Sep 24: Police attack Occupy Wall St, 100 arrests, 5 maced

Here is coverage of the Sep 24 police attack on the Occupy Wall St protests by DC’s WSQT Direct Action Radio:

Audio-WSQT Broadcast coverage of Sep 24 brutality from Sep 27 broadcast

If you get your news from the mainstream media, you might not have heard yet of Occupy Wall Street. In New York City, protesters descended on the area around the New York Stock Exchange on Saturday, the 17th of September and have been there ever since, just like the occupation of Tahrir Square in Egypt! Protesters have been based out of a nearby park which has been renamed Liberty Square and is being held 24 hours a day. The police have responded by closing the portion of Wall Street around the primary target, the New York Stock Exchange. Now the banksters have to pass through police checkpoints to go to work there, just like during an IMF meeting here. The difference is, this could go on for weeks, months, the schedule goes well into next year.

The first few days saw some ugly police brutality, including a cop sitting one someone’s chest while an asthma attack nearly choked him to death on Tuesday, the 20th of September.

(audio clip of that police attack)

Saturday the 24th of September, however, saw the worst police brutality against protesters in New York in years, as the NYPD tried and failed to stop the protests

At one point, as the New York Pigs were in the street marching in a line carryinfg the orange construction fence they were going to use to pen up protesters, and protesters didnb’t realize right away what was about to happen, suddenly you could hear one of the senior cops yelling “Hey guys, everybody lock someone up.”

(audio clip)

A little hard to hear, so here it is again

(REPEAT audio clip)

That was just before the New York pigs on the 24th of September stretched out orange construction netting around a bunch of women in the Occupy Wall Street protest and arrested everybody inside, any bystanders would be trapped with the protesters, just like they did during the 2004 Rebublican National Convention is which George W Bush was renominated.
Between 80 and 100 people were arrested in all for nothing more thanbeing in the area of the protest.

Next, a New York cop named Antony Bologna suddenly opened fire with pepper spray or mace, hitting at least five women in the penned up area.

(audio clip of the attack)

Anthony Bologna, you are a stinking piece of New York pigshit!

Here is Antony Bologna’s personal information, found by the hacker group Anonymous: Name, Anthony V Bologna, Phone (518) 989-9051, Lives at #5 Sawyer Ave, presumably in New York. Repeat: Name, Anthony V Bologna, Phone (518) 989-9051, Lives at #5 Sawyer Ave, presumably in New York.

****

None of this police brutality and just plain “Bologna” has been able to stop the protests. Despite the brutality you just heard, despite buckets of rain last week, police attacks trigged by using tarps to protect equipment, and over $1,000 worth of electronics this destroyed by “rain, concrete, cops,” protesters are still out there, Wall Street is STILL occupied, and the banksters still have to show ID to pass through massive police barricades to get into the Stock Exchange. The published schedule for Occupy Wall Street extends at least to March 2012, and protesters show no signs of giving up.

As long as “Liberty Square” is occupied, as long as protesters stage marches on the Wall Street perimeter, the Ney York cops have to keep up the baloney at the checkpoints and that has got to be bad for a stock trader’s psychology. Their number one worry is that Greece, Portugal, and Ireland will default on their so-called depts under pressure from protesters. Having to run the gauntlet of both protesters and police barricades just to get to the Stock Exchange has got to be a strong reminder of that probablily. It is any wonder the Stock Exchange has their worst week in three years last week?

Occupy Wall Street will go on, the banksters making billions in untaxed cash and bonues will not!

Brian Maloney of Astra-Zeneca gets another residential protest,cameraman assaulted

On the 25th of September, Brian Maloney, an executive specializing in “issues management” for Astra-Zeneca, got yet another protest in front of his ritzy downtown apartment. Animal rights activists were demanding that his company stop doing business with puppy-killing Huntingdon Life Sciences.

In front of the Latrobe, 1325 15th st, home of Brian Maloney

The woman who assaulted a cameraman

Her incoming hand about to strike the camera

Again someone came out to claim that Brian Maloney does not live there. Again, requests for proof of this claim were ignored. Not only that, they were met with force as the person making the claim attempted to either steal or destroy the video camera!

In fact, protesters have presented additional evidence that Brian Maloney does in fact live in the building. Not only does his name on the callbox ring his phone and get his voice on the answering machine, but an “angry neighbor” who confronted a 7:30 AM Saturday morning protest there turned out to fit the description of Brian Maloney himself. Going over old footage, protest organizers have concluded that that man, who confronted the first protest and came out with another person who has been see every time thereafter, was in fact Brian Maloney.

