Occupy Darien CT

First Day of Occupy Darien Draws Small Crowd

Comment: Now that gays are OK in the military this guy should apply!

Occupy Wall Street: Tents and sleeping bags free speech?

ACLU sues Hennepin County over Occupy Minn. rules

Excerpt:

The Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sued Hennepin County officials Monday on behalf of anti-Wall Street protesters, claiming rules including a ban on tents and electricity are violating the demonstrators' rights to free speech.

Protesters have been at the Hennepin County Government Center Plaza since Oct. 7 as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The protesters have never been allowed to have structures like tents. But last week, new rules went into effect saying they could no longer tape signs on county property or sleep on the grounds.

The lawsuit asks that rules restricting the use of chalk, electricity and tents be declared unconstitutional. The plaintiffs are also seeking an injunction to keep the rules from being enforced, and they want the county to provide electricity to the protesters.

Plaintiffs' attorney Justin Perl said the rules are troubling because they were created specifically for the protest. "They were not based on any previous ordinances," Perl said. "The Constitution does not allow the government to just make up new rules as you go along in order to target a particular group."

Are Tent Cities Free Speech? The First Amendment does not protect behavior that threatens health and safety.

Excerpt:

One lesson of Occupy Wall Street is that if local authorities permit campouts, people will camp out. This permissive approach created a false impression of the strength of the movement. The crowds dispersed once the authorities applied typical time, place and manner rules.

Occupy Wall Street is suing to bring their tents and sleeping bags back to the park, but in Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984), the Supreme Court held that the National Park Service could enforce its rules against sleeping in tents at Washington's Lafayette park and National Mall, even for a symbolic protest about homelessness. The tents in Zuccotti Park were shelter, not symbolic speech. As First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams told Reuters, it's a "real stretch to maintain that sleeping in a designated area itself is anything more than what it appears to be."

Comment: 1st article is Minneapolis related; 2nd is New York. But the free speech issue is the same

Occupy Wall Street: Bathe, Reality check on 1st Amendment, and the W

The Brain-Dead Left

Excerpts:

It is true that constitutional "speech" goes beyond the exercise of the vocal function and includes symbolic actions. Perhaps the most famous example is the burning of an American flag, which the Supreme Court in 1989 held to be "symbolic" speech. But it is not the act of burning that is protected by the First Amendment. Texas v. Johnson did not strike down fire codes, or even set out an exception to them for expressive purposes. It said the government may not penalize the specific act of burning a flag because of that act's symbolic meaning.

Similarly, if, say, the New York City Police Department allowed Tea Partiers but not Obamavillians to camp out for months at Zuccotti Park, that would be a First Amendment problem. But the law, in all its majestic equality, forbids the right, as well as the left, from sleeping in a publicly accessible park. Breaking the law may be an effective way to call attention to one's ideas, but that motive does not confer a right to do so.

...

Occupy Wall Street protesters stay at $700-a-night hotel

Excerpt:

A key Occupy Wall Street leader and another protester who leads a double life as a businessman ditched fetid tents and church basements for rooms at a luxurious hotel that promises guests can “unleash [their] inner Gordon Gekko,” The Post has learned.

The $700-per-night W Hotel Downtown last week hosted both Peter Dutro, one of a select few OWS members on the powerful finance committee, and Brad Spitzer, a California-based analyst who not only secretly took part in protests during a week-long business trip but offered shelter to protesters in his swanky platinum-card room.

OWS: "[Slackers] from the park"

Occupy Atlanta disrupts two Wells Fargo banks

Excerpt:

"Right after everybody left, one person asked, 'Are those the ***** from the park,'"

Comment: Yup! More on

Fact checking: “Whose park? Our park!”

Judge Backs Camping Ban at Protest Site

Excerpt:

The protesters, about 200 of whom have been staying in the park overnight, initially resisted with chants of “Whose park? Our park!”

What Occupy Wall Street Owes to Zoning

Excerpt:

The geographic center of the protest is Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, a one-block collection of trees and benches that is owned by an office landlord, Brookfield Office Properties Inc. Private ownership actually makes the space more accessible than public parks, many of which close at night.

