Folks arrested for refusing to get off a tarp protecting laptops from rain that was being taken down by NYPD Freedom of expression is being repressed. Chalking the sidewalk is getting arrests. Yeah, why doesn't adbusters check in with someone actually there or in contact with some one there like me, and post what is actually happening.

A different video of the arrests. http://tinyurl.com/42qx8jx

Hello adbusters and everyone .... I support you and hope this grows ... however one of my main concerns is how corporations are destroying the ENVIRONMENT (and, therefore, living creatures). Is this revolution concerned with that? If so, it should be more clear about that and get more green movements on board ... why isn't Mother Jones and others reporting on this?

A SUGGESTION:

Re: What are our objectives?

There are longer term goals that we can use this "happening" for to discuss, debate, and distill. Clearly we have a big tent for people with good hearts. But we need a (very!) short list of tangible goals that few if any middle/working class people would see as being unreasonable. We need to identify those actions which pose the least complexity to implement (and I am talking about if we were to eventually succeed in sidestepping those parties that would be gunning for us in such endeavors...). It's a simple matter of leverage: you're going to want to pick your political process reform fights, particularly the ones that SHOULD be the most straightforward to implement. It's the principle of the fulcrum applied to the political process.

This is not the first protest in Wall Street; there have been others.

But I believe this protest is the first to resonate since its objectives (particularly as voiced by "Adbusters"...) are much more focused and attainable, IF most of America has had enough.

Whereas other protests have, for example, argued for an end to all wars (and I will keep attending such rallies when I can...), this one is focused on an issue that most of America now agrees with, and thus has some chance of being eventually being realized: that is, _the political process is owned_; we need to do something about it.

We have to recognize that most all the other problems follow from this problem.

Why are we going at war?

Contracting and the Military Industrial Complex wants to rack up profits.

How do those agents attain their objectives?

They buy off political representation.

“Structural” unemployment; why does this happen?

Because people are able to buy cheaper goods from countries that have no basic human rights, where prison labor can be rounded up for $0 and kept working for years, then turned into cosmetic products upon execution when the worker has outlived their usefulness (to some of you who think that is a Soylent Green Fantasy, I welcome you to do some corroborated research...)

And how are such countries able to import their goods and compete against US, Canadian, whatever products where rights enforcement (IN SOME AREAS -but not in others -yet?) are better but more costly?

They bought off political representation to permit it to happen and make sure they can get their goods imported and resold under those who are effectively complicit in human rights violations and who are simply corporate profiteers. In this instance, the politicians and corporate resellers are effectively foreign agents, working “on the inside” to sock it all way in their early retirement accounts that are off-shore in a tax-free haven. If there were clearly identified penalties and/or tariffs for importers that would be lifted when a country remedies their rights violations (be it worker, ecological, whatever...), more goods would be bought here, less factories would be closed.

And this whole "free" trade fandango came into being because companies were abusing tariff penalties in the first place for their private enterprise's gains (because they had a niche market against which they were sometimes competing against foreign companies). So rather than "build a better mouse trap" against their foreign competitor, what did they do? You guessed it: they bought off political representation who sat at the reins of such tariff penalties. So the "free" traders in turn used that as an excuse to commence offshoring of human rights violations (should we call it manufacturing renditions?) and offshoring of profits to tax-free accounts.

Poor Health care? Why does this happen?

Because Insurance Companies, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and Corporate Health Care factories stand to make a profit off of something that someone has little choice but to spend for.
And they bought off political representation to sabotage real health care reform (single payer, etc.)

So if we can fix a political process so that it is harder to be bought (it will always be a struggle where people will still try to bribe their way to the head of the line, but at least we can get focused and start making it much harder to do...), we could at least change this country's direction back to a positive one.

So how do we stop making it harder to buy political representation?

We announce a well defined list of objectives for SIMPLY STATED political regulatory laws that many well-educated western democracies already observe in a de facto manner, but it seems we need here in the States a BRIEF but well-codified form. [And once we first make it harder to bribe politicians, education and research reform can also be a priority issue that can be revisited in a second wave...]

1) The fiscal kimono of those running for office and in office needs to be completely open. We need full accountings of all assets held (in the past, present, and future) by all elected officials. This information needs to be compiled through a cooperative multinational effort -consultation of finance authorities at the UN, Interpol, financial regulatory commissions should be courted to furnish the holdings, bank accounts, etