High-res nickturse: Masked protesters seen during a mass rally to protest against alleged vote rigging in Russia’s parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2011. Russians angered by allegedly fraudulent parliamentary elections are protesting Saturday in cities from the freezing Pacific Coast to the southwest of Russia, eight time zones away, a striking show of indignation, challenging Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s hold on power. (Pavel Golovkin)

nickturse:

Masked protesters seen during a mass rally to protest against alleged vote rigging in Russia’s parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2011. Russians angered by allegedly fraudulent parliamentary elections are protesting Saturday in cities from the freezing Pacific Coast to the southwest of Russia, eight time zones away, a striking show of indignation, challenging Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s hold on power. (Pavel Golovkin)

High-res reuters: Occupy Oakland demonstrators shield themselves from an exploding tear gas grenade during a confrontation with the police near the Oakland Museum of California in Oakland, California January 28, 2012. Police fired tear gas at hundreds of Occupy Oakland protesters who tried to take over a shuttered convention center on Saturday, arresting 19 people in the latest clash between anti-Wall Street activists and authorities in the California city. [REUTERS/Stephen Lam] Read more: Police fire tear gas at Oakland protesters, 19 arrested

reuters:

Occupy Oakland demonstrators shield themselves from an exploding tear gas grenade during a confrontation with the police near the Oakland Museum of California in Oakland, California January 28, 2012.

Police fired tear gas at hundreds of Occupy Oakland protesters who tried to take over a shuttered convention center on Saturday, arresting 19 people in the latest clash between anti-Wall Street activists and authorities in the California city. [REUTERS/Stephen Lam]

Read more: Police fire tear gas at Oakland protesters, 19 arrested

High-res markcoatney: rosiegray: OK, now that I’m home…some thoughts about what went down tonight. That shit started like a bottle of decent champagne and ended like flat ginger ale on a hungover Sunday. The rally in Foley Square? Went off without a hitch. The union speakers were concise and practiced and the whole enterprise benefited from that professionalism. The march to Zuccotti went smoothly, the rally there was frankly awe-inspiring (at least in terms of numbers).  It’s after that that things went really, really south. I’ve never seen so many cops in my life as I saw tonight. They’d been pulled from every precinct. The mood on Wall and Broadway was incredibly tense as cops didn’t let us through. It became clear that there was a choice here: either we all needed to storm the barrier and do it up ‘68 style, or meekly leave. Instead, the protesters chose a weird middle ground that worked out badly for everyone, waiting and formulating a half-assed new plan. Look, I saw cops beating people with nightsticks. I saw a cop on a scooter plow into three girls, slamming them into a parked car. I saw all that shit and I’m not defending it. But the creepy mob mentality of many of the protesters w/r/t the NYPD is nothing if not unfortunate. They know that if they antagonize the cops, the cops will respond, and that’s when the cameras start rolling. And that’s what happened tonight.  The night ended totally off message. Two or three hundred kids wandering the streets of FiDi, an arrest here and there, everyone looking exhausted. Complete 180 from the high at Foley Square at the beginning.  The take-home: they need the structure and message that the unions can provide. The minute you leave OWS to their own devices, things have the potential to go off the rails in a big way. I forget which union president said this, but one of them said at Zuccotti “you bring the brains, we bring the muscle” and I think that’s exactly right if they want to squeeze any tangible success out of this thing.  Nice work.

markcoatney:

rosiegray:

OK, now that I’m home…some thoughts about what went down tonight. That shit started like a bottle of decent champagne and ended like flat ginger ale on a hungover Sunday. The rally in Foley Square? Went off without a hitch. The union speakers were concise and practiced and the whole enterprise benefited from that professionalism. The march to Zuccotti went smoothly, the rally there was frankly awe-inspiring (at least in terms of numbers). 

It’s after that that things went really, really south. I’ve never seen so many cops in my life as I saw tonight. They’d been pulled from every precinct. The mood on Wall and Broadway was incredibly tense as cops didn’t let us through. It became clear that there was a choice here: either we all needed to storm the barrier and do it up ‘68 style, or meekly leave. Instead, the protesters chose a weird middle ground that worked out badly for everyone, waiting and formulating a half-assed new plan.

Look, I saw cops beating people with nightsticks. I saw a cop on a scooter plow into three girls, slamming them into a parked car. I saw all that shit and I’m not defending it. But the creepy mob mentality of many of the protesters w/r/t the NYPD is nothing if not unfortunate. They know that if they antagonize the cops, the cops will respond, and that’s when the cameras start rolling. And that’s what happened tonight. 

The night ended totally off message. Two or three hundred kids wandering the streets of FiDi, an arrest here and there, everyone looking exhausted. Complete 180 from the high at Foley Square at the beginning. 

The take-home: they need the structure and message that the unions can provide. The minute you leave OWS to their own devices, things have the potential to go off the rails in a big way. I forget which union president said this, but one of them said at Zuccotti “you bring the brains, we bring the muscle” and I think that’s exactly right if they want to squeeze any tangible success out of this thing. 

Nice work.

Wall Street Is Occupied - And The Mainstream Isn't Reporting It

diegueno:

This is the part of the protest that the protest organizers didn’t figure out: how to get it in the press.

It’s not effective to let this prove it’s own point to walk away from this saying “The Media Has Been a Tool of The Corporatocracy!” It’s like preaching to the choir. The media silence on the action should have been taken in to consideration as an obstacle and had a plan to over come it. That is a Big Fail.

drwh0: For those of you who haven’t touched HTML, much less SGML or XML, this is an “end tag,” so the sign means “End war!” The sign-holder is a liminal figure, spanning two communities, in this case, technical and anti-war. At The Considered Kula I have blogged about the power of liminality, of being “betwixt and between.” pantslessprogressive:  This is how a geek protests (via a3o4, nooop)

drwh0:

For those of you who haven’t touched HTML, much less SGML or XML, this is an “end tag,” so the sign means “End war!”

The sign-holder is a liminal figure, spanning two communities, in this case, technical and anti-war. At The Considered Kula I have blogged about the power of liminality, of being “betwixt and between.”

pantslessprogressive:

 This is how a geek protests (via a3o4, nooop)