Apparently the women are part of a group of protestors called Occupy Back Wall Street:
The Occupy Wall Street protests have taken place since last weekend, when hundreds of people descended upon the Financial District. So far, the protests have been non-violent.
"We're not here to make life more difficult.
We're here to help empower you to take on the real enemy, which is the greedy corporate hedgefunders and bankers on Wall Street that are making life more difficult for everybody here," a protester named Justin told CBS.
Twitter accounts from OccupyWallStNYC have reported problems, but police have not confirmed anything.
"More than 50 ppl arrested, at least 5 women maced in the face #nypd #usdor," the group tweeted.
The group also retweeted, "Tensions reportedly escalate as videos of protestors being pinned and surrounded by police emerge on Sept 24."
"We're seeing an absolute erosion of our civil rights," 23-year-old Patrick Bruner told the New York Daily News.
Here is what David Corn, of Mother Jones, tweeted about the incident:
If Tea Partiers were pepper-sprayed by police while peacefully protesting an Obama event, what do you think the reaction would be?
Yeah, no shit! No matter how you slice it, this is fucked up.
Sarah's claws are coming out, flailing to protect her brand, she will now be going after Joe, Laura and Anon238, now dubbed as 'MeAgain':
ReplyDeleteOh, this is rich.
I've just this minute found out Sarah wants to mount a "major campaign" to discredit me. And her idea for that is to have her paid troll (the friend of Bristol's, whom Sarah doesn't even realize is sabotaging the whole thing by posting obviously ridiculous posts about how happy and strong the Palins are) to post even more.
And she wants to start a rumor that Laura Novak is only posting about Trig because she REALLY wants attention for her BOOK! I bet poor Laura spent more on licensing that photo than she has made on all her book sales put together.
We all know how Sarah could shut everyone up--it rhymes with schmerth lertificate and we ain't never gonna see Trig Palin's real one.
Sarah's next smear agenda (besides the continued paid troll posts) is to try and pay someone to say Joe tried to bully them into telling lies about her, etc. So far I don't think she's had too much interest.
Have you, Sarah?
Didn't think so.
-MeAgain
3:12 PM
i definitely want to see more about this. those women did not seem to be out of control. the macing happened very quickly.
ReplyDeleteheads should roll.
We have to start fighting back. Our financial system has been stolen by the thieves on Wall Street. They have looted our house values with shoddy lending practices, they have decimated our savings with stock market scams and they have facilitated sending our manufacturing jobs to other countries.
ReplyDeleteat 18 seconds a man with white short sleeves sprays the first woman within feet of her face. Then he walks away and speaks into his shoulder mike.......someone authorized it and it wasn't the beat cops holding the plastic fence.
ReplyDeletehopefully this is only the beginning of the unrest. I believe it's time to take it to the streets. How much greed and corruption are we supposed to take?
ReplyDeleteGryphen-Thank You !
ReplyDeleteYou are the best.
If they're going to pepper spray people, I prefer that they not discriminate based on gender. What, they're supposed to make special concessions for makeup?
ReplyDeleteThis should go viral and we should all plan to get out into the streets in the next few days.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of Kent State when peaceful students were gunned down by the National Guard while speaking out against the Vietnam War. In the week that followed, peaceful protests happened all over the nation. I remember walking back and forth in crosswalks with others. And you know what, everyone in the stopped cars were cheering us on. Enough is enough. It's time to clean out Wall Street and the To Big to Fail Banks.
That was horrifying to watch.
ReplyDeleteI'm so angry about this I can barely speak and i am sure I will not sleep well. I just wonder, will it continue until the entire middle class are indentured servants?
ReplyDeleteThe protest is entering its 2nd week, but only now gets some msm attention because of the arrests. 80 to 100 people were arrested today, in some cases for just filming the many police incidents. The group that livestreams the protest had some equipment taken away.
ReplyDeleteYou can support the protest by donating food, materials, time or money. http://nycqa.cc/
You can watch the event live here: http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
The Occupy Wall Street Folks have been protesting for a week with almost no news coverage, so I was really glad to see you post this.
ReplyDeleteOn Twitter, some possible accounts to follow for news are @SabzBrach @Jeffrae these seem to be reliable on the ground reporting - I'm sure there are many others as well.
