To occupy Wall Street, occupy the internet first

[highplainsdem]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - In 2011 in America, what passes for a revolution is a frightening tangle of wires, power strips, routers and gas generators underneath a canopy in the center of a park.

That fire hazard of a mess is at the center, literally and figuratively, of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The protesters who have disrupted lower Manhattan since mid-September have assembled the means to blast out their message -- if they can agree on what they fighting for.

-snip-

Occupy Wall Street is movement, but it is also a Twitter hashtag, a Facebook page and a Livestream event, which means the protest does not even need a physical home. By one estimate Tuesday morning, "Occupy" events were happening in 147 cities, and much of that is the result of social media being used to recruit the young and the computer-literate.

-snip-

For sheer impact, little has topped "We are the 99 Percent," a Tumblr site on which people share their personal stories of financial pain, hand-written and held up to a camera for the world to see. The site already features more than 600 personal stories, some of them written by and featuring the sad faces of children.

-snip-

Read more: http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/10/05/idINIndia-59712720111005

---

The next paragraph of the article is about Ezra Klein's "Who are the 99 percent?" blog post in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/who-are-the-99-percent/2011/08/25/gIQAt87jKL_blog.html

Quoting Klein's blog:

These are not rants against the system. They’re not anarchist manifestos. They’re not calls for a revolution. They’re small stories of people who played by the rules, did what they were told, and now have nothing to show for it. Or, worse, they have tens of thousands in debt to show for it.

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[calimary]

2. Kick!

[unionworks]

3. And we are

...spreading the word locally everywhere.

[orbitalman]

4. Super K&R

[sce56]

5. K&R Occupy All Streets!

[UpInArms]

6. the last 'graph of the second link says it well:

The organizers of Occupy Wall Street are fighting to upend the system. But what gives their movement the potential for power and potency is the masses who just want the system to work the way they were promised it would work. It’s not that 99 percent of Americans are really struggling. It’s not that 99 percent of Americans want a revolution. It’s that 99 percent of Americans sense that the fundamental bargain of our economy -- work hard, play by the rules, get ahead -- has been broken, and they want to see it restored.

[Mosaic]

7. Class Warfare Indeed

Over the last two decades or more, Republicans have been denouncing as “class warfare” any attempt at criticizing and restraining their mean one-sided system of capitalist financial expropriation.

The moneyed class in this country has been doing class warfare on our heads and on those who came before us for more than two centuries. But when we point that out, when we use terms like class warfare, class conflict, and class struggle to describe the system of exploitation we live under—our indictments are dismissed out of hand and denounced as Marxist ideological ranting, foul and divisive.

Amanda Gilson put it perfectly in a posting on my Facebook page: “he concept of ‘class warfare’ has been hi-jacked by the wrong class (the ruling class). The wealthy have been waging war silently and inconspicuously against the middle and the poor classes for decades! Now that the middle and poor classes have begun to fight back, it is like, the rich want to try to call foul---the game was fine when they were the only ones playing it.”

http://www.zcommunications.org/class-warfare-indeed-by-michael-parenti

http://occupyblog.blogspot.com/

[ooglymoogly]

8. Kr....forever!!!

[valerief]

9. K&R

[malaise]

10. OK I'm lovin' it

Rec to the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[caseymoz]

11. K&R, but . . .

"Occupy Wall Street is movement, but it is also a Twitter hashtag, a Facebook page and a Livestream event, which means the protest does not even need a physical home."

Sorry, this is naive. If the protest is to have an effect, it must have a physical presence in cities around the country. And take a lesson from the Arab Spring, if the protest is having any effect at all, or the wealthy become scared or even peeved, the first thing they will do is cut off the Internet & cellphones and let the corporate MSM take over all communications. Already, presume that the Internet, cell phones and social media are being monitored. Don't think that isn't happening.

With US intelligence and private security firms, they have at their disposal people who literally wrote the book on putting down popular uprisings.

[occupy_wall_street]

12. THIS IS ANOTHER TEST - second post from Occupy Wall Street liaison account

From: Occupy Wall Street

The password for this account is held by OWS organizers at Liberty Square. The account will be used to post items directly to DU membership and other DU readers.

-- Most of these items will also appear on the occupywallst.org site. Cross posting will be for the convenience of DU members.

-- A few items will focus specifically to the DU members themselves. Site features at DU are marked conveniences for subsequent discussions.

-- The "private message" function at DU should be used to report editorial problems. Do not count on all of the messages replying to this account's postings to be read by OWS. Things are kind of busy down here.

-- We are in favor of having a first DU Gathering for OWS on Saturday at 11 AM on October 8, 2011. The site is the big Cube on the Broadway side of Brown Brothers Harriman, at the corner of Broadway and Liberty.

-- A speaker from OWS will greet everyone from DU. A statement of purpose and an invitation to support OWS will be presented.

Thank you.

[livetohike]

13. Welcome to DU!

:hi: and :toast:

[Remember Me]

14. Very cool You folks are helping fulfill one of my dreams --

worldwide upsurgence of The People.

Carry on.

[Zorra]

15. Hi!

Welcome to DU and thanks.
:hi:

[highplainsdem]

16. Welcome to DU! And thank you!

:yourock:

[No Elephants]

17. Reuters slanting much?