If you are as outraged by this video as I am, I ask that you share it and raise your voice to condemn the use of excessive force by the NYPD on nonviolent Wall Street protestors. I called the Mayor's office (212 788-2958) and was immediately forwarded to NYPD. After talking to a few people, I was given this email to register my complaint- dcpi@nypd.org. I hope many are calling and writing!
In spite of the police brutality, something momentous is happening on Wall Street and around our country. OccupyWallSt.org reports that "52 cities in America are occupied or organizing" in solidarity, but the media still is hardly covering it. Join FAIR's action to tell the major news networks to report on what is happening there!
It is the beginning of a massive protest movement in this country against a financial system that unfairly benefits corporations and the rich at the expense of the other 99% of us. Today is day 10 of the Wall Street occupation. The protestors have had Michael Moore, Chris Hedges, Immortal Technique and others stopping by to offer encouragement.
Chris Hedges said it all-
This is a defining moment and these, mostly young, protestors deserve our support and gratitude. Let's not forget what happened at the 2008 GOP political convention when activists were charged with "conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism." Watch the trailer from the documentary "Terrorizing Dissent." Without a means to expose and fight a corrupt, closed and grossly unequal system, we lose our democracy and a chance for a better future. Support the Wall Street occupiers and join them if you can!
Protester arrested by NYPD. Via @NYCRevMedia on Twitter.
A movement is being born, Go to occupytogether.org The people united will never be defeated!
"Tonight the state of Georgia killed and innocent man," said Ben Jealous of the NAACP. Despite 7 out of 9 eye witnesses recanting their story (5 claiming police coercion) another man telling others he did it, (the 8th eye witness) but threatening them if they told, unreliable forensic evidence, jurors saying they would never have given the death sentence if they had known all the facts and over a million signatures on petitions calling for clemency- the Georgia Dept of Pardons and Paroles denied it and Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection at 11:08 last night, September 21.
Troy told the family of the slain police officer that he was innocent, asked his family and friends to keep up the fight for justice and told his executioners, "God have mercy on your souls" and "God bless your souls."
Yesterday was a tragic and very sad day for his loved ones and for fairness and justice in our country. But as his attorney said "This case struck a chord in the world, and as a result the legacy of Troy Davis doesn't die tonight," adding that his death could lead to systematic reform of our criminal justice system, "so we will never again witness, with inevitable regret, the execution of an innocent man as we did here tonight."
A friend who couldn't sleep the night before he was to be killed, told me his words (below) helped bring her some peace. May they do that for you too and may we all continue the fight for justice.
A Message from Troy Anthony Davis
September 10, 2011
To All: I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me, she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.
As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about, and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand, I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.
I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist. So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated.
There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.
I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,
Surprised to see such a fired up protest taking place on Wall Street? There is a mainstream media blackout on this. MSM has covered Tea Parties numbering in the dozens, so you would think that thousands of Americans taking to the streets would be newsworthy. But no, they are censoring the voice of the people which shows how corrupt and worthless they are. We should boycott them and support alternative media. *Update- Yahoo admitted to blocking emails referring to "Occupy Wall Street" They have censored emails about protest in China in the past. Although they say this has been corrected (with residual delays) they should be boycotted too.
ANOTHER UPDATE- PEACEFUL PROTESTORS ARRESTED- SOME HURT
This video is hard to watch.These people are exercising their First Amendment rights! The media is ignoring this, but we shouldn't be! I hear a protest is starting in San Fransisco too. And of course there is the planned Oct 6 sustained protest in Freedom Square in DC. Their slogan, "Human needs, not corporate greed!" They too are committed to nonviolent resistance.
Thousands are mobilizing across the nation in a nonviolent, but direct way to say "Enough is enough!" We are sick of millionaire politicians protecting the richest among us, while allowing more in the middle class to lose their jobs, their homes, their pensions, their dignity and their hope.
Life is even more devastating for those in poverty, that now claims more than one out of every five American children. At the same time, some hedge fund managers make over one billion dollars a year. A billion is hard to imagine- especially as an annual salary. A salary of a billion translates to almost a half million dollars an hour! No one is worth $1 billion dollars a year. That salary and the fact that hedge fund managers pay at the same tax rate as someone who makes $10,000 is obscene.
The richest 1% have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. We have not seen such gross inequality since the 1920's. We are living in a new gilded age and the masses are suffering as they always do when the mega-rich greedily hog endless riches and power. Republicans want these inequities to be even larger. Some good democrats are reflecting the will of the people who demand a new course- shared sacrifice, jobs, quality education and health care, a preservation of the safety net and a restoration of the American Dream.
Thank goodness Obama finally is saying the rich should pay their fair share! It is ludicrous to hear the Republicans describing this as class warfare on the "job creators". Huge tax breaks for the wealthiest have been in place since 2001- how has that worked out for us in terms of new jobs?
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Warren Buffett
Obama's new found moxy may be coming a bit late, but like Michael Moore, who sounded fairly ecstatic last night on Rachel Maddow, I'll take it! And tonight the White House pretty much said the phase of "compromise by necessity" is over. Keep going!
I was encouraged seeing so many young people at the Wall Street protests. Click here for a livestream of what is happening on Wall Street now. They began the occupation Saturday, Sept 17th and they plan to stay! Check out the young man who came from California for this action.
It is also encouraging that in addition to multi-billionaire Warren Buffett, a growing number of millionaires are asking that their taxes be raised to fairer levels as a matter of patriotic duty. Add your name to the petition at Patriotic Millionaires, (you don't have to be a millionaire!) who did the video below.
"The lesson of 9/11 is that we live in a connected world. We rise or fall together. As Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” On this 10th anniversary, let us honor those we lost by recognizing our kinship with people all over the world, and affirming the values and principles that will guarantee peaceful tomorrows for everyone."
September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
The tenth anniversary of 9/11 should be a time of remembrance and mourning for all who were lost on that tragic day and I agree with the 9/11 families who are also calling for it to be a time of reflection for the terrible price we have paid for the "War on Terror". After the tragedy of 9/11, we had the world on our side. Al Qaeda was beatable using the resources and policing efforts of a world united against such horrific violence, but we squandered that opportunity by engaging in wars that have created untold suffering that continue to this day.
I hope that as we remember the dead of 9/11, we also think of the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq and the millions wounded, displaced, sickened, widowed and orphaned by these wars. I hope more make the connection between militarism and the dire condition of our present economy. I hope more reach out to help returning veterans, get the health care, jobs and services they need. I hope people will talk about the true costs of war and realize that hatred, death and destruction have never and will never make us safer. I hope they will ponder these statistics and be less gullible the next time the military/industrial/media complex tries to beat the drums for another war of aggression.
The PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act are still on the books. The later says the President can declare anyone an enemy combatant and he or she can be locked up for life with no ability to challenge the detention in the courts.
Muslim Americans have faced growing hatred and bias in our country
Our wars of aggression have been used as recruiting tools by terrorist organizations. Our economy is in shambles and campaigns of violence and torture have seriously undermined our moral standing in the world. It is time for people to wake up to the disastrous impact of war and militarism on our nation and how corporate media sells us war with fear and hatred of "the other".
"War is a Racket" by General Smedley Butler is as relevant today as when it was written in 1935!
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
He goes on to say he was a "gangster for capitalism" waging wars in Mexico to make it safe for oil interests, in the Dominican Republic for the sugar industry, in Honduras for United Fruit and that he "helped in the raping of a half dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street".
Wars destroy the very fabric of life, with women and children suffering the most, while a very few get very rich. For the sake of future generations, we have to rise up to say No More War, because as John Kennedy once said,"Either we end war, or war will end us."
Join us any Saturday from 12:30 to 1:30PM in front of the Elting Library in New Paltz to make a stand for peace with New Paltz Women in Black. We have been there every week for 10 years.
post script We also may be nearing a tipping point in discovering the truth of 9/11 itself.
Remember in 2000, the Project for a New American Century (many signatories were high level Bush administration officials) put out a report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses" that called for American hegemony, "full spectrum" dominance and "the ability to fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars". It also stated that a "catastrophic and cataclysmic event- like a new Pear Harbor" would speed their goals.
We should not forget "Operation Northwoods" which was a plan put to Kennedy by his military chiefs that called for bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans- to justify invading Cuba. Kennedy said no and was assassinated a few months later.
