O is for Occupy

[Mark Barrett]

Right people!

The #OccupyLSX 15th Oct  is going from strength to strength.....  :-)

Community page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/occupylondon
Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=255151111189948

BUT ALSO!

A General Assembly to help organise Oct 15th will take place after the Block
the Bridge / Block the Bill Uncut Action
9/10/11 on Westminster Bridge ( see http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/ )
Exact venue TBC, but in the meantime: spread the word! Bring Pots and Pans
for a Cacerolada!And big banners for Oct 15th, to hang off the bridge!!!

And just to whet your appetite: here's one we did earlier.

O15 O is for Occupy! Financial Districts!

*Take it to the Bridge*

700 busted as Wall St. protesters clog Brooklyn Bridge
By JOSH SAUL and KATHIANNE BONIELLO

About 700 protesters were arrested after a horde of anti-Wall Street
demonstrators swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday, halting traffic for
more than three hours and clashing with cops on the famed span.

Up to 100 cars were left stranded as the loud, angry crowd covered the
crossing from end to end in an inflamed day of demonstrations against high
unemployment, bank bailouts and financial pain for the masses.

One irate driver, a Ground Zero construction worker, was livid.

“I work my ass off all day, and these goddamned hippies close down the
Brooklyn Bridge so I can’t get home?” he said. “This ain’t right!”
CROSSING THE LINE: Police arrest dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters on
the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday after the massive crowd swarmed the span and
halted traffic.
Getty Images
CROSSING THE LINE: Police arrest dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters on
the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday after the massive crowd swarmed the span and
halted traffic.
Photos: Wall Street protests continue

PHOTOS: WALL STREET PROTESTERS CLOG BROOKLYN BRIDGE

The rowdy protesters, who have repeatedly tussled with police in the two
weeks they’ve spent downtown, made their way through the rain from Zuccotti
Park to City Hall, where cops locked the park gates and diverted them
elsewhere.

The crowd bottlenecked at the entrance and then occupied the bridge, tying
up traffic as they slowly oozed across the span in a bid to get to Brooklyn
Bridge Park.

Some protesters griped that cops appeared to trick them into being arrested
by not explicitly telling them not to march onto the bridge.

“It seemed that police allowed them to go into the area and then arrested
them, so it came off pretty strange,” complained Jesse LaGreca.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said protesters were told “to stay on the
pedestrian walkway and that if they took the roadway they would be arrested.

“Some complied and took the walkway without being arrested. Others proceeded
on the Brooklyn-bound vehicular roadway. The latter were arrested.”

“People started sitting down and refusing to move,” said protester Ian
Bradley, who climbed up to the pedestrian walkway to avoid being arrested.

“People were being thrown to the ground by the cops,” he said.

Eventually, police -- including Chief of Department Joseph Esposito, the
NYPD’s highest-ranking uniformed officer -- hauled away hundreds of
protesters, who were allegedly a menace to drivers.

One officer told a protester the group was hurting the people they were
supposedly rallying for by shutting down the bridge.

“Who do you think you’re inconveniencing?” the cop asked.

“The 99 percent! The 1 percent are watching this from their penthouses.”

It was the largest mass arrest since the 2004 Republican National
Convention, when 1,200 protesters were taken into custody.

One of the arrested yesterday, Natasha Lennard, is a freelance reporter for
The New York Times, the paper said.

She later Tweeted that she was released after spending hours on a police
bus.

Most of the arrested were issued summonses and desk appearance tickets.

Cops were not able to immediately specify the charges, but said protesters
were being processed at precincts in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Some bold-faced names have shown up at the Occupy Wall Street protests in
recent days, including Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore and Russell Simmons,
but at least one got a cold reception earlier yesterday.

Embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel tried to lend his support but was chased away
by a heckler.

Rangel was giving an informal speech to the crowd when a man started
taunting him and then came toward him, witnesses said.

“Charlie was saying how they need to have more people down here to support
this. That’s why he was there,” said Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn),
who was standing nearby as the incident unfolded.

“This heckler came out of the crowd and went after him.”

As Rangel, who was unhurt, backed away from the pushy protester, the crowd
came to his rescue, swamping the heckler and chanting in response: “Everyone
has the right to speak.”

A Rangel spokeswoman denied that the congressman was chased away.

“He knows people are frustrated and hurting badly from the financial
meltdown,” spokeswoman Hannah Kim told The Post.

“He is glad that he went.”

Once the demonstrations began, the crowd bellowed together as they marched:
“Show me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like!”
Organizers of the amorphous group issued an ominous “Declaration of the
Occupation of New York City,” Thursday night.

“No true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic
power,” the group declared.

“We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people,
self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our
governments.”

Additional reporting by Joe Walker, Kevin Sheehan and Rebecca Harshbarger

Read more:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/take_it_to_the_bridge_y7J79cxIG4jLVHUILORoPO#ixzz1Ze5ipKNZ
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