change. Our message isn’t just intended for the candidates; in fact, it’s mostly intended for those attending their rallies. Think about that. We need to exploit existing political gatherings to promote our message.

The old me had the same politics that I have now. Perhaps I’ve moved further to the Left. My activities consisted of rare candidate support, writing on the web and talking to friends about politics and attending the once-every-war-or-two anti-war rallies. It’s just not enough.

Now I speak out. At first, it was very uncomfortable. Now, I’m “expected”. Now if I attend a meeting and don’t speak out, I get asked why. A local Selectman told me that “if you want to take a night off, we could make up a cardboard cut-out of you and place it in the audience.”

So, how about you? Are you a warrior in the MLK tradition? Are you working towards it? Do you at least “have a dream” about what you’ll do? I’d love to hear what others are doing to wage war against the madness.

To quote the far-left-wing Dr. Seuss:

“Unless someone like you…cares a whole awful lot…nothing is going to get better. ..It’s not.”

Oil workers vote. (Image courtesy New Socialists of Kazakhstan)

Every protest movement has its slogan: Tax the rich, we are the 99%. The striking oil workers in Kazakhstan, though, put it a bit more bluntly: “Don’t Shoot the People.”

The statement of stark desperation and defiance was displayed by protesters in the western Kazakh city of Aktau on Monday. Hundreds of them gathered to defend their labor rights and confronted a hail of bullets.

The New York Times reported, “The authorities have put the death toll from those clashes at 14, though witnesses and human rights workers have said the number of dead could be many times higher. Scores more have reportedly been injured.”

The scene was replayed elsewhere in the region. The first major crackdown took place in the nearby city of Zhanaozen on Friday, where police reportedly opened fire on strikers who had been occupying a central square for months. Gunfire rang out later over demonstrators who had blocked local railroads in the neighboring city of Shepte.

The weekend of bloodshed was a stunning climax to a long-running struggle in the petrol-rich area known as Manghystau, between an elite protected by the ex-soviet state, and the state oil and gas workers left behind by the boom. It also suggests that labor conflicts are galvanizing a mass social movement.

Radio Free Europe reported in September:

The strikes began strong, with more than 10,000 workers participating in the walkout. Since then, however, numbers have dwindled to just over 1,000. Authorities at Zhanaozen’s OzenMunaiGaz and Aqtau’s KarazhanbasMunai energy works — both of which have ties to the state — have repeatedly taken advantage of Kazakhstan’s flimsy labor protection, firing hundreds of the striking workers for absenteeism and hiring new employees in their place. A number of the labor activists who have supported the group have been detained and even given lengthy prison sentences.

By September, only the toughest strikers remained:  [cont'd.]

“The heat doesn’t bother us,” said one of the strikers, Qaiyrzhan Shaghyrbaev. “At the oil works we worked under much worse conditions. Extreme temperatures, toxic runoff. So this is easy to deal with. We can stay here for a hundred days more, or even longer. We won’t retreat.”

An eerie calm

This latest spate of attacks seems to have battered but not broken the opposition, according to RFE. After the government deployed soldiers and armored vehicles to suppress riots stemming from the strikes in Zhanaozen, a curfew was imposed until January 5. Officials claimed order was returning and restored Internet services, which had been shut down. But life is not back to normal:

“We’re staying indoors,” said Aigul Zhalgasbaeva, a bookkeeper from Zhanaozen. “Special buses [from workplaces] come to take men to work. We women stay at home with our kids. Schools are closed. To enter hospitals you need a special permit card.”

The labor conflicts continue to fester. The activists’ chief complaint was that long-promised raises for oil and gas employees never materialized. One striker interviewed by RFE, Bakhytzhan Orazbekov, blamed corporate and government collusion:

”The money landed somewhere in the pockets of the company administration,” he said. “There’s corruption everywhere. Right now our jobs are being filled by new people, people who had to pay bribes to get those positions. Every vacancy is worth close to $2,000. Can you imagine how much money they’re making?”

