Hong Kong Democracy Movement Heats Up

It seems like the whole world is full of governments trying to control their people and people taking to the streets in protest.  It's hard to keep track of them all.

But I spent a year in Hong Kong, just after Tiananmen, when everyone was jittery because the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong coming in 1997, looked a lot more ominous after June 4, 1989. 

A recent white paper from the Beijing government on Hong Kong sent the notice that elections the people of Hong Kong had been expecting soon, would have Beijing approved candidates only.

This has pushed democracy advocates into action.

(Reuters) - Violent clashes between Hong Kong riot police and students galvanized tens of thousands of supporters for the city's pro-democracy movement and kick-started a plan to lock down the heart of the Asian financial center early on Sunday.
Leaders and supporters of Occupy Central with Love and Peace rallied to support students who were doused with pepper spray early on Saturday after they broke through police barriers and stormed the city's government headquarters.  [For the whole article, click here.]

Part of Hong Kong is attached to mainland China.  Then there's Hong Kong Island, the heart of the business district.  Central - as in "Occupy Central" above - is where many of  the modern office buildings and the main government offices are located.  I don't have a good feeling about how this is going to end.

One of those arrested, according to the Reuters piece, is 17 year old student leader Joshua
Wong. 

Wong has already won one major victory against Beijing. In 2012, he forced the Hong Kong government to shelve plans to roll out a pro-China national education scheme in the city's schools when the then 15-year-old rallied 120,000 protesters.

 Here's a BBC article
And China Daily's take on this.
It says China's deployed 7000 police to keep order.  If there were 70,000 protesters, that would mean one cop for every 10 protesters.  Even if there were 700,000 it would still one cop for every hundred protesters.  Now do you understand why I don't feel good about this.

LAPD's Oil Free Vehicles

I've seen mounted police around Venice Beach before, but I was a little surprised to see them as I crossed Lincoln at Rose.  Lincoln's a major four lane urban street - it's Highway 101's route through parts of LA before it gets back to the coastline.  But there they were, closing in on what appeared to be a homeless man with a stuffed shopping cart (upper right.)


The LAPD website says their

The full-time Mounted Platoon was established in 1987 as a component of the elite Metropolitan Division and is currently composed of 35 full-time sworn police personnel consisting of 1 Lieutenant, 4 Sergeants and 30 Police Officers. City funds were allocated for the purchase of 40 horses to be used by the officers during the performance of their field duties. Also purchased through funds donated by the Ahmanson Foundation were a fleet of 8 trucks and trailers to transport the officers and their mounts to the various details, and a state-of-the-art police equestrian center appropriately named "The Ahmanson Equestrian Facility."  The two-acre Ahmanson Equestrian Facility consists of:

• A forty-horse barn
• Administrative offices
• Locker rooms
• Workout facility
• Covered riding arena
• Hot walker, round pen, and necessary training equipment 

"Hot" in the last item refers, not to the person walking the horse, but, according to Wikipedia, to

"hot, sweaty horses after a workout, particularly after work on a racetrack."

 In this case it refers to a mechanical walker.

But what were the cops doing in a busy traffic area?  Here are the duties for the Mounted Platoon according to the website:

General duties of the Mounted Platoon

Demonstrations - The Mounted Platoon is used regularly at the scene of demonstrations and unruly assemblies. Over the years, squad tactics have been developed to work in concert with officers on foot, enabling the Los Angeles Police Department to control large groups of protesters in a firm yet professional manner.

Crowd Management - The Mounted Platoon is deployed frequently in crowd management situations where large groups have gathered for festivals and parades. The appearance of the Mounted Platoon at these functions provides visible security and a sense of assurance.

Crime Suppression - The Mounted Platoon provides high-profile crime suppression in targeted crime areas. Mounted officers offer an increased level of visibility to both the criminal element and to the community at large. The officers are deployed throughout the City and at various hours.
Additional Mounted Platoon duties include public park enforcement, public beach enforcement during the summer months, and search and rescue of lost or missing persons in mountainous and dense terrain areas of the City of Los Angeles.