Been watching this for days, on and off. There was NO reason to mace these women. The protesters have been going to EXTREME measures to remain peaceful and within the bounds of the law. The officers who maced these women deserve to be called "pigs." Period.
ReplyDeleteI guess when demonstrators repeatedly interrupt a Sotheby's auction in the name of protest the monied interests that get annoyed call upon their lackeys to retaliate.
The MSM has further demonstrated their deplorable status for almost completely ignoring these WORLDWIDE protests against corporate greed and avarice.
I fear another "let them eat cake" situation is just around the corner.
Those of you not on Twitter, you can still follow it on the site: https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyWallStNYC
ReplyDeleteThe coverage tonight has been amazing and shocking at #OccupyWallStreet
Life long New Yorker, liberal Dem, sorry but this protest is ridiculous--they wanted to incite something, took them days but they finally got it going. To me, that isn't the way to go. Their agenda was to get attention by causing trouble. Not what I support.
ReplyDeleteThe FUCK you are, 8:36.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly the type of protest our constitution gurantees, and these cops should be arrested for assault. I'm really pissed beyond words.
ReplyDeleteComparing these civil, peaceful protesters to the Tea Party is the victim/martyr role ripped directly from the Sarah Palin "Grifting for Dummies" Cliff notes version.
Mr Corn need a cob where the sun don't shine.
Thanks to the poster with the live stream and other links.
Agree with 8:36. I don't support this kind of half-assery either.
ReplyDeleteThe media is not covering this AT ALL! Get the word out. Here is a link to the livestream.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
I have watched this video about five times now I and I cannot see ANYTHING done by the protestors which justifies the use of mace.
ReplyDeleteFUCK YOU 8:36.
ReplyDeleteObama not going to help us like he promised. The time to hit the streets is now.
ReplyDeleteThe protesters even stopped using UMBRELLAS because the NYPD decided them to be a safety hazard. So, I saw, via live feed, protesters openly discarding umbrellas and trying to either get a poncho or find a tarp to cover themselves from the weather.
ReplyDeleteBut Anon 8:36 seems to think that the protesters are all about making trouble.
Troll.
As soon as I saw the headline on this post I thought the same thing as David Corn. I am so glad he tweeted that!
ReplyDelete@Me Again,
Thank you again for giving us the latest on Sarah. It is much appreciated!
*****
Anonymous @7:32 PM said...
hopefully this is only the beginning of the unrest. I believe it's time to take it to the streets. How much greed and corruption are we supposed to take?
*****
Yes, just how much more can we take? I am ready to do it.
Thanks Anon @8:09 & Anon @8:31 for the links.
Alicat
The protesters did nothing illegal, unless you consider marching to be illegal. The people barricaded in the video were told to move to that sidwalk, obeyed, and discovered it was a trick to arrest them. There are many witnesses and lots of live reporting on it on twitter and elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteIgnore the jerks ridiculing the protest. They are too dumb to realize that they are in the 99% that this group is standing up for.
There are other videos of inappropriate police actions - HuffPo finally acknowledged what's going on and put up some clips as well. The protest has been livestreamed, blogged, tweeted, photographed since it began. It is peaceful.
Anyone who has followed it knows that people of all ages, colors, and sizes are participating. Some people attend for only a few hours a day, others are there 24/7. The number of protesters increases a lot during the day, then thins out during the night.
I'm grateful to the participants. I know what the massive bank theft did to me, everyone I know, and my entire country. It's about time a protest is underway. I'm in a tight situation financially, but I donated what I could, including having a pizza delivered to the park.
8:36 meant what she said.
ReplyDeleteThis is outrageous. More of us should be down there protesting! (And fuk the tea party.)