A memo sent to In These Times by the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) stated while some organizers were rounded up for instigating disorder, “Many of the strikers were fired ‘for absence from work without good cause.’”

In October, ICEM documented various human rights violations and demanded an official investigation:

On July 8 and 10 workers’ rally in Aktau was stormed by riot police. The participants of the rally were violently beaten….

On August 2 Zhalsylyk Turbaev, 28-year old drill operator and a union activist, was murdered right at his workplace, his skull was broken….

Oil workers and their family members are frequently beaten by thugs. Every day workers also receive death threats.

Labor activists aren’t the only ones threatened by the regime. Recently, international aid workers were forced to pull out due to hostility from the authorities and several incidents of sexual assault, according to Peace Corps volunteers.

A 2010 investigation by Human Rights Watch uncovered severe abuses of migrant workers, including young children, in the country’s massive tobacco farming sector.

Anger simmers in the Kazakh winter

So do the clashes in Mangystau foreshadow a “Kazakh winter” parallel to the Arab Spring? President Nursultan Nazarbaev has anxiously declared that “there will be no Arab-style revolution” in Kazakhstan and predictably blamed foreign agitators for the violence.

According to the ICEM memo, however, the protests have reportedly attracted a diverse range of local actors, including youth bearing Molotov cocktails. The crackdown has also led to international condemnation–even prompting Sting to cancel a concert in solidarity with the protesters.

As for the workers themselves, simple economic concessions will no longer satisfy the demand for justice. ICEM regional representative Anatoly Surin told ITT this week that following the firing of 2000 employees, amid “international pressure,” officials and management arranged 3000 temporary jobs and 230 permanent jobs, “but only 6 workers agreed to accept the proposals.”

The authorities may try again to buy the silence of protesters. But after facing down the bullets of the state, workers have proven that they don’t have to settle.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (photo: lloyd89)

The Chicago Tribune has an article posted that indicates what one largely expected would happen with the NATO/G8 meetings: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel would like tighter restrictions for protesting during the meetings that will be happening in May of 2012 at McCormick Place.

Hal Dardick and Kristen Mack report:

Beyond the reduced spending oversight by the City Council, Emanuel also wants aldermen to double the maximum fine to $1,000 for protesters charged with resisting or obstructing a police officer, as well as those helping arrested protesters to escape custody. The minimum fine would soar to $200, which would be a $175 increase.

Emanuel also wants to prevent people from entering public parks and beaches before 6 a.m., two hours later than now allowed. They would continue to close at 11 p.m.

And loud noise, amplified sound and music at parades, athletic events and public assemblies would be allowed only between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. Rules on the use of sidewalks and streets also would be tightened.

Emanuel’s desire to up the fine for protesters charged with resisting or obstructing a police officer is significantly troubling. Of course, there will be, in any situation, a handful of people who do resist arrest. But as the public has witnessed by watching video or reading firsthand reports on Occupy protests, “resisting or obstructing a police officer” can usually be charged against any protester. Police are adept at crafting explanations to justify such charges. Reflexively recoiling as an officer touches you can be “resisting arrest.” Going limp and waiting for the cops to move your hands and body to make the arrest is sometimes “resisting arrest.”

Also, increasing the fines for helping protesters escape custody is troubling. First of all, I don’t know what this would exactly entail. I attempted to research instances where protesters had been fined for “helping protesters escape custody” and can find nothing. This isn’t a real thing that police forces often have to deal with when handling demonstrations. [cont'd.]

Still, Makana’s performance piece seemed to me an odd if affecting moment. It was pop-surreal as Makana began by whispering the lyrics while world leaders chat and eat in front of him.

I knew the power in the words that I had written. And, in a world that was free of punishment for being yourself… I would have sung it at the top of my lungs. But I also didn’t want to do it out of disrespect.

Makana’s was a sly move. It takes nothing away from it to note that it also had the feel of self-promotion, which is to the 21st century what “elbow grease” was to earlier times. Without it, you get nothing done. Anyway, in Hawaii, Makana was ready with a hand-lettered T-Shirt (“Occupy With Aloha”), a sneaky against-the-rules phone camera and a rapid response Youtube campaign.