Well, since there was no demonstration, no large crowds, and it wasn't in mountainous terrain, I'm guessing it had to be crime suppression.  So, this intersection I bike through daily when visiting my mom is a targeted crime area?    Were they just patrolling the area on horseback or were they looking for something or someone in particular?

I would imagine there's a different sort of reaction when someone is approached by cops on horseback than there is when a police car pulls up.

 Trying to find out how horses affect the people police apprehend got me to some interesting findings.  KRS-One equates overseer to officer in this video - lyrics of the chorus below.


KRS-One lyrics to "Sound of Da Police"

Overseer
Overseer
Overseer
Overseer
Officer, Officer, Officer, Officer!
Yeah, officer from overseer
You need a little clarity?
Check the similarity!
The overseer rode around the plantation
The officer is off patroling all the nation
The overseer could stop you what you're doing
The officer will pull you over just when he's pursuing
The overseer had the right to get ill
And if you fought back, the overseer had the right to kill
The officer has the right to arrest
And if you fight back they put a hole in your chest!
(Woop!) They both ride horses
After 400 years, I've _got_ no choices!
The police them have a little gun
So when I'm on the streets, I walk around with a bigger one
(Woop-woop!) I hear it all day
Just so they can run the light and be upon their way


This article from The Nation's article on the use of horses at Occupy Wall Street seems to demonstrate the lyrics: 

At least a dozen officers on horseback entered the barricaded area soon after demonstrators arrived. For a time, the horses simply stood before the crowd, not doing very much. Then, a so-called “white-shirt”—a high-ranking officer on foot —suddenly removed one section of the barricade and guided a horse directly into the crowd. The mounted officer spurred his horse forward, ramming demonstrators, and the scene quickly descended into chaos. A chant of “animal cruelty” broke out, and people were clearly frightened for their safety: horses can inflict serious harm, especially in volatile, high-density situations.
Video footage of the incident shows that at least one of the horses attempted to turn and retreat, according to Barbara Lynn Sherman, a professor at North Carolina State University with expertise in equine behavior. Professor Sherman examined the footage at The Nation’s request. The animal appeared to either slip or momentarily “spook,” Sherman said, “a common response in horses, particularly when startled in response to fearful stimuli.” In fact, she added, police horses are specifically trained to avoid the “spook” reaction while on duty.
Did the NYPD abuse its horses by bringing them into the situation? Peter Singer, the Princeton philosopher and author of Animal Liberation, a landmark 1975 treatise on the rights of non-human organisms, calls it “unethical.” Reviewing the footage, he says, “At least one (horse) appears to be forced to do something—charge into the crowd—that it tries very hard to avoid.”

Bond Swaps and Occupy Oakland

Two really good talks over lunch going on now at the PATNet conference.

Journalist (and Sociology PhD) Darwin Bond-Graham talked about how during the Occupy time, they managed to politicize public finance by unraveling the complex mechanisms of bond swaps that had Oakland paying Goldman Sachs a billion dollars (sorry I wasn't taking notes, so I may be a bit off here).  He also related how a 1998 bond covered police and fire pensions - and most of the retired police were white and had moved out of Oakland - to the Sierra foothills, Hawaii, etc.  And the relationship between $1billion owed to the pension fund that had to come from the present, basically diverse Oakland population paying to cover the losses on the pension fund.  Here's an article he wrote that gives a lot more details.

And here's a link to his blog that has a lot more stories.

Now Laleh Behbehanian, a graduate sociology student at UC Berkeley is now talking about the experience of Occupy Oakland - how it was organized and run.  About some of the philosophical underpinnings - like taking back public space for the people.  How they used General Assemblies to decide on how and what to do. 

Rather than my trying to capture this I'm going to post a video I've found on Youtube featuring Laleh.

Mayor Sullivan Brings Coffee To And Chats With Sidewalk Sitter John Martin

[UPDATE 3/30/12 - Hear protesters describe the Thursday night bust.]

