The #OccupyWallStreet Graffiti Man gets rebuffed by a local and a fellow #OWS person!

The #OccupyWallStreet Graffiti Man gets rebuffed by a local and a fellow #OWS person!, a photo by thepetecom on Flickr.

It reads:

Dear Fellow Occupy Wall Streeter,

Please stop defacing & vandalizing the neighborhood. It makes the whole movement look bad. (And it makes you an asshole.)

To see what this letter is complaining about, check out my previous pics here:

thepete.com/2011/12/29/im-all-for-the-cause-but-if-you-wa...

and here:

thepete.com/2011/12/29/some-more-occupy-graffiti-from-las...

Some more #Occupy graffiti from last night at the 190th St A train station (this time it makes a good point)

Some more #Occupy graffiti from last night at the 190th St A train station (this time it makes a good point), a photo by thepetecom on Flickr.

Not a bad point, huh?

I'm all for the cause, but if you want to #OccupyWallStreet you're a bit far north, Mr. Unimaginative Graffiti Person.

I'm all for the cause, but if you want to #OccupyWallStreet you're a bit far north, Mr. Unimaginative Graffiti Person., a photo by thepetecom on Flickr.

Saw this just now on the way down to meet up with TheWife for an evening excursion in midtown. In case you're not familiar with NYC, 190th Street is near the top of Manhattan Island while Wall Street is almost at the bottom of it. Meanwhile, 1st Street is only about a fourth(ish) of the way up. So yeah, the #OWS spray-painter is a bit off.

Watch in amazement as a woman is arrested for drawing “GOOD MORNING, NYPD” on a sidewalk… in chalk.Originally found via oaksandroses:My friend Ryan’s amazing, creative, wonderful, kind little sister Rachel attended the Occupy Wall Street protests in NYC, choosing to use chalk as her method of communicating her unhappiness with the current state of affairs. She was arrested, as you can see in this video, and was never read her Miranda Rights despite being questioned. She was also ticketed for “damage to sidewalk”. All for using washable sidewalk chalk. This is getting pretty silly, guys.Anyone care to tell me how this doesn’t look a bit “police-state-esque?”She was drawing the sidewalk in chalk.All this protesting must be hitting ‘em pretty close to the mark to get ‘em all riled up like that, huh?

Humanity: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

thestealthblogger:

“Forgive me if I don’t give a fuck about hippy protesting, I go the other route of busting my ass day & night to better my life.”

—

Adam Tilzer, lead musician of the Avon Junkies

Dude, seriously?

Pardon me if I couldn’t give a fuck for your cynical, simplistic, hipster bullshit, but you can go fuck yourself. I’ve never even heard of you or your band so congratulations on all of your “ass busting”. It was really worth it. Now go fuck yourself you apathetic bastard.

Now, see what your attitude brings to the table?  Animosity.

This is why people are protesting in the first place—because of all the animosity toward them.  There needs and concerns are being ignored.  And check it out, you just continued the circle.  Congrats on being part of the problem!

I hope you never need to protest something… 

tanya77:

shortformblog:

Some might see a crass corporate attempt to latch onto a movement that fits well with the company’s branding. We see a progressive company showing its pre-corporate roots. (via Percolate)

Why don’t these companies set up a job fair at each one of the Occupy sites?

Why don’t these companies set up a job fair? Possibly because it won’t be enough. If you take a hard look at the facts, government and the major corporations/banks are only making things worse. A B&J job fair won’t turn things around.  We need major change.  That’s just my ¥2, of course.  I’m no economist.  I’ve just been following this stuff closely for years.  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know that if you keep doing the same thing over and over and it does no good, you should probably stop doing that same thing.  The USG, corps and banks aren’t stopping.  Even if jobs are created, the lax regulations, the tax havens and the outsourcing will still screw the American worker, and likely the American economy, in the end.  

Video from Yesterday: Remember the Nazi Brown Shirts? We've got NYPD White Shirts #OccupyWallStreet

From a post at Gothamist.com:

The big Occupy Wall Street march which drew thousands to lower Manhattan ended calmly, but things between the protesters and the NYPD have escalated in the past hour or so: Occupy Wall Street spokesman Patrick Bruner says, "Reports of our medics treating several pepper sprayed protesters. Mounted police officers. Barricades block Broadway and Liberty." And then there's this video of a high-ranking NYPD official (wearing a white shirt) batoning protesters who are trying to breach a barrier:

I hate to sound cliche, but this is what a police state looks like.  Now, I usually hate videos like this--they only show us the violence of the police and provide no proof that the protesters weren't violent.  However, this protest has been going on for weeks now and so far I have yet to see video of protesters being violent at all.  So, until I see some proof, I'm going to take the protesters at their word and assume that they are peaceful.  And since there's now plenty of footage of police officers abusing their power (and abusing the protesters) I'm going to assume that said-footage isn't preceded by protester violence.

After all, the cops have cameras too, now.  Where is their footage showing that police-on-protester violence was necessary?

Hit up that Gothamist post for more video clips, including one of a local Fox camera man ending up on the ground and another that captures a street cop explaining that he hoped his little night stick would see some action.  I really want to give the cops the benefit of the doubt, but they really seem to have given in to the whole "us vs. them" mentality.  It's the job of the police to protect ALL New Yorkers, not just themselves and the law.

motherjones:

cognitivedissonance:

Michelle Malkin makes the claim that Occupy Wall Street is 99% white. It hurts my irony bone for someone on Fox News to criticize a social movement for being “99% white.” It hurts real bad.

According to Malkin:

“The protesters have taken to calling themselves the ‘99 percent’ in the country, labeling the capitalists they wish to remove from power the other ‘1 percent.’ When Occupy Wall Street activists call themselves the ‘99 percent,’ it turns out they mean 99 percent non-diverse (by their own politically correct measurements). It’s as pale out there at Camp Alinsky as MSNBC’s prime-time lineup or the New York Times editorial board. Not counting the cameos by Jesse Jackson and Cornel West, that is.”

Uh-huh… love the photo choice showing a rather diverse crowd, Fox Nation. I don’t need to debunk your claim since you, um, did it yourselves.

Bravo.

h/t to Media Matters

 Oh, Malkin, you race-baiting fact-mangler, you.

Just turn OFF the GOD DAMN TV, ALREADY.

leftish:

The Revolution will not be Televised.

JOIN OCCUPYTOGETHER.ORG

Yeah, this is a pretty sad state, where it takes hours for the MSM to catch up to events that were being reported on by Twitter as they happened.  There’s no excuse for this, but there is an explanation—that all of our concerns, that the government is only out to protect and serve the rich and the corporations and that our rights as citizens trying to voice our own opinions, are true.

They arrested 700 people. 700!  That’s just here in NYC—yesterday on the Brooklyn Bridge.  I have no idea what’s happening in other cities that are doing “Occupy” style protests.  If that’s not enough, the rumor as of last night was that the cops ushered protesters onto the bridge so that they could arrest them.  Essentially, they were entrapped.  That’s illegal.  But these days, it’s no surprise when cops can get away with things that are illegal.

This is why I won’t join them.  I’m simply not brave enough to risk an arrest record or the chance I might get pepper sprayed or beaten up.  I don’t have health insurance, thanks to our lovely every-man-for-himself system we have.  However, I’ll do whatever I can to get their word out.  I hope you will too.