Since that protest, in turn, was held with only the legally required two hours notice, and at that hour to stay ahead of Hurricane Irene, if that man was Brian Maloney, it is virtually certain that his business there was as a resident and not just to, say, take care of a phone callbox whose apartment number is wired to a home somewhere else.

One other matter came up: An SUV bearing Virginia tag XGT-2579 made at least four passes by the protest. There is some suspicion this could be another spy from the Virginia based FBI “Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

IMF protesters at Washington Circle hotel call for Greek/Portugese debt repudiation

A little after 7PM on the 24th of September, as IMF delegates in the Washington Circle Hotel were probably settling in to stuff themselves full of foods many in DC could never afford to eat, protesters outside denounced attempts by the European banks to collect on the debts of Greece and Portugal at the expense of imposing austerity programs.

Video of the protest

The protest was held in solidarity with those fighting in Greece and Portugal against these austerity programs. These programs and a “bailout” (with many strings attached) for Greece are the top agenda items at this round of IMF and World Bank protests. Their greatest fear is that a Greek sovereign default, followed by a similar sovereign default in Portugal, could bring the whole banking system crashing down-an outcome protesters were calling far preferable to pay cuts and tax hikes for the working class.

This particular protest was organized by animal rights activists furious with the pro-development, globally-destructive agenda of the IMF and World Bank, and their masters on Wall Street. That being the case, the protests were also in solidarity with the hard-pressed activists occupying Wall Street in New York City, who have faced day after day of police attacks and even some instances of outright brutality.

At the Washington Circle Hotel, protesters were able to complete their entire protest before any police were able to show up, probably because this protest was completely unexpected! This is in sharp contrast to the police attacks on protesters outside the same hotel in Spring 2010, or the mindless brutality the NYPD has inflicted on some Occupy Wall Street protesters. If the DC Police were to do to IMF protesters the things the NYPD has been doing to Occupy Wall Street, they would pay (and have paid many times before) a serious price in retaliatory actions, lawsuits, or both!

To some extent, the IMF and World Bank could be compared to a supplier or banker for Huntingdon Life Sciences, and the banking thugs on Wall Street to Huntingdon Life Sciences itself.

IMF delegates have been subject to scattered street harassment all weekend by roving activists and bands of activists.

Anarchists stage late-night march on Supreme Court over Troy Davis execution

Late night on September 21, after Troy Davis was murdered with permission from the US Supreme Court, anarchists assembled on U st and marched from there to the US Supreme Court.

Cops at the Supreme court objected strenuously to anyone “protesting” on the steps of the building and behaved in a somewhat inconsistent though not highly aggressive manner.

The US Supreme Court can at this point be regarded as a nine-pack of crackers waiting to crumble. George W Bush, known as the “Texacutioner” at one time, managed while in office to pack the court with reactionaries, and this may have had a hand in the permission given to another group of crackers in Georgia to murder Troy Davis.

Yes, we are in town, and yes, we are watching!

DC Residents march against execution of Troy Davis

On September 16, people all over the US marched and rallied to demand that the state of Georgia abandon their attempt to execute Troy Davis. Here is DC, events began with a rally at the incredibly busy and crowded 14th st and Colombia Rd intersection before culminating in a march to St Stephens for a program of speakers

Video of the march and several speakers

The march filled first 14th st, and then a neighborhood street on the way to St Stephens. I would estimate turnout as being between 150 and 200 people.

One speaker said that if Troy Davis is on death row and Dominique Strauss-Kahn is NOT on Death Row, that in itself is sufficient evidence that the death penalty in the US needs to be abolished.

Troy Davis is facing execution in a matter of days on charges of having killed a white Georgia cop. There is considerable evidence that he is innocent, but the state of Georgia has, like many states and the 1996 “antiterrorism and effective death penalty act” decided to put finality ahead of certainty and refuse to reopen the case to examine new evidence.We are talking about racist Georgia here, after all.

Other witnesses who recanted have since testified that they were told warrants would be issued for their arrest unless they testified against Troy.

Seven of nine “witnesses” from the original trial have recanted their testimony, and one of the remaining two is now suspected of being the actual shooter. Unlike Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Troy Davis is innocent, but since he is Black instead of white and can’t afford to buy the kind of “just-us” that people like Dominique Strauss-Kahn get, he is facing execution while the former head of the IMF walks.

Palestinians march on White House for UN statehood recognition

The UN is expected to vote in recognition of Palestine as a state as soon as Sep 20. Here in DC, Palestinians marched from the State Department to the White House demanding noninterference and NO VETO of full membership from the US.

Video of the march and a speaker from Palestine

The September 15 march was the same day as the Palestinian march on the UN’s headquarters in New York-a march that I saw promoted on websites from Palestine as long ago as late June or early July.