As discussed in a Journal article Saturday, the city’s zoning code requires that many privately owned parks be open to the public at all times – one of the factors that made Zuccotti Park a hospitable venue for the protesters’s all-hours encampment.

Termed a “privately owned public space” — or POPS, in zoning parlance — these plazas stand at the intersection of capitalist instinct and public interest.

The zoning code puts restrictions on the scale of towers that developers are allowed to build. In an attempt to add public space in Manhattan without buying new parkland, city government allowed developers to build bigger structures if they set aside a plaza that remains open to the public.

While many of these are tucked away in the backs of buildings or in lobbies, Zuccotti Park turns out to be one of the most accessible POPS in the city. Of course, there is an irony that the space in which Occupy Wall Street has found a continued home is owned by the city’s largest landlord for financial services firms — the very industry they are protesting.

The rules governing POPS make them pretty accessible by design. At least half of the 500-plus plazas in the city must be open 24 hours, although the real-estate industry’s main lobbying group wants to change the rules so that they can close at night. Some owners have received permission to close theirs at night if they can make a convincing case that there is a security concern associated with 24-hour access.

Landlords are allowed to post rules that restrict people from some activities (such as skateboarding), and if a visitor breaks one of those rules, the landlord can ask the person to leave. At that point, a refusal to leave can be considered trespassing and the owner can ask the police to arrest the person, according to Gabriel Taussig, an attorney in the city’s Law Department.

When the protest began inside Zuccotti Park one month ago, there were few rules applied to the protesters. After people set up a camp inside the plaza, however, Brookfield posted new rules that prohibited camping, tents and “lying down on the ground,” among other rules.

Comment: More on Zuccotti Park

A great bank for our deposits ... but we hate you!

Occupy Oakland Protesters Deposit Funds At Wells Fargo After Bank Attacks

Excerpt:

A group of Oakland anti-Wall Street protesters who blame large banks for the economic downturn have decided that one of those institutions is the best place to stash their money for now.

Protesters at an Occupy Oakland meeting Monday voted to deposit a $20,000 donation into a Wells Fargo account. The move comes just days after one of Wells Fargo’s branches was vandalized during a massive downtown demonstration.

Banks Targeted In Marches, Rallies During Occupy Oakland General Strike

Excerpt:

About 200 people chanted outside a Wells Fargo Bank branch at 12th and Broadway, which did not open Wednesday because of its proximity to the Occupy demonstrators downtown. Hours after the original gathering, protesters broke out some of the bank’s windows.

The branch had graffiti scrawled on its wall. The messages read, “The 1 percent won’t back down” and “Who’s robbing who?”

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Holly Rockwood said the company was open to discussing issues with Occupy Oakland leaders in the community.

Comment: Articles have photos of broken windows at Wells Fargo and a defaced Wells Fargo sign.

Paying much .... being taught little

What's Your Kid Getting From College? Occupy Wall Street has a point about student debt—sort of.

Excerpt:

As for the "practical" majors, New York University's Richard Arum and the University of Virginia's Josipa Roksa tell us they might not be as useful as once thought. In a recent work called "Academically Adrift," these authors tracked the progress of more than 2,300 undergraduates at two dozen U.S. universities. They found that more than a third of seniors leave campus having shown no improvement in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, or written communications over four years. Worse, the majors and programs often thought most practical—education, business and communications—prove to be the least productive.

So yes, the student protesters with their iPads and iPhones may come across badly to other Americans. Yes too, even those who leave school thousands of dollars in debt will—on average—find their degrees a good investment, given the healthy lifetime earnings premium that a bachelor's degree still commands.

Still, when it comes to what our colleges and universities are charging them for their degrees, they have a point. Too many have paid much and been taught little. They've been ripped off—but not by the banks or the fat cats or any of the other stock villains so unwelcome these days in Zuccotti Park.

"If these students and grads understood the real issues with their college debt," says Ms. Neal, "they would change their focus from Occupy Wall Street to Occupy the Ivory Tower."

Comment: See The sad plight of Joe Therrien and his puppet degree

Bailouts for Me, but Not for Thee

Occupy Wall Street demonstrators advocate policies that helped create the mess they’re protesting.

Excerpt:

“We are blessed with 2 full time jobs but still pay on student loans 16 years after graduating,” wrote one. “We live paycheck to paycheck and are one car repair away from missing our mortgage payment.” Another said he wanted to become a science teacher, “but I’m shrouded in inflated student debts I didn’t foresee.” There was a 41-year-old MBA with $80,000 in student debt, a second-year college student who has racked up $20,000 in debt so far, the over-educated couple who probably won’t be buying a house or having kids because of student loans, the public school teacher who lamented that “my kids owe a quarter of a million $ in student loans.” As a fellow 99 percenter summed it up, “I did everything i was supposed to do: went to college, got good grades, participated in sports and clubs, graduated on time. 3 years later i have nothing to show for it.”

To the extent that people were merely describing the grisly details of living through what has been the first- or second-lousiest economy since the Great Depression, most of us can empathize (even those of us who made the conscious decision to never incur student debt or buy a house). There is a growing body of economic literature suggesting that higher education is experiencing a price bubble at a time when the job market for graduates is more difficult than usual—though still exponentially better than that for nongraduates. But when unhappiness over the disappointing results of freely made choices spills into policy recommendations, the putative libertarian-progressive alliance breaks down—and the logic of the Occupy Wall Street movement eats its own tail.

...

As of this writing, the Occupy Wall Street movement appears to have legs. I am generally happy to see public displays of disaffection with a governing elite that has inflicted so much bad economic policy on the rest of us, even more so when the protesters lean toward the political party that currently occupies the White House. (Many Tea Partiers I’ve talked to express personal regret that they didn’t get their start opposing George W. Bush.) But I will reserve my enthusiasm until the moment that protesters stop bashing capitalism and start confronting the incoherence of opposing bailouts for everybody but themselves.

Comment: Image above: Ouroboros the ancient symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail.

The sad plight of Joe Therrien and his puppet degree

The Audacity of Occupy Wall Street

Excerpt:

Joe Therrien, a graduate of the NYC Teaching Fellows program, was working as a full-time drama teacher at a public elementary school in New York City. Frustrated by huge class sizes, sparse resources and a disorganized bureaucracy, he set off to the University of Connecticut to get an MFA in his passion—puppetry. Three years and $35,000 in student loans later, he emerged with degree in hand, and because puppeteers aren’t exactly in high demand, he went looking for work at his old school. The intervening years had been brutal to the city’s school budgets—down about 14 percent on average since 2007. A virtual hiring freeze has been in place since 2009 in most subject areas, arts included, and spending on art supplies in elementary schools crashed by 73 percent between 2006 and 2009. So even though Joe’s old principal was excited to have him back, she just couldn’t afford to hire a new full-time teacher. Instead, he’s working at his old school as a full-time “substitute”; he writes his own curriculum, holds regular classes and does everything a normal teacher does. “But sub pay is about 50 percent of a full-time salaried position,” he says, “so I’m working for half as much as I did four years ago, before grad school, and I don’t have health insurance…. It’s the best-paying job I could find.”

Comment: Don't get a degree in your "passion". Get a degree that will open employment doors. Source of the beggar puppet is here

Squatters tired of shirkers!

Occupy Wall Street kitchen staff protesting fixing food for freeloaders

Excerpt:

The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.

Comment: I'm sick of them all!

Occupy Minneapolis has cost Hennepin County over $ 200K

Sheriff: Box of rocks, bricks found at Mpls. protest site; protesters say it was planted

Excerpt:

The Hennepin County sheriff's office says its costs of patrolling a downtown Minneapolis protest have topped $200,000 in just over two weeks.

As of Sunday, the sheriff's office says the OccupyMN protest has cost it more than $128,000 in overtime and $71,300 in regular pay since the protest began Oct. 7.

Comment: Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly doesn't mean that one can disrupt society and run up these kind of expenses!

"I Hate Stuff"

Comment: A less than coherent message. Sent to me by Dan Stahl (thanks Dan!)

