In this morning's email (from Andrea Liu):
Report on Second Day of Occupy Wall Street
i went down to the Occupy Wall Street Square Sunday night (9/18). it's coalesced since the first day into a relatively cohesive body with mechanisms to debate and decide action. they are calling it a "General Assembly." when i was there at 8:30PM they were trying to decide if they were gonna try to Occupy Wall Street this morning (Mon). people were taking turns giving speeches For or Against moving the protest to Wall Street. they were taking "stack." (i.e. at an activist meeting people get in line to give arguments for or against something).
there seemed to be 2 facilitators who were directing the discussion, they looked pretty young (college kids). then all of a sudden the police came and said that the (protest) signs all over the square had to be removed by 9:30PM, if the protesters didn't remove them the police would do it. then the debate switched to whether they should remove them or let the police do it. then they decided they would let the police do it, and film it. then some person who claimed to be a protester randomly started to remove the posters, and the protesters said he was an undercover cop, and they told him to stop. then they put back all the protest signs the removed, and sat on them.
here is the website for the process happening in the square--called New York City General Assembly:
www.nycga.net
Wall Street Bison (art project to replace the Wall Strete Bull with a Bison):
www.wallstreetbison.com
"Anonymous" (wikileaks hackers) is posting videos of Occupy Wall Street on its website:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6jdkpQjueo
"Celebrities" who have spoken in Occupy Wall Street square:
1. David Graeber, Yale anthropologist/anarchist who was fired for being too political, now teaches at Goldmsiths. parents fought in Spanish Civil War--he spoke around 7PM on Saturday:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber
2. Roseanne Barr/(Stand-up comedian/TV star)
3. Immortal Technique (rapper)
4. Lupe Fiasco (rapper)
Here are some summaries of what speeches i can remember from the General Assembly:
here is the website for the process happening in the square--called New York City General Assembly:
www.nycga.net
Wall Street Bison (art project to replace the Wall Strete Bull with a Bison):
www.wallstreetbison.com
"Anonymous" (wikileaks hackers) is posting videos of Occupy Wall Street on its website:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6jdkpQjueo
"Celebrities" who have spoken in Occupy Wall Street square:
1. David Graeber, Yale anthropologist/anarchist who was fired for being too political, now teaches at Goldmsiths. parents fought in Spanish Civil War--he spoke around 7PM on Saturday:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber
2. Roseanne Barr/(Stand-up comedian/TV star)
3. Immortal Technique (rapper)
4. Lupe Fiasco (rapper)
Here are some summaries of what speeches i can remember from the General Assembly:
(speech 1): Isn't it fitting we started the Wall Street March in front of the Musuem of the American Indian? The reason they originally called this Wall Street is because they built a wall to keep out Indians. Now we are the Indians. What is to stop us from calling ourselves Indians?
(people in audience say "white privilege")
(speech 2): Most of get people in this square are not from NY. We have to do outreach to bring more people from NY here, because it is New Yorkers who live here permanently who are going to cause change.
(conversation i had with filmmaker): There is nobody here over 25, and it is all white people. Everybody is from out of town. There are no kids from Williamsburg or Brooklyn here.
(that's all i can remember--unfortunately i didn't have video camera).
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