ReplyDelete8:36: Can you explain how we "should go at it"? We Americans have been more than docile awaiting Wall Street justice. Should we just turn our backs on our children's futures and lay down and pee on ourselves in hopes all will be OK with our financial futures? I think the country has had enough.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, there is almost always a contingent of people who would like nothing better than to have the police over-react because that gets attention and there is no more effective to get significant attention than reporting through social media, as we have seen time and again throughout the world. That is now what is going on as we can clearly see. The protest was ineffective before now. My deduction is that yes, there were protesters there that wanted just this type of over-reaction to happen. Obviously it is just the opinion of one, but it is clearly within the bound of reason and not the ravings of the opposition. Second of all, you have no way of knowing what happened before this event or what the cops believed was going on. It doesn't make it right what they did, but in my experience these free roaming rallies or marches tend to spin out of control. I have lived through it for many years with a brother who is very peaceable and who will just be standing there doing basically nothing other than being supportive and he will get maced or arrested or kicked. Others have gotten pummeled. It is a highly risky situation for the participants and I think it should be avoided. As for how to "go at it", if you think for one second this will have an impact of Wall Street or the banks, you are delusional. They don't read the news for anything other than what they do. That I know for a fact.
ReplyDeleteAnon. @ 7:42, really, I'm trying to assume that you meant your "why discriminate based on gender" as an attempt at satire. If not, you really are a sick fuck.
ReplyDeleteFYI- mace is not the same as pepper spray.
Biting mad Wild Tortoise
Lord, this is a blog for expressing differences of opinion not a fighting ring.Can't people keep it civil?
ReplyDelete"It is a highly risky situation for the participants and I think it should be avoided. As for how to "go at it", if you think for one second this will have an impact of Wall Street or the banks, you are delusional. They don't read the news for anything other than what they do. That I know for a fact."
ReplyDeleteAvoid protests for safety's sake? No thanks. Passivity & fear don't change a thing. As for impact, we are now talking about it, aren't we?
You're correct that Wall Street won't suddenly think "Hey, maybe they're right" and change. But a growing force demanding change can create an impact. Ask the Icelanders who refused to turn over their economy to the bankers. Ask the small number of protesters who once gathered in several North African countries, saw their movement grow and eventually toppled their governments.
Anony 9:34 I think the only fact you really know is that it is always easier to stand and watch someone like your brother than get in there and take a chance yourself.
ReplyDeleteIf you have unreasonable and usurious debt then just stop paying the bastards. Credit cards are unsecured; they can hound you and serve you, but they can't take any of your property.
ReplyDeleteIf you have an underwater mortgage, you are can stop paying any unsecured debt and use that money to pay your house payment.
If you have an expensive car, let the bank take it back and pay cash for a reasonable auto.
Really, the only things in life we need credit for are our homes. The rest of it we can live without.
Lastly, you can declare bankruptcy for under $2000 and still keep your home. If you are really stressed about your debt just walk away and in 7 years the bankruptcy is off your credit report.
Tell the banks that you won't play their games. If enough people do and stop being stressed about their "credit ratings" then the banks will get the message. Why do you think there are so many commercials now stressing the importance of your "credit rating"? That's because the banks are worried that people might start not giving a shit what their credit ratings are and just stop paying 28% interest.
Anon. @ 10:10, excellent reposte.
ReplyDeleteSeconding your opinion with much thanks, W.T.
If the rightwing continues to try to disband publicly funded police forces (in favour of PRIVATIZING them, so that ONLY the very rich are protected) they may find it backfiring, as "civil servants" such as these in the video, may start refusing to do the dirty work for them.
ReplyDeleteAnd their insane ideas about how everyone should have a GUN, may also totally backfire. A lot of the really stupid people in America, think they need weapons to keep "the government" in check. Sooner or later, they'll finally clue in to how badly they've been duped by the billionaire boys club--and will be a standing army of well armed, very pissed off citizens.
I'm the person who mentioned the protests in Iceland. The international financial collapse bankrupt the country. Its government ignored the will of the people, took no action against the banks that caused the collapse, and was about to place the country in further debt to the bankers.
ReplyDelete"Geir Haarde, the Prime Minister of a Social Democratic coalition government, negotiated a two million one hundred thousand dollar loan, to which the Nordic countries added another two and a half million. But the foreign financial community pressured Iceland to impose drastic measures. The FMI and the European Union wanted to take over its debt, claiming this was the only way for the country to pay back Holland and Great Britain, who had promised to reimburse their citizens.
