[Musical intro]
I'm Paul Levinson, and welcome to Light On Light Through, episode 87, Occupy Wall Street Chronicles, Part 1.
Well, it's Thanksgiving Day in America, that's November 24th 2011.
And I thought this would be a good time to share with you some of the 15 blog posts
that I've been writing about Occupy Wall Street since the end of September and up until a few days ago.
And because I expect Occupy Wall Street in the United States and all over the world to continue,
that's why I'm calling these chronicles Part One.
But to give you just a tiny bit of background: it was back in February of this year 2011 that I first made the point
that the Arab Spring was really a fulfillment of Marshall McLuhan's idea that we are living in a global village.
McLuhan made that point back in 1962 in the Gutenberg Galaxy, but back then,
it was more of a prediction, a projection, a metaphor, than a description of an actual reality.
But it seemed clear to me, in the Arab spring, that the use of mobile phones
and the various Facebook, Twitter and YouTube connections and apps
allowed people in Cairo and other places in the Middle East
to not only help organize their events out in the street,
but to send videos, YouTube videos of various things that were actually happening at these events,,
including some of the brutality of the government responses to these gatherings.
So, with that in mind, I wasn't surprised at all to see the same sort of thing begin
to happen here in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
Actualy, I was in Barcelona in May of this year and I saw, out on the Rambla, demonstrators
- they called themselves then the May 15th movement - and it was interesting to me,
because Spain is a democracy. Egypt was not, still is not as a matter of fact,
but it was much the same as the Arab Spring.
And so, I decided to take a careful look at what was happening in the Occupy Wall Street movements
here, in the United States, when they began to emerge in September.
And what I am going to read to you are a series of 15 or so blog posts.
I'll mention the date that each of the post was first made, and then I'll read the post to you.
Each post has a headline, and that, I hope, will give you an idea of some of the perspectives
that apply to Occupy Wall Street, or at least, some of my perspectives.
So we'll begin.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011.
"New York City Police disgraced themselves in brutal treatment of Wall Street protesters."
I've lived in New York City all of my life, and I've never been a big fan of our police.
As a teenager, I was roughed up by cops in their search for firecrackers.
I saw them point blank attack protesters in the Vietnam War era.
I 've heard first hand, from friends I believe, about NYPD double-standard treatment of African-Americans.
And their shooting to death of Amadou Diallo who was unarmed, and their sodomizing of Abner Louima
(two separate incidents), were beyond horrendous.
But the NYPD have reached a new low in mass, continuing violation of human beings and human rights
in their response to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
These are not isolated cases of cops gone crazy.
The tear-gassing of people behind barricades, the throwing to the ground of protesters who have no weapons and pose no threat,
is a systematic, widespread attack on human decency, the First Amendment and its guarantee of peaceful assembly,
as well as on the bodies and spirits of protesters expressing their non-violent opinion.
Police Commissioner Kelly, in New York City, justifiably takes pride in how well the NYPD have defended New Yorkers from terrorist attacks.
He should also take pride in, or at very least insist upon, the NYPD defending and protecting the rights of New Yorkers
and any one who visits our city to express his or her opinion.
Based on what has happened so far, Police Commissioner Kelly obviously does not.
Mayor Bloomberg should replace him with someone who can grasp the difference between a criminal and a peaceful protester,
between throwing a protester violently to the ground versus firmly escorting the protester off any unlawfully occupied premises.
Social media - or, what I call new new media - are empowering people not only in the Middle East, but all over the world, including here in America.
We have a right to express our critique of Wall Street and the sad pass in the economy
- the financial disaster - Wall Street moguls have brought us to.
Mayors would be wise to respect this and restrain out-of-control police, lest the voters boot them out of office in the next election.
And the Federal government would be wise to do something constructive,
and bring any police officer who violates the rights of protesters up on charges.
And mainstream news media - I'm talking to you, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC
- what is taking you so long to catch up with the sustained coverage
Keith Olbermann has been giving this spectacle of police misconduct on his Countdown show on Current TV?