Sometimes you are at the right place at the right time.  As I got off the bus downtown I saw that John Martin had not been ousted by the police during the night, despite the notice posted at his 'camp' in front of City Hall.  [I just posted about this in the last post.] As I said good morning to John, he told me to wait a second and there'd be some good video.

Shortly Mayor Dan Sullivan came out of the Kaladi Brothers across the street with two cups of coffee.  He gave one to John and they chatted a few minutes about homeless policy.  John had told me beforehand that he was lobbying for a homeless camp at 3rd and Gambell.

In the video, it's hard to hear John, though the mayor is a audible.  It's hard with the traffic noise.  Although I've opposed the mayor's policies on occasion, this was not done for the cameras.  I just happened to show up after he told John he'd get him a cup of coffee.

[UPDATE Aug 3, 2018:  Some of my old videos stored at Viddler no longer work.  Sorry.][UPDATE Jan 31, 2019:  The Viddler videos seem to be working again.]




Meanwhile, the Redistricting Board meeting was postponed an hour so I had time to work on this.  But I've gotta get back there.

John Martin Back Camped In Front Of City Hall

Click to Enlarge

[I set the timer wrong for this, it was supposed to be posted earlier.  Sorry.]

After the redistricting board meeting I walked past City Hall and saw a small encampment and John Martin.  I'd videoed John at the Assembly meeting when they passed the law to prevent sitting on the sidewalk downtown because John had been camped in front of City Hall and the mayor didn't like it.

After the anti-sitting-on-the-sidewalk ordinance bill was passed, John said, they allowed him to pitch his tent on the Park Strip, but they took it away recently and now he's back at City Hall.  When I mentioned the law and asked if he could still stay here, he pointed to the notice, which expired March 25.




The video is very short since I ran out of room on my sound card.





We'll see if he's still here tomorrow.

Occupy Your Brain

Everyone is telling us what and how to think.

• "By cutting taxes, repealing regulations, balancing our budget and expanding domestic energy production America can create millions of new jobs"
• "The increase in consumer spending was widely embraced as good news, a sign that consumers might be helping to propel the economy forward."
• "This threat from within consists of Godless, Bible-bashing, self-serving groups who proclaim personal freedom to all, when they actually mean freedom only to those like themselves. Groups such as Planned Parenthood, and the National Organization of Women, who have been abortion advocates since their beginnings, resulting in the deaths of more than 1.5 million babies each year in the United States alone. Groups like the Gay and Lesbian Coalition, which tear at the very fabric of our society by claiming theirs is only an "alternate lifestyle", instead of an abberation and an abomination."
• " … the pulpit preachers of exclusion are a brand of the old fire starters of the southern landscape. They influence the young and those who need fellowship, telling them who to dislike and who to blame for their own weaknesses. They take the sponges waiting to be filled. “Exclusion of all that can hurt you” is the message. “Now,” they say, “let me tell you WHO can hurt you, and God’s plan for YOU.”
• "Illegal immigration causes an enormous drain on public funds."
• "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"
• "Environmental stresses are increasing. Even if it were possible for fossil fuels to maintain their current share of the energy mix and respond to increased demand, CO₂ emissions would then be on a pathway that could severely threaten human well-being"
• "The printed book is doomed"
  
• "Occupiers don't comprehend how the market capitalist system works."
• "The connection between marijuana use and gang activity and violence is inescapable."
• Just do it.
• "Cigaret smoking causes lung cancer."
• Brain exercise works: crossword puzzles stave off Alzheimer's
• "All growers can rely on the expertise of USDA and trust that future challenges to biotech approvals must now be based on scientific facts, not speculation."
  

  “All growers can rely on the expertise of USDA and trust that future challenges to biotech approvals must now be based on scientific facts, not speculation,” said Snively.
  

  Source: Red Green & Blue (http://s.tt/12zOy)

  “All growers can rely on the expertise of USDA and trust that future challenges to biotech approvals must now be based on scientific facts, not speculation,” said Snively.
  