I worry a little about the self-assessment (“I knew the power in the words…”). Even with its overt musical allusions to Dylanesque protest songs of the early Sixties the lyrics don’t exactly reach the level of poetry:

From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists in Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged we won’t withdraw

He left out “paw,” “maw,” “straw,” or “Utah,” but what the heck. I don’t much believe in any conventional high art/low art distinctions.  Artists return to us from the dreamtime and tell their stories with more or less skill. There’s some truth to be found even in the exploitative or inauthentic ones.

Yet, by way of confession, I’m usually unmoved by preachy pop songs, books or movies. There’s a reason Bob Dylan left the road of the protest song. It can be a narrow, dusty lane that takes us away from and not toward a full humanity.

It’s also true that everything doesn’t need to do everything. I mean, there’s plenty of room for all kinds of songs. We need anthems and songs of solidarity. It would be less than intellectually fetching to mount an anti-ideological, ideological attack on art of one sort or another.

And it’s really not fair to limit this observation to the creative arts. Much of our political culture is plagued by a one-dimensional view of human life. Life shouldn’t be reduced to the arm wrestling of stick figures. When things are either/or, I want to camp out a while on the /, which can be thought of as a horizon where the sun (might) come up. It’s not fence-sitting; it’s a self-critical exercise in non-attachment.

While much good art is disorienting, many protest songs aim to do the opposite: orient us. The popular art that moves me the most does both. It is unsettling, not confirming. It’s consciousness challenging. It makes us think and feel differently than we did before we hear or see or read it. A good example is Bruce Springsteen’s Oscar-winning “Streets of Philadelphia.”

In his Oscar acceptance speech, Springsteen also showed us his modestly becoming approach to his art. And maybe that modesty is key. Here’s what he said. Good words to keep in mind when we come back from the dreamtime with stories of our own.

You do your best work and you hope that it pulls out the best in your audience and some piece of it spills over into the real world and into people’s everyday lives, and it takes the edge off of fear and allows us to recognize each other through our veil of differences. I always thought that was one of the things popular art was supposed to be about, along with the merchandising and all the other stuff.

Where will you be November 17?

I love cops. The most rewarding parts of my career were the years I spent in law enforcement. It pains me to see rank and file patrolmen sent in, dressed like storm troopers in the Darth Vader brigade, to bust the heads of their fellow 99%ers. It probably pains them too. I heard that the patrol officers coming off a midnight shift change were held for unexpected overtime and then told to riot gear up and report to Liberty Plaza. Was Bloomie afraid of an attack of Blue Flu if the patrol officers knew in advance what they would be sent to do? How long is the PBA (Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association) going to allow their members to be used and abused in the service of a lawless mayor? When is the PBA going to stand up for its members in the 99%?

The suddenness of the attack on Occupy Wall Street was clearly meant to demoralize and antagonize the occupiers. I guess Bloomie thought that a night of sleep deprivation and the loss of their material possessions would be so depressing that they would just slink off and go home. Wrong.

Or maybe he thought that the suddenness and savageness and pointless destruction would so enrage the occupiers that they would break their amazing self discipline and strike back in anger. Wrong.

Oh, OWS will strike back alright, just not the way the 1% (petty fools that they are) would expect. They should stop judging regular people by their own sociopathic standards. Today, November 17th, 2011, OWS is going to strike back with a celebration! Take that, you nattering nabobs of negativism over at City Hall. Yep, OWS is going to fight violence and hostility ……with laughter, music, compassion, and sharing.

It kicks off this morning at 7AM with a street theatre event, The Wall Street Carnival Block Party. They plan to overwhelm the Stock Exchange’s Opening Bell, with The People’s Bell. Instead of trading shares of stock, they’re going to trade the stories of the 99%. How cool is that? The stories traded will highlight the need for jobs, infrastructure repair, the unfairness of the current tax system, and the unfairness of austerity cuts that harm the most vulnerable among us.

The whole day will continue with the sharing of stories of the 99%. [cont'd.]