Protests and riots continued, eventually forcing the government to resign. Elections were brought forward to April 2009, resulting in a left-wing coalition which condemned the neoliberal economic system, but immediately gave in to its demands that Iceland pay off a total of three and a half million Euros. This required each Icelandic citizen to pay 100 Euros a month (or about $130) for fifteen years, at 5.5% interest, to pay off a debt incurred by private parties vis a vis other private parties. It was the straw that broke the reindeer’s back.
What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum...
In the March 2010 referendum, 93% voted against repayment of the debt. The IMF immediately froze its loan. But the revolution (though not televised in the United States), would not be intimidated. With the support of a furious citizenry, the government launched civil and penal investigations into those responsible for the financial crisis. Interpol put out an international arrest warrant for the ex-president of Kaupthing, Sigurdur Einarsson, as the other bankers implicated in the crash fled the country."
And that's not all the changes that have occurred, but you'll never learn about them in our media. Read about it here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/01/1001662/-Icelands-On-going-Revolution
Yes, protests can have an impact. :)
10:12 gave good advice. That would be effective.
ReplyDeleteIf Sarah Palin were in the WH we would have our first reality show filmed in the WH.
ReplyDeleteFiredoglake has been covering this all week, sometimes live blogging it. Some of the commenters here are regularly derisive toward that blog and toward the kinds of actions - like this one - that we firebaggers routinely support, such as Lt. Dan Choi, Bradley Manning, stopping the XL Keystone pipeline and other issues.
ReplyDeletePlease join us and help fight this fascist bullshit, instead of taking an attitude that we are the problem, rather than people looking for a better solution.
Thanks for posting this, Gryph.
Uniformed officers had peacefully corralled the women using orange nets when two supervisors made a beeline for the women, and at least one suddenly sprayed the women before turning and quickly walking away.
ReplyDelete-----------------
Cowardice bullshit. That police supervisor should be identified and suspended. Absolutely no reason to use pepper spray here, the girls were just standing behind the fence. Terrible abuse of power, and I'm sure the culprit is sitting with his buddies right now laughing about it.
Hit him in the wallet where it hurts Mayor Bloomberg; a suspension without pay for 30 days !
According to CBS this am, 80 people were arrested yesterday.
ReplyDeleteMace directly in the face? Good christ. Even back in my heyday of protesting the Vietnam War, that wasn't done. But it seems the cops are arresting people today for simply asking questions.
We were arrested bacl then, but the arrests were thrown out of court, time after time for those of us who practiced passive resistance.
When you peacefully demonstrate on public property, that's called free speech.
No different than when many peacable protesters were maced during the 2008 RNC in St Paul/Minneapolis during a (you guessed it) PEACE march. Though all the correct(can't use the word right anymore) permits were in place, the thug imported police broke up the march and harassed and arrested HUNDREDS of people. The most little known fact about this is that the march was supposed to end by the Guiness Book of world records taking a pic of the largest amount of people EVER standing in the shape of a peace sign--it never happened.
ReplyDeleteMany of us were arrested, our personal property NEVER returned, and many of us were never ticketed nor charged with any crime.
And an absolute media blackout on this event, too. Don't tell me the MSM isn't the corporate world's propaganda arm. Hell, most news these days reads like a corporate press release. You get fifty screaming rightwingers protesting somewhere, and the media is right there. You get a hate-spewing has-been quitter giving a speech to a few hundred people, and the media covers it like it was a speech of the century.
ReplyDeleteBut people actually protesting the biggest corporate swindle in history? Nada. It's not happening. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Well, they won't always be able to ignore the people. Not when more and more of these protests take place.
8:36 thinks a lot of you people are super sensitive to the slightest difference of opinion and prone to hyperbolic retorts. Take it easy. It is just one person's opinion.
ReplyDeleteI've not read the responses to this section, but I'm amazed that the media is not covering this as a lead subject.
ReplyDeleteThe USA is one screwed up society...I fear for all of us. Freedom of speech? There is going to be one hell of of an uprising in our immedidate future, there is no doubt.
THIS!
ReplyDeleteoccupywallstreet. NYC protests.
The NYC Policeman who sprayed those girls with pepperspay:
Anthony Bologna D0x
NYPD Deputy Inspector
Patrol Boro Manhattan South - 212-477-6181
phone: (518) 989-9051
add: 46.5 Sawyer Ave, Unit A, Staten Island, NY, US