One chant at the march was “no justice, no peace,” there has been speculation by some other news commentators that if recognition of Palestine as a state is blocked in the UN, that could force the Abbas to step down and the entire PA to resign. After all, if they are not a government of a nation, that would leave them as enforcers of occupation, a role that they could not long survive in and might not be willing to accept anyway.

That, in turn, some say could force Isra-Hell to attempt another full-scale invasions of both the West Bank and Gaza, this time with an energized Arab world watching-and reacting. They would be attempting to replace the PA with direct Israeli government, a stepped-up occupation on steroids and in the open, with no further attempts to pretend they are not occupying Palestine. If that happens, the consequences could be anything from a third Intifada to a regional war.

Needless to say, anything that prevents the PA from being recognized as a state will bring this about, so any US Veto in the Security Council of full membership in the UN for Palestine is risking war. The PA has tried the “Peace Process” but gotten only 20 years more settlement construction. Now they are trying a bid for statehood. If that fails too, look out!

The last time I saw this sort of situation, people in Palestine had become fed up with the increasing invasion by settlers, there was a late 2000 or 2001 (I forget which) deadline-and the Second Intifada erupted shortly therafter. It was so powerful it forced Israel to abandon and forcibly remove all settlements from Gaza. The last decade has brought war and siege to Palestine, and Israel has faced rockets and bombs, all because Israel foolishly insisted on talking peace while planting more and more far-right, land-grabbing, armed settlers in the West Bank.

Shortly before all that erupted, I still remember a giant Palestinian rally in front of the White House that marched in from Freedom Plaza, complete with Jumbotron coverage of speakers and massive prayer sessions.

Now we have another deadline, another decision to be made, and another worldwide series of Palestinian marches of which this is just one.

Keep an eye on this one folks, I think we are about to see history in the making here!

Transit advocates storm GOP headquarters demanding jobs and funding

On Sep 13, as Congress was coming back into session, activists from the Transportation Equity Network and the Gamaliel Foundation stormed the Republican Party’s S Cap st headquarters.

Video: Transit advocates storm GOP headquarters, take over room set up for press conference

The activists took over a room with an outside door on South Capitol Street where a press conference was scheduled. Many of them were wearing symbolic yellow construction hard hats. The official demand of protest organizers was to pass the Obama jobs bill as a vehicle for transit funding, but several demands were presented that went far beyond that bill.

At one point, protesters went so far as to demand that taxes on the wealthy be raised all the way to the level that would produce a balanced budget! This on top of demands that transit funding be a priority in any jobs bill that eventually passes.

At one point, all the protesters turned towards the painting of former US President Eisenhower, and cited his interstate highway program as an example that should now be applied to transit instead of to more cars. At another point, chants of “more transit, less cars” filled the air.

Finally protesters delivered a giant inflatable hammer to the desk guard, asking that it be passed to House speaker Cantor. The hammer, like the hard hats, is symbolic of construction jobs fixing the deteriorating transit systems throughout the US.

The Metro system here was used as an example. The protest assembled at the Capitol Skyline Hotel at 10th and I sts SW, and had to ride both the Green and the Blue lines with a transfer at L’Enfant Plaza just to get to the Capitol South Metro station, a distance I chose to return on foot to where my bike was locked up. That would have been extremely difficult, however, for those particpants walking with canes or especially for one person in a wheelchair. Metro’s elevators were also a problem for him, causing him and several others to get separated, forcing the entire group to wait until everyone caught up.

It was said during the protest that the Metro ride took four times as long as it should have, and transit advocates are demanding that problems like this be fixed not only in DC but nationally. Surely it would be possible to tax the rich sufficiently to pay for fixing Metro’s problems and those of other transit systems. Those would be small taxes compared to the balanced-budget level also proposed during the same protest.

Nobody was arrested, even the GOP seemed to understand that any aggression against a transit advocacy group with links to the Democratic Party would turn this into a major, major news story with their name on it as an aggressor.

On the other hand, it is interesting that the GOP has become such an obstruction that advocates with the support of the Democrats find it necessary to storm the national headquarters of the Republican Party in order to be heard. I haven’t seen things get to this level between the major parties since Bush vs Gore!

Racist “NPI” Convention sparks confrontation, drawn batons at Ronald Reagan building

On September 10, many of the same white supremacists and outright Nazis involved in the American Renaissance Conference were meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building under the name of the “National Policy Institute.” Protesters showed up to disrupt their lunch,leading to a confrontation where security guards drew “asp” collapsable batons and extended them.