Things I hate:

• That ice cream and brownies are high in calories
  
• Spiders and other creepy things
  
• That we have a President who "supports" this movement
  

Bloomberg: "The Constitution doesn’t protect tents"

Bloomberg Says ‘Tent City’ Goes Beyond Free Speech

Excerpt:

“The Constitution doesn’t protect tents,” he said at a news conference in Queens. “It protects speech and assembly.”

The mayor expressed concern that those exercising a “right to be silent” might be getting drowned out amid the din of the protests.

“We can’t have a place where only one point of view is allowed,” he said. “There are places where I think it’s appropriate to express yourself, and there are other places that are appropriate to set up Tent City. They don’t necessarily have to be one and the same.”

Comment: Zuccotti Park is private property - owned by Brookfield Office Properties

Collection of OWS videos and photos

Occupy Highlights

Excerpts:

The vision for OWS has crystallized, synthesized, and otherwise materialized. In a nutshell, the participants are angry. At everything (but especially Wall Street).

And so if flows that they should set up camp in public parks, beat drums, create mounds of stinking garbage, smoke pot in public, scream at people who make money, break the law, ridicule Jews, demand we abolish the military, and just about everything else under the sun.

Comment: "a collection of videos and photos that depict a cross section of the OWS useful idiot". Perhaps there are Zombies! Just one video (above) posted. One more ... "Pay my college tuition"

Occupy Movement = Flea Party

WINGLESS, BLOODSUCKING AND PARASITIC: MEET THE FLEA PARTY

Excerpt:

As a refresher: The Democratic National Committee called the tea partiers "angry mobs" and "rabid right-wing extremists." ABC said they were a "mob." CNN accused them of "rabble rousing." Harry Reid called them "evil mongers." Nancy Pelosi said they were "un-American." CNN's Anderson Cooper and every single host on MSNBC called the tea partiers a name that referred to an obscure gay sex act.

But apparently liberals couldn't even convince themselves that tea partiers were an extremist group unworthy of emulation.

At least they're embarrassed about what the OWS protesters really are: wingless, bloodsucking and parasitic. This is the flea party, not the tea party.

Contrary to all the blather you always hear about how lawless street protests and civil disobedience are part of the American tradition -- "what our troops are fighting for!" -- they are not. We are an orderly people with democratic channels at our disposal to change our government.

The very reason we have a constitutional republic is because of a mob uprising. Soon after the American Revolution, Shays' Rebellion so terrified and angered Americans that they demanded a federal government capable of crushing such mobs.

Comment: Caustic but a worthwhile read.

Is George Soros the money man behind Occupy Wall Steet?

Who's behind the Wall Steet protests?

Excerpt:

There has been much speculation over who is financing the disparate protest, which has spread to cities across America and lasted nearly four weeks. One name that keeps coming up is investor George Soros, who in September debuted in the top 10 list of wealthiest Americans. Conservative critics contend the movement is a Trojan horse for a secret Soros agenda.

Soros and the protesters deny any connection. But Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street. Moreover, Soros and the protesters share some ideological ground.

Comment: Also worth a read:

George Will: Calling for a Mulligan

Excerpt:

OWS' defenders correctly say it represents progressivism's spirit and intellect. Because it embraces spontaneity and deplores elitism, it eschews deliberation and leadership. Hence its agenda, beyond eliminating one of the seven deadly sins (avarice), is opaque. Its meta-theory is, however, clear: Washington is grotesquely corrupt and insufficiently powerful.

Unfortunately for OWS, big government's scandal du jour, the Obama administration's Solyndra episode of crony capitalism, does not validate progressivism's indignation, it refutes progressivism's aspiration, which is for more minute government supervision of society. Solyndra got to the government trough with the help of a former bundler of Obama campaign contributions who was an Energy Department bureaucrat helping to dispense taxpayers' money to politically favored companies. His wife's law firm represented Solyndra. But, then, government of the sort progressives demand -- supposed "experts," wiser than the market, allocating wealth and opportunity by supposedly disinterested decisions -- is not just susceptible to corruption, it (BEG ITAL)is(END ITAL) corruption. It is political favoritism with a clean (even green) conscience.