  Source: Red Green & Blue (http://s.tt/12zOy)

  “All growers can rely on the expertise of USDA and trust that future challenges to biotech approvals must now be based on scientific facts, not speculation,” said Snively.
  

  Source: Red Green & Blue (http://s.tt/12zOy)
• "Fat free, cholesterol free."
• "Abstinence-centered education can – and does – work."
• "With Cenegenics, you’ll feel better, look younger and enjoy a longer, healthier life. Learn more about Cenegenics and register to receive our free Healthy Aging Kit."
• "Our experience working in rigorous and challenging conditions in the Arctic means that we are qualified to do the job right -- to explore for offshore oil and gas in Alaska in a very safe and careful way."

There are so many claims made every day that some will slip past your crap detectors and make their way into your brain.



The occupiers - whatever their message - have tapped into a general distaste for all the bullshit we live with everyday.  There is no one message.   Those who say the occupiers need to brand themselves, don't get that this is an anti-branding movement. The critics so take for granted their own brainwashing that they don't realize this is about paradigm shifting.  Each person feels the anomalies, feels that something is fundamentally wrong with how our economic system is conceived.  As we watch the hope of Obama ground up by Washington's establishment power brokers, each of us can join the Occupiers for our own reasons.

But underlying it all, it seems to me, is the need to occupy one's own brain.  To be alert to the ways our brains are manipulated - by the media, by advertising, by churches, by schools, by music, by everyone.  We need the ability to filter the bull shit out of the constant bombardment of invading messages.

We need times of peace and quiet, with no external brain assaults other than the warmth of the sun, the smell of fresh flowers and grasses and trees, the sound of running water and rustling leaves.  No words.  Time to sort through all the crap we've accumulated, to consider where it came from, to reassess its validity, and to toss out the garbage.  Then we can see the ideas that matter, that are grounded in reason and feeling and some sort of rational correspondence to the world outside our heads. 

So Occupy Your Brains.  Once others have control over your brain, they have complete power over you.  It took years for them to infiltrate.  Cleaning them out won't happen overnight.  But begin now and do a little bit each day.

And as I offer this video - which I saw at Immoral Minority - I remind you to question the video as well.  Don't simply accept it (or reject it) because it fits what you (don't) want to believe.  Or because you like the music.  Look it over, test it, put it in the quarantine section of your brain to make sure there isn't some hidden infection.  And remember to beware of those who would hijack this and other good ideas and pervert them for their own benefit.

Anchorage Passes John Martin Sidewalk Law

John Martin and Police Chief Mark Mew Chat at Break

It's rare that a government passes a law to deal with just one person.  One person.  Where's the imagination to come up with Solomon-like solutions?  It's also the easy way out - like a parent telling his kid, "Because I'm your father and I said so."  Except Dan Sullivan is not John Martin's father.

[An aside - I talked to Dan Sullivan for the first time ever today.  He was at the meeting, there was a break and I thought I'd get a picture of the Mayor.  He saw and waved.  It was out of focus so you won't see it.  But went over and introduced myself and I told him I had talked to Sam Abrams - the expert on Finnish education he'd invited up to his Education Conference last week - and that I was delighted to hear from Sam that the Mayor backed free school lunches for all students.  It was a very cordial and pleasant short conversation.  He told me Sam went out to Bethel today.  I do think that people have a lot more in common than they think and if we could break down our images of each other we could get past a lot of unnecessary bickering.  But that's another post.]

Here's a video of Martin I made during a break.  He explains why he was there.




I had to leave the Assembly meeting about 6:30 for another meeting, but I got an email at 10:30 saying the sidewalk ordinance had passed.  Bummer.  It had failed in July after the
 Anchorage Daily News  carried a story about a homeless man who'd taken up residence on the sidewalk in front of city hall. 

The idea of a new law came up, said city attorney Dennis Wheeler, because the administration wanted to remove John Martin. Martin hung out with his blanket on the City Hall sidewalk for days and nights in late June. He is now set up on the sidewalk kitty-corner from City Hall at Sixth Avenue and G Street

Martin said Tuesday that he is protesting the mayor's treatment of homeless people -- particularly, the city's decision to take and destroy some homeless people's possessions during the course of clearing out illegal camps on public property around town.

The law didn't pass in July, but it did, apparently, Tuesday.

From a Nov. 7 ADN:

The law, if passed, would make it illegal to sit or recline on a sidewalk downtown from 6 a.m. until late evening, with exceptions for things like medical emergencies or parades and demonstrations that have permits.

It would also prohibit panhandling downtown.

The revised ordinance extends the no-sitting provision later into the night on Fridays and Saturdays than the initial version -- until 2:30 a.m.-- to keep sidewalks clear for people downtown late on weekends, Sullivan said. On other nights, it would be OK to sit or recline on the sidewalks at midnight.

The idea for the law arose out of a homeless man's sit-down protest on sidewalks near City Hall. The protestor, John Martin, has been sitting or standing on a blanket either right in front of City Hall or across the street, off and on for months. He has said he's protesting the city's treatment of homeless people.

The administration wanted to remove him, but found there is no city law that forbids lying or sitting on a sidewalk, city officials have said.

It's unclear how or if new sidewalk rules would affect the more recent protest, Occupy Anchorage, in which people are demonstrating in Town Square Park across from City Hall. They've had a tent set up, a chair or two and a portable heater, along with signs.

I've sat down on the sidewalk before.  This seems like an overly broad bill.  Can't I bring a folding chair and sit discretely and watch the world go by?  I guess not any more in Anchorage.  

I really wanted a friendly but serious conversation with the Mayor about why he couldn't have come up with a more compassionate and imaginative way to resolve this.  Instead of thinking like a mediator or negotiator, he seems to have needed to show that he was boss.  He made it into a win-lose confrontation.  But who actually won.  John Martin has gotten a lot of attention and he got the mayor to spend a lot of time on an ordinance to prevent him from sitting on the sidewalk.  It didn't seem the right time, and I had to go anyway.  But it would have been nice. 

In my world, a true leader knows he's the mayor for all the people of Anchorage, not just the people who agree with him.  Putting the city hall lobby television on Fox News is like a poke in the eye to more than half the population of Anchorage.  It says to me, Hey, I'm mayor and I can do what I want.  Just as bad would be if he didn't have a clue how offensive having the city play Fox News in OUR city hall lobby.   This isn't high school where our clique tries to beat out your clique.  This is the adult world where we realize that we all are humans with human problems.  Some of us got better starts in life than others.   Some of us believe strongly in obeying all the rules, some of us believe everyone else has to obey all the rules, and others challenge those rules we don't think are fair.

But both sides have to recognize that they need each other so that neither side goes too far out toward one extreme or the other.  We need to find that kernel of humanity that we can respect in everyone, so that we can work things out instead of carrying on never-ending feuds between 'us' and 'them.'

OK, it's late and I'm starting to ramble and get preachy.  Dan, I challenge you to find a more imaginative solution to your next confrontation.   John Martin, I wish you well, and in my mind, this will always be the John Martin Sidewalk Law.

[UPDATE - I've got some follow up posts with video on this:
March 27, 2012:    John Martin Back Camped Out In Front of City Hall
March 27, 2012:    Mayor Sullivan Brings Coffee and Chats With Sidewalk Sitter John Martin  (with video)
March  30, 2012:   Police Bust Sidewalk Campers - $1000 Fine (with video)]

Occupy Anchorage and Title 21 People Lure Me To Assembly Meeting

Occupy group at Assembly Meeting

I'm still trying to finish a post from the last Assembly meeting I attended last June (on the mayor's veto, coming soon, I promise) but both the Title 21 citizens' group and Occupy Anchorage folks were both set to testify at the Assembly meeting at 4:30 today.  And though I knew I was going to be late, I came anyway.  Didn't matter.  It's 5:20 now and the Assembly just got started and they're doing housekeeping stuff.  So I had a chance to talk to some people before the meeting.  I'm waiting for one of the videos to get uploaded now.  The Loussac Library where the Assembly chambers are has wifi, but it's slow.

Jo-Ann Chung,Pamela Scott,   Assembly Member Elvi Gray-Jackson

5:27  They are honoring former Assistant Muni Prosecutor Pamela Scott and now Jo-Ann Chung who have gotten judicial appointments.  Both approved.


5:36  Now they are recognizing and celebrating Alaska native Heritage Day November 25, 2011.

I have a 6:30 meeting nearby.  Am I going to get to see anything I came to see at 4:30?

Now it's a liquor license issue on Muldoon. Now a whole slew of them.  The image has a few of the many they are approving. There's one for a Tesoro Station on Government Hill that had problems with selling to inebriates that seems like it's going to be held til later.

The video's ready now, so I'll post it. 

You can watch this live on cable or online.
Though who knows when the Occupy folks and the Title 21 folks.

Assembly member Trombley is now questioning someone about the Sullivan Arena and asking why they had a monthly loss of $750,000. The respondent says it's for the year and there is money coming in through visitor taxes and other items. Now Trombley is asking about the new figure of $39,000.

I could go on and on. Now Assembly member Starr is questioning about how someone had asked his girlfriend to marry him using the scoreboard at a hockey game, but so many lights were burned out she couldn't read her name.

I'll post this now.

UPDATE: 6:10pm - someone is now talking his 3 minutes to tell the Assembly about the dangers of power toothbrushes. His time was up but Assembly Member Gray-Jackson asked him to continue up to 3 more minutes. Dental profession has recognized harm called toothbrush abrasion. Spinning, rotating, osculating power toothbrushes.

I've been here since 5:45pm and I'm really starting to wonder how the Assembly plans its time. I understand the importance of honorary motions etc. But it seems there are some really serious meaty issues before the Assembly and they ought to address them.

This guy wants the Assembly to take action to prohibit sales of power toothbrushes so that kids don't live their lives with the pain of toothbrush abrasion.

6:15 pm Assembly is now going to take its dinner break. And I'm going to leave and miss all this for my other meeting. But I do have another video I'll put up later.

Profligate Consumers or Greedy Bankers? Which Story Will Prevail?

[Of course, you all know it doesn't have to be either-or.]

What are some of the possible stories out there about the US financial crisis as well as the European crisis?


The Establishment Stories:

1.  The banking system is the backbone of our prosperous societies.  It keeps money moving in our economy so that businesses and consumers can get the cash that keeps capitalism rolling and everyone can enjoy a much higher living standard than would otherwise be possible.  The housing crisis put that whole system into jeopardy and only through bailing out the banks could governments prevent civilization as we know it from collapsing. 

2.  Greece and Italy, among others, have been profligate in their spending and now can't pay back all the loans they took. Greece and Italy must now tighten their belts and pay back the loans they made.


Counter Stories

1.  The US  banks and the real estate industry, not to mention the American dream, all ganged up on consumers (is that how you identify yourself when someone asks you to say something about yourself?) to sell unrealistic loans to millions of Americans.  Those in the system who had any brains at all knew that many loans would never be repaid.  But they lied to the consumers and convinced them to take out the loans, because they got well compensated, and they weren't going to be the ones holding the loans when they went belly up.

2   In Confessions of an Economic Hitman  John Perkins describes his job as an expert consultant sent to developing countries to do studies of their infrastructures.  The studies were designed in advance to recommended huge construction projects that were more than the country needed, but perfect for the needs of foreign companies that wanted to extract the countries natural resources.  And these projects came with loans that the country could not afford and would put them in debt to the countries or international organizations lending the money.   Is this what happened with Greece and Italy? 

What really happens if the banks take the big hits instead of the Greek people?  Or if the hit is shared to some degree?  And what would have happened if instead of paying off the banks, the US would have given the money to the people defaulting and just let them pay their mortgages?

This piece from George Friedman at Stratfor fleshes out the Greek scenario:

Two dimensions explain this outcome. The first was national. 

1.   The common perception in the financial press is that Greece irresponsibly borrowed money to support extravagant social programs and then could not pay off the loans. 

