Latest News From Occupy Wall St.

It is interesting having to work diligently to get news of the occupation of Wall St. in NYC, the media hub of the western world. Minimal coverage from the news outlets that routinely report on the front page if a handful of tea party demonstrators assemble. Some news outlets were there, according to this tweet from Codepink's Truth Set Free campaign coordinator Melanie: "Thank you abc 7 and wcbstv for still being with us at #occupywallstreet - only thing keeping #nypd at bay" This despite despite aggressive arrests, kettling and macing of nonviolent protesters by the NYPD yesterday.

So I'm glued to the live feed at Global Revolution, even though the audio is cutting out more than it is cutting in at this point. But it was steady last night and between that and Twitter links I was able to find videos and photographs and written accounts like this one in the Indypendent.

The crawl along the bottom of the live feed screen on my computer had this nugget this morning: "5am medical supplies and Flintstone vitamins arrive from Maine." Kudos to whichever mom or dad sent those! If you want to ship non-perishable food items (vegan and non gluten so all can eat them is the preference) here's the address to use: THE UPS STORE, 118A FULTON ST #205, NEW YORK, NY 10038. If you prefer to send funds, the request is for money orders, not checks.

That info, plus a draft from the Working Group on the Principles of Consolidation produced by successive General Assemblies, was available to me on the blog NYC General Assembly. There they will share the demands that emerge from their direct democratic process each day.

They also shared the very welcome news of support from the organizers of the upcoming Oct 6 occupation of Washington DC's Freedom Plaza, in the form of "Occupy Wall Street is elated to announce that, through the efforts of our brothers and sisters in the upcoming October 6th occupation of DC (october2011.org), we have today acquired fiscal sponsorship through the Alliance for Global Justice, a registered 501C3 non-profit (afgj.org)."

More good news from that source:

The Benefit Concert committee would like to announce that Saturday, October 8th is the target date for an all day Occupy Wall Street music festival/healing and peace fair. The goal is to broaden outreach and awareness of the movement through arts and entertainment, and provide a convergence space for artists, activists, peacemakers, healers and the spiritual community. 

Here's a rush transcript from a recorded interview I listened to this morning, that I believe is from Sat. night, and appears to be a young man that was among those arrested:

...to repeat about the arrests...84 people were kettled in...they didn't read us our rights, and they sat us in vans for 3 hours while they tried to figure out what to do with us because they didn't know...we were processed...we have a summons to go to, each of us divided up by who our arresting officers were...which by the way were not our arresting officers...by the city to pose as our arresting officers...obviously this is going to be thrown out of court....the police are not protecting us... they're trying to force us into violence by using these intimidation tactics...but it won't work...this is what we stand for: Occupy Wall St...thank you very much.
Q: How are the mosquitoes?
A: Rough.
...there were four women who were sprayed in the face with mace for no reason...some people were brutalized...there was one fellow who came in with a gash on his face...

Another young man interviewed promised that the occupiers' demands would be refined in the coming days, to move beyond "end all wars" which he admitted was rather vague but then added, "Of course we want to end all wars. Who doesn't?" and then went on to answer his own question. Only war profiteer corporations want wars -- and corporations aren't really people (no matter what the Supreme Court rules).

And from my sister in Pink Nancy K. on Twitter I picked up links to European news media covering the protests more thoroughly than the home team:  the Guardian, and Le Monde, which ran this photograph of the police action on Saturday:

More from the recorded live feed on Sat. night, a young woman speaking: "It looks like we, the people, have finally assembled here, peaceably assembled, to assert our own values." Tell it, sister.

(After I removed the embed, and then the link, of NYPD macing nonviolent female protesters, I was able to post this.)