Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

[don]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

police targeting remains poor - veterans and restaurant owners . . .

Occupy Oakland: second Iraq war veteran injured after police clashes

A second Iraq war veteran has suffered serious injuries after clashes between police and Occupy movement protesters in Oakland.

Kayvan Sabehgi, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in intensive care with a lacerated spleen. He says he was beaten by police close to the Occupy Oakland camp, but despite suffering agonising pain, did not reach hospital until 18 hours later.

Sabehgi, 32, is the second Iraq war veteran to be hospitalised following involvement in Oakland protests. Another protester, Scott Olsen, suffered a fractured skull on 25 October.

On Wednesday night, police used teargas and non-lethal projectiles to drive back protesters following an attempt by the Occupy supporters to shut down the city of Oakland.

Sabehgi told the Guardian from hospital he was walking alone along 14th Street in central Oakland – away from the main area of clashes – when he was injured.

"There was a group of police in front of me," he told the Guardian from his hospital bed. "They told me to move, but I was like: 'Move to where?' There was nowhere to move.

"Then they lined up in front of me. I was talking to one of them, saying 'Why are you doing this?' when one moved forward and hit me in my arm and legs and back with his baton. Then three or four cops tackled me and arrested me."

Sabeghi, who left the army in 2007 and now part-owns a small bar-restaurant in El Cerrito, about 10 miles north of Oakland, said he was handcuffed and placed in a police van for three hours before being taken to jail. By the time he got there he was in "unbelievable pain".

He said: "My stomach was really hurting, and it got worse to the point where I couldn't stand up.

"I was on my hands and knees and crawled over the cell door to call for help."

A nurse was called and recommended Sabehgi take a suppository, but he said he "didn't want to take it".

He was allowed to "crawl" to another cell to use the toilet, but said it was clogged.

"I was vomiting and had diarrhoea," Sabehgi said. "I just lay there in pain for hours."

Sabehgi's bail was posted in the mid-afternoon, but he said he was unable to leave his cell because of the pain. The cell door was closed, and he remained on the floor until 6pm, when an ambulance was called.

He was taken to Highland hospital – the same hospital where Olsen was originally taken after being hit in the head by a projectile apparently fired by police.

Sabehgi was due to undergo surgery on Friday afternoon to repair his spleen, which would involve using a clot or patch to prevent internal bleeding.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...eteran-injured

[bart]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

police targeting remains poor - veterans and restaurant owners . . .

Occupy Oakland: second Iraq war veteran injured after police clashes



[LEFT]A second Iraq war veteran has suffered serious injuries after clashes between police and Occupy movement protesters in Oakland.

...

"Standard" tactics, personally saw them used in the '60s... trying to get the protesters riled up so they do something stupid or "illegal".

[bpr]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

Sabehgi was due to undergo surgery on Friday afternoon to repair his spleen, which would involve using a clot or patch to prevent internal bleeding.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/04/occupy-oakland-second-veteran-injured

Strangely enough a detailed report in the UK, but silence from across the bridge:

Sorry, your search for Sabehgi returned no articles from the past 30 days.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff...m=Sabehgi&st=s

And from Oakland Tribune:

A second veteran of the Iraq War was injured and in stable condition at Highland Hospital.
Kayvan Sabehgi, 32, was in fair condition as of Friday evening in the intensive care unit.
The Guardian is reporting that he told them he was beaten by police during a clash with law enforcement following the strike. But his claims have not been verified by authorities.
"The Oakland Police Department is conducting an investigation regarding Kayvan Sabehgi and the circumstances of his arrest on Nov. 3, 2011." Police ask anyone with information to call 510-238-3821.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/occupy-...idebayarea.com

[don]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

The Bay Area;s OWM may be shifting to another gear. Just sighted over the horizon is Wall Street's Super Fleet, bearing down on SF . . . .

Artist's conception of new super-yacht marinas for the 1% to watch the race

America's Cup planners should make concessions now

They know how to win a regatta. Soon, we'll learn if organizers of the 2013 America's Cup also know how to keep legitimate concerns from becoming full-scale controversies.

If they don't, a huge project with a rare degree of support in San Francisco could find itself the target of sniping by second-guessers from all sides. The event organizers also could find themselves scrambling for permits as the clock ticks down in a time frame that leaves no room for error.That's why it makes sense to make a few concessions early - such as Cup officials clearly stating that they will not seek to build marinas along the downtown waterfront after the conclusion of the summer-long sailing spectacle.

They also should make a prompt effort to work with recreational water users to ensure that access to the bay won't be hindered during the months of preparation leading up to the regatta.

"The more quickly organizers take some of the issues off the table, the easier they make it for everybody," says Supervisor David Chiu, who serves on the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. "We support the America's Cup, but we also want to make sure that access to the water is improved for everyone as a result of the event."

The revised plans make room for some yachts along Pier 14 while mooring others along Pier 9 or near Pier 36, preserving Rincon Park's memorable vistas.

Permanent marinas

What hasn't changed is the wording of the host agreement signed in December by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom and the America's Cup Event Authority. This gives the authority the right to negotiate to build permanent marinas in the two open basins between the Ferry Building and AT&T Park. The right would be triggered if the authority needs to dredge either basin - a certainty, given that the competing teams in the Cup will be based at Pier 32 and in the basin between Piers 32 and 36.

The commission voted unanimously to schedule a Jan. 5 hearing on the request by the city to alter the waterfront plan so that the open basins can temporarily include docks and vessels during the Cup. Every commissioner who spoke, though, stressed his or her opposition to permanent marinas.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1cqByWtw7

It isn't difficult to imagine tens of thousands demonstrating on the embarcadero someday.

[don]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

Over 10,000 demonstrators marched on the streets of Nice on the first of November, to denounce the illegitimacy of G20 and the injustice of economic policies that it advocates. Indignant Spaniards and others, Wall Street occupiers, Greek and Senegalese rebels, Tunisian and Egyptian revolutionaries, Latin American, Italian, English, German, and French alterglobalization activists -- all were there. Engaged in their own battles, they were united during the demonstration and a summit of peoples -- witnesses to as well as participants in a veritable global eruption of people.

. . . the fact that more than 10,000 people assembled in Nice is "a true success given all the difficulties that we faced in a department that is a stronghold of the far right." Held after the announcement of a Greek referendum on the European Union's austerity plan, this festive demonstration, without any clash, testifies to an irrepressible demand for real local, national, and global democracy. Hiding behind thousands of police officers, gendarmes, and soldiers, as if in a citadel under siege, the representatives of G20 have no right to decide the future of the world while disregarding those affected the most: people and the planet.

Maxime Combes

http://alter-echos.org/les-peuples-a...nt-illegitime/

[reggie]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

The Bay Area;s OWM may be shifting to another gear. Just sighted over the horizon is Wall Street's Super Fleet, bearing down on SF . . . .

Artist's conception of new super-yacht marinas for the 1% to watch the race

America's Cup planners should make concessions now

They know how to win a regatta. Soon, we'll learn if organizers of the 2013 America's Cup also know how to keep legitimate concerns from becoming full-scale controversies.

If they don't, a huge project with a rare degree of support in San Francisco could find itself the target of sniping by second-guessers from all sides. The event organizers also could find themselves scrambling for permits as the clock ticks down in a time frame that leaves no room for error.That's why it makes sense to make a few concessions early - such as Cup officials clearly stating that they will not seek to build marinas along the downtown waterfront after the conclusion of the summer-long sailing spectacle.

They also should make a prompt effort to work with recreational water users to ensure that access to the bay won't be hindered during the months of preparation leading up to the regatta.

"The more quickly organizers take some of the issues off the table, the easier they make it for everybody," says Supervisor David Chiu, who serves on the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. "We support the America's Cup, but we also want to make sure that access to the water is improved for everyone as a result of the event."

The revised plans make room for some yachts along Pier 14 while mooring others along Pier 9 or near Pier 36, preserving Rincon Park's memorable vistas.

Permanent marinas

What hasn't changed is the wording of the host agreement signed in December by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom and the America's Cup Event Authority. This gives the authority the right to negotiate to build permanent marinas in the two open basins between the Ferry Building and AT&T Park. The right would be triggered if the authority needs to dredge either basin - a certainty, given that the competing teams in the Cup will be based at Pier 32 and in the basin between Piers 32 and 36.

The commission voted unanimously to schedule a Jan. 5 hearing on the request by the city to alter the waterfront plan so that the open basins can temporarily include docks and vessels during the Cup. Every commissioner who spoke, though, stressed his or her opposition to permanent marinas.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1cqByWtw7

It isn't difficult to imagine tens of thousands demonstrating on the embarcadero someday.

Some of the existing piers between the Ferry Building & ATT park have been condemned and are now sitting vacant. Chiu should negotiate the redevelopment of those piers with America's Cup money. It would be a shame to throw out what could be beneficial development plans because of these "protests".

[Kadriana]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

So this man wouldn't have even received medical attention if someone hadn't posted bail for him when they did? That's a bit scary.

[jk]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

arab spring, greek riots, #ows: think 1848.

from a reader's review of a book on 1848, posted at amazon:


Despite pre-1848 social unrest and revolutionary tremors, 1848 was a phenomenon in itself where a population explosion coupled with food shortages impelled the peasantry and working class to merge spontaneously with a liberal middle class, whose agenda was directed at a broadening of the constitution and male suffrage, and freedom of the press and opinion within a congenial atmosphere for reform. This drag net of unrest cut across many social groups where the working class were just one segment. Interestingly, Karl Marx appeared intransigent even then, attempting to radicalise this surge by insisting on a class war of workers against the status quo and almost ignoring or holding in contempt the diversity of the groups involved. This endemic lack of flexibility in Marx and others would soon become general, ultimately, along with an inherent fear of anarchy, undermining the initial homogeneity of the revolution, setting radicals and republicans against liberals and moderates, while the peasantry would split off and join the landed conservatives with their new found emancipation. Finally, with attitudes hardening as national aspirations rose, the reactionary regimes, sensing the divide between radicals and moderates (compounded in central and eastern Europe by ethnic divisions), drove the wedge home with the military arm still under their control.

[bart]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

The military can be a wild card too:

"We had been told, on leaving our native soil, that we were going to defend the sacred rights conferred on us by so many of our citizens [and to aid] populations in need of our assistance and our civilization." For such a cause, he and his comrades had willingly offered to "shed our quota of blood, to sacrifice our youth and our hopes."

"Make haste to reassure us that you at home support and love us as we obey and love you, for if we find that you have sent us to leave our bleached bones in these desert sands for nothing, beware the fury of the legions."
-- Marcus Flavius, a Roman centurion of the 4th Century

[GRG55]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

The military can be a wild card too:

If you don't want to stand behind your troops...try standing in front of them ;-)

[bart]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

If you don't want to stand behind your troops...try standing in front of them ;-)

That's my favorite thing about iTulip - so many have crawled or slithered or leapt out of their cages...

[don]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

Attention must be paid to such a person.
Death of a Salesman

WAS that the ghost of Willy Loman I spotted in Zuccotti Park the other day, swapping grievances with the spirits of Joe Hill and Woody Guthrie? Probably not. Willy, the title character of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” went to his grave paying lip service to — and perhaps even still half-believing in — the American dream. Anyway, being part of a public protest would have embarrassed a guy who put his trust in the conquering power of a smile and a shoeshine and who wanted, above all, to be well liked.

But it was hard not to hear the voice of Willy’s widow, Linda, among the motley sign carriers in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, as they sounded their disparate watchwords. You remember Linda. She’s the one who said of her husband, who seemed to have turned invisible to himself after he lost his job, “Attention must be paid to such a person.” And whatever you say about the lack of formal demands and strategies within the viral movement known as Occupy Wall Street, you can’t deny that its participants are unified by one overriding desire: They want attention paid to them.

When “Death of a Salesman” returns to Broadway next year, in a new production starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Willy Loman may emerge as even more a man of our time than he seemed to be of his when the play first opened in 1949. And if the current state of New York theater is any indication, he’ll have lots of company on other stages. Willy, after all, remains the American drama’s most poignant example of a man driven to despair when he loses his job and is made — to use a word more in fashion now than then — redundant. As Miller portrays him, Willy out of work is Willy stripped of dignity, weight and even identity.

The feelings of shame and existential unease that were expressed again and again on a recent October night at Joe’s Pub, the cabaret in the Public Theater in Manhattan, would surely have been familiar to Willy Loman. It was there that the Civilians, a documentary theater company, were trying out an early version of “Let Me Ascertain You: Occupy Wall Street,” a collage assembled from interviews conducted in the preceding weeks with people who had been spending their days (and often nights) in Zuccotti Park.

These people ranged widely in their social and economic backgrounds. Embodied by actors (often the same ones who had interviewed them), they included a former creative director from children’s television; a student at a college in Brooklyn; two card-carrying Teamsters; a self-described professional activist from San Francisco; a 64-year-old supporter of the Tea Party; and a lively variety of young people who were collectively described as “urchins,” which is probably preferable to “homeless,” which most of them were.

Yet however much they may have shrunk initially from the Civilians’ microphones and notepads, the versions of them that showed up in Joe’s Pub seemed to expand and blossom as they responded to questions. As they should have. Wasn’t the reason they had gathered in the park — they, the proud and shamed representatives of the neglected 99 percent of the American economy — to be seen, to be heard, to be noticed?

Some of these people did talk about their status as symbols of a vast majority of this country’s population. But none who spoke pretended to be selfless, by which I mean someone without a self. These were definitely individuals with lives as distinct and different as fingerprints. And here they were, on a stage in a spotlight — well not them, but actors playing them, who gave official form and maybe a glimmer of star shine to their individuality. A couple of them, by the way, when asked what they dreamed of for their futures, admitted that what they really wanted to be were celebrities.

When the dialectic of the haves and the have-nots becomes that of the seen and the unseen, it translates naturally to live theater, which is all about commanding and competing for attention. Plays in New York haven’t been noted for their sweeping social consciousness in recent years (or even decades). But in the past couple of seasons the theater has seemed to remember the inherent dramatic value within the dialogue, or lack thereof, between classes.

David Lindsay-Abaire’s excellent “Good People,” which opened on Broadway last winter for a limited run, is a love story manqué between a man (Tate Donovan) who has escaped the poverty of South Boston and his former girlfriend (Frances McDormand), who is still a prisoner of it and — like Willy Loman — suddenly out of a job. She has been aware of his existence as a successful doctor. (She’s seen his picture in the papers.) But he has managed to forget hers altogether, or pretended to, anyway. And when their lives collide, it’s only for a fractious instant before they retreat again to their separate sides of the economic divide. She is an inconvenient memory for him and likely to be erased as much and as quickly as possible.

Only a maid, imported from the urban projects, is on hand to represent the working class in the affluent Connecticut home portrayed in Adam Rapp’s “Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling,” which ended its Off Broadway run last week. But this go-for-broke satire — brazenly descended from Edward Albee’s surreal and unforgiving family-portrait plays — is clouded with a sense of revolution waiting in the wings (or the basement).

As characters at a dinner party swap chit-chat laden with status symbols and price tags, the weather, we learn, has turned apocalyptic, with a sky that seems poised to fall. And did I mention that one of the main characters is a disgraced Wall Street hotshot who has brought his clients to ruin? A young woman at the dinner table ominously chants what might be his epitaph: “All the money’s funny, and the sunny days aren’t so sunny.”

A similar weather report might be made of Terence Rattigan’s “Man and Boy,” which has been revived by the Roundabout Theater Company. This 1963 drama centers on Gregor Antonescu, a charismatic businessman of the 1930s, inspired by the notorious tycoon Ivar Kreuger and played (brilliantly) by Frank Langella. Gregor’s financial improprieties are about to cause both the collapse of his empire and, it would appear, the fortunes of many of his clients. (Perhaps it’s worth noting here that the protagonist of “Chinglish,” David Henry Hwang’s play about an American businessman in China, is a casualty of the Enron scandal.)

As Gregor tries to stave off financial ruin, Mr. Langella emphasizes the incredible shortsightedness and narcissism that accompanies his character’s genius. His only concern is winning what he sees as a great game — for its own sake and his own glory. And even his own long-estranged (and attention-starved) son, in whose shabby New York apartment Gregor seeks refuge, is merely a pawn in that game.

The personal consequences to others of his recklessness don’t exist. Oblivious and terminally self-centered, Mr. Langella’s charming, destructive Gregor might be the very model of the reckless financier as envisioned by the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Another myopic financial genius is the subject of a one-man show by Mike Daisey currently at the Public Theater. It is called “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” and yes, it is about the recently deceased founder of Apple. Mr. Daisey, a longtime fan and user of Mr. Jobs’s products, is fascinated by the intelligence — and pure force of will and tunnel vision — that it took to develop them.

But in addition to charting the rise and rise of Mr. Jobs, Mr. Daisey chronicles his own journey to a Chinese factory town where many Apple products are made. And his monologue unfolds as portraits in counterpoint of the famous Mr. Jobs and of the unknown workers who manufacture his inventions under conditions that often cripple their bodies.

Mr. Daisey interviewed these Chinese workers himself (with a translator). He was surprised to discover how much they wanted to talk to him and how delighted they were by the prospect of an artist using his voice to give an international microphone to theirs. In other words, they were pleased that, finally, attention was being paid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/th....html?_r=1&hpw

[don]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

This winter will be the Occupy Movement's Valley Forge. An uneasy quiet may settle across this land blanketed in frozen dishonesty while OWS goes to the ground. Wait until next summer when the Occupiers head for the nominating conventions. Chicago in 1968 was nothing compared to what might go down in Charlotte, NC (Democrats) (and fittingly home of BofA) and Tampa, FLA (Republicans) in 2012. These two giant, useless, political bucket shops need to be put out of business . . . .

Jim Kunstler

[Slimprofits]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

I have to disagree with this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...dnM_story.html

Millennials realize that there aren’t always clear answers to their concerns. They know that the multitude of societal problems needs to be attacked in a multiplicity of ways.
It’s that open-door policy that has let the protests grow so rapidly. By providing a blank slate on which an entire society can project its grievances, OWS has spread across the United States and into almost 100 countries in little more than a month. It is also highly inclusive. In the small confines of of Zuccotti Park, environmentalism, anti-sexism, spirituality and more are represented.

Allowing 'the movement' to be overun by everyone with a pet cause will not help it grow. Quite the opposite, this will turn normal people away that otherwise sympthasize with the economic message.



This fight isn't about freeing Leonard Peltier and it hasn't a thing to do with in the world to do with Mumia-Abu Jamal.


It needs to be about about one thing - Wall Street stranglehold on economic policies.

[bart]

Re: Occupy Movement: First Fruit - Paradigm Shift

Patience Luke... the force is with them and the rest of their ilk...