Demands posted in OWS' name include a "guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment"; a $20-an-hour minimum wage (above the $16 entry wage the United Auto Workers just negotiated with GM); ending "the fossil fuel economy"; "open borders" so "anyone can travel anywhere to work and live"; $1 trillion for infrastructure; $1 trillion for "ecological restoration" (e.g., re-establishing "the natural flow of river systems"); "free college education."

And forgiveness of "all debt on the entire planet period." Progressivism's battle cry is: "Mulligan!" It demands the ultimate entitlement -- emancipation from the ruinous results of all prior claims of entitlement.

...

Barack Obama feels their pain -- understands their "frustration." America's median income has declined even faster since the recovery began three Junes ago than it did during the recession, students are graduating into a jobless "recovery," African-Americans and Hispanics have unemployment rates of 16 and 11.3 percent, respectively, but Obama is on the case: He wants corporate jets to be taxed more. OWS must still, however, raise the consciousnesses of backsliding congressional Democrats who have decided that, unlike the president, they do not believe that "the rich" begin at household incomes of $250,000.

Tahrir Square Envy also motivates America's Progressive Autumn, the left's emulation of the Arab Spring. Of course, some lagoons of advanced thinking, such as Montgomery County, Md. -- it is a government workers' dormitory contiguous to Washington -- were progressive before OWS' drum(circle)beat became progressivism's pulse. The Montgomery County town of Takoma Park is a "nuclear-free zone," meaning it has no truck with nuclear weapons.

Responding to peace activists, some Montgomery County Council members sponsored a resolution to instruct Congress to slash defense spending. The idea died when Virginia began inviting the county's second-largest private-sector employer, Lockheed Martin, to move across the Potomac. To OWS, this proves the power of the plutocracy. To the tea party, it proves the virtue of federalism.

Image Source

Occupy San Francisco targets Wells Fargo

San Francisco protesters target Wells Fargo Bank

Excerpt:

On Wednesday, 11 demonstrators in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances to Wells Fargo Bank headquarters in the city's Financial District. They were cited, given an order to appear in court, and released. Then they immediately rejoined fellow demonstrators in front of the bank. The protest ended by 12:30 p.m., and at its height involved more than 200 people.


....

Wednesday's demonstration was organized by a number of groups including Causa Justa Just Cause, United Here Local 2850, the California Partnership, Young Workers United and the Chinese Progressive Association.

Comment: Yet another example of illegal activity

On legal and illegal assembly

Hickenlooper unsure what to do about Occupy Denver protesters at Capitol

Excerpt:

Should they stay, or should they go now?

Gov. John Hickenlooper didn't give a clear answer to that question Tuesday when asked about the growing Occupy Denver tent camp on a grassy lawn along Broadway that is part of the state Capitol complex.

Interviewed on radio station KOA- AM's Mike Rosen Show, the Democratic governor and former Denver mayor said he was concerned about the illegal encampment on state property but didn't indicate that he was prepared to order the State Patrol to clear out the park. Patrol officials said Sunday that they had no plans to remove the tents.

Hickenlooper told Rosen that he was unclear on his legal options.

Rosen asked if the state had told the tent campers they were violating the law

"We've absolutely told them that: 'You can't stay here,' " Hickenlooper said.

The governor seemed conflicted on the question of what to do about the tents, saying that he has "always supported the First Amendment" but had concerns about the camp.

"I will confess I worry about the precedent," Hickenlooper said. "If suddenly we have a park where people can camp out whenever they want, why not the next park and why not the park after that? And then suddenly, you don't have any rules."

In any case, the governor said, there weren't many tents on the lawn, saying: "I went down there this morning, and there were like eight tents, 10 tents. This is not a burgeoning metropolis of tents."

Comment: March, camp out, speak out, take out ads, have a blog, write to elected officials, put a sign out, but follow the law. The Occupy Movement seems be more of an anarchist movement. And that is not healthy!

Occupy Movement .... Not the Tea Party

Occupy L.A. Speaker: Violence will be Necessary to Achieve Our Goals



Excerpt:

So, ultimately, the bourgeoisie won’t go without violent means. Revolution! Yes, revolution that is led by the working class.

Comment: I'm all for freedom of speech and of assembly! But let's not be fooled into regarding the Occupy Movement as the left's answer to the Tea Party