Sometimes a revolution bursts into existence in the proverbial blink of an eye, often the result of a cataclysmic event or a dramatic incident.
This ain't one of those revolutions.
The Occupy Wall Street movement began just over a week ago. The concept being that a diverse crowd gather together in a nearby park and peacefully protest the way our government is in bed with Wall Street concerns. The ideo is for these protests to last for several months. The economic forces that have led to this protest have been building for years.
Some heavy-handed police involvement led to the arrests of roughly 80 of the peaceful protesters over the weekend. It also led to an unprovoked pepper spray assault on some peaceful individuals who were being detained. The video is both horrifying and infuriating:
I was just asked to accompany someone down to NYC tomorrow to shoot some video at the protest site. The idea was tempting, but I had already committed to doing a day's work on a film being shot up in the Litchfield area.
...where there's very little chance of me getting pepper sprayed.
(Well, unless the Assistant Director turns out to be a real dick!)
Anyway, here's a link to a website that has more info and videos from the protests, and they also explain in much better detail than I can about what actually is the purpose of this protest. Visit OccupyWallSt.org to read more. And use the #OccupyWallSt hashtag to follow developments on Twitter.
This isn't one of those instant revolutions. It took a long time for the country to get into the mess we're in, and the protest needs to keep gaining momentum before we'll see any significant change for the better.
3 comments:
Well, at least the NYT has published the name of the cop that did the pepper spraying. But the ranks seem to have closed around him. For now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/nyregion/wall-street-demonstrations-test-police-trained-for-bigger-threats.html?_r=1&hp
The video seemed to show a rather pissed off cop who was in the line of fire behind the women possibly having taken a bit of the spray himself. I would think he might want to speak to that officer himself!
Nothing at all on TV about this, as if it never existed...
But I did find some photos on the internets, unless they turn out to be some old shots from the summer of 2004 (RNC convention):
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/violent-pictures-from-occupy-wall-street-protests?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=buzzfeed
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