Video-showdown at the Ronald Reagan Building

Almost immediately after the batons were extended, a photographer extended the legs of a lightweight photo tripod that just happen to extend the same way an asp baton does. Possibly thinking protesters had asps too, security guards took one look and jumped back, closing up the doors behind them and choosing to avoid further confrontation.

Once again, Neo-Nazis have been shown that they are unwelcome in DC. These are actual, true terrorists. They don’t liberate lab animals or shut down coal mines, they beat people up in the street and kill people! There have been far too many killings blamed on Nazis, yet somehow the Ronald Reagan Building allowed these terrorists to use their space the day before the 10th anniversary of September 11th. On the other hand,maybe one protester’s sign said it best: Reagan and Nazis, perfect together!

Executives of American Petroleum Institute, Astra-Zenica get home demos

As the tar sands protests in front of the White House were ending, another group of activists deployed to the home of Luciano B. Hayden, who is in charge of government relations for the American Petroleum Institute. He lives at 1045 31st st NW in upscale Georgetown.The protesters were there to demand that API stop conducting animal experiments at Huntingdon Life Sciences.

These “experiments” have included forcing pregnant rats to breath fumes of unleaded gasoline and tests of paraffin wax and other oil products on a variety of animals. Huntigndon Life Sciences or HLS is a contract animal testing laboratory where repeated undercover investigations have caught so-called researchers doing things like punching beagle puppies in the face to stop them from resisting injections of toxic substances.

Luciano B Hayden got a noisy, bullhorn-wielding protest in front of his ritzy Georgetown home because of this. In addition, animal rights protesters decided to focus on him on Sep 3 in solidarity with the tar sands protests, given his probable role in lobbying for the Keystone XL pipeline.

On the conclusion of this protest, activists gave Bill Richardson of Abbott Fund a quick reminder that his corporate parent Abbott Labs needs to dump HLS before deploying to the downtown home of Astra-Zenica executive Brian Maloney.

Brian Maloney was the recipient of a 7:30 AM home demo exactly a week earlier as Hurricane Irene bore down on the city. This time around, a curious thing happened. A building manager come out to talk to protesters, claiming that Brian Maloney had moved out nearly a year ago and that someone else now lived in his apartment. The problem with this is that the callbox for entry to the building still lists Brian Maloney as the occupant, and still connects to his telephone as protesters have verified. The building manager said after his conversation that he would return with paperwork giving the name of the occupant who replaced Brian Maloney, but never came back out.

There has been a pattern at home demos at high rise apartments and condos, as well as at some houses, of lies being told about such things. Usually this happens around the third time around, not the first time at a home as happened the time protesters in fact had a home where a target no longer lived about a year ago.

In this case, the continuing presence of Brian Maloney’s name on the callbox shows that there is some kind of business relationship between the building and Brian Maloney. Either the building manager was lying, or the building is renting out callbox entries to their former tenants, something I have never seen before,

243 arrests and a closing rally/art show bring tar sands arrests to 1,252

A massive civil disobediance in front of the White House, a rally with speakers in lafayette Park, and an art show in which hundreds of people lined up in the shape of a pipeline before sheddign their shirts marked the close of two weeks of daily tars sands protests in front of the White House.

protesters strip off shirts after police refuse aerial art show

As speakers explained, these protests have elevated the tars sands dispute from a regional controversy to what many are calling the number one environmental issue in North America. The 1,252 total arrests make this the largest civil disobediance I have ever seen or heard of in my entire 45 year lifetime!
Video-interview with tarred and feathered protester

One protester at the closing rally went so far as to show up tarred and feathered! The final part of the rally was for hundreds and hundreds of participants to line up double-file and bent over in black shirts to resemble a pipeline, then suddenly strip off their shirts and spring up. Police refused to permit the planned aerial art show by the White House. I guess September is not the time to ask for airspace in this town!

Opposition to this tar sands mess began with Native people defending their own lands in both Canada and the US against the utter ruin tar sands mining is already bringing. Now the warnings about climate change being brought by both scientists and the growing number of things like hurricanes have shown that while Native Americans may be the first to lose their lands and lives to the tars sands, they surely will not be the last. What happens today to the Lakota and other nations upon whose lands this monstrosity will trespass will happen tomorrow to the rest of us. Just imagine what would happen if the next Hurricane Irene were to make landfall in DC as a Cat 5!

The next to last day, the Indigenous-focussed day on Sep 2, should have been enough to convince President Obama, but sadly this would not have been the case. The voices of the indigenous people, whose lands are being threatened, ought to be all anyone needs to hear to decide this issue, but for rich white (and to often other) men in power this has never been the case. As a person of color himself, Obama ought to understand this-and he has the power to unilaterally stop the Keystone XL pipeline, letting the Tea Party scream until they turn purple!