2.  But there also is validity to the Greek point of view. From this perspective, under financial pressure, the European Union was revealed as a mechanism for Germany to surge exports into developing EU countries via the union’s free trade system. Germany also used Brussels’ regulations and managed the euro such that Greece found itself in an impossible situation. Germany then called on Athens to impose austerity on the Greek people to save irresponsible financiers who, knowing perfectly well what Greece’s economic position was, were eager to lend money to the Greeks. 

Each version of events has some truth to it, but the debate ultimately was between the European and Greek elites. It was an internal dispute, and whether for Greece’s benefit or for the European financial system’s benefit, both sides were committed to finding a solution. [I reformatted this a bit to emphasize the two perspectives]

He goes on to explain that inside Greece, the elites will do fine when Greece repays the debts, but the average folks "would lose jobs, pensions, salaries and careers. . ."


The question lots of people have is whether this was all engineered to redistribute wealth from millions of people to a few people.  And it's all intangible and complicated enough that few people can know for sure.  But as the dust settles, a lot of just every day folks are beginning to think they were scammed big time.

And if you listen to any financial news you know they say "the economy needs more consumer spending" and then the next minute they say "Americans aren't saving enough."  What's wrong with a system that requires you  to spend the money that you're also required to save?  Do I hear the word "unsustainable"?


I heard someone on the radio the other day complaining about the inconveniences the Occupiers were causing near Wall Street.  Seems to me Wall Street caused a lot of inconvenience for a lot of Americans themselves.  Just as the European financiers are causing a lot of trouble for Greeks and Italians.  (I'll leave the Spaniards out of this for now, but in case Tomás is reading this, I better mention them.)

 My sense is that Occupy hasn't begun to flex its muscles.  This is a global movement that isn't unrelated to the Arab Spring, the Tea Party, and Wikileaks.  Those folks who still write this off as a bunch of unemployed bums who just need a job and a haircut don't have a clue.

Here's a video that shows both the imagination and technical skill of people involved.  There's certainly great irony in using the Verizon building to post this message.



Thanks JL for the Stratfor reference.  Thanks to Phil for the video.

Occupy the Cold - Anchorage Protesters

I stopped by the Occupy Anchorage site today.  It was a chilly 5˚F (-15˚C) or lower.  There's an open side tent and three other tents on the edge of Town Square at the end of F Street.  I got there a bit after 4pm and there were three people and two dogs.  More folks dropped by after a bit.

I didn't have enough room on my camera disk to get more than this 28 second video.  (Sorry, I'd backed the disk up on my external hard drive, but then I couldn't access those pictures and videos on my camera to delete them.  I better read the instruction manual better.  I can delete them using the computer.)

Next Friday, Black Friday, is the day they're expecting to have trouble with the Municipality.  They'll be lighting the official city Christmas Tree on Town Square and they don't want the protestors tents there.  The said they are being left alone even though they don't have a permit ($800, they said per week).  But the Muni has a permit for next Friday.  They are playing it by ear.


They said there were 14 sites in Alaska.

Here's part of a forum post from Nov. 11 by Dub - the guy in the black hat in the picture.

My name is John Westlund. I am 21 years old. I have been working since I was 11 trying to support my family and myself. Trying to have stability. Recently I quit my job, left my still paid for apartment, and joined the occupy wall street movement 24/7 for the past few weeks. I have never felt better about what I'm doing with my life. All I wanted was stability, and I found no way to truly accomplish this while relying on money. I realized it could and should be worth nothing tomorrow. The economy everywhere is unstable because of ecological practices worldwide. Money is truly worth nothing! Until we have a perfect system. Until that day I will stay a protester, an environmentalist and a part of Occupy. We have learned enough over the past 200 years to create this system, a unified peaceful system. One of stability. One that is permanent. Sustainable. For all. No more overpopulation problems from idiotic food manipulating meant only to make the most amount of money possible.

BTW, there are heaters in the tent, but they weren't getting any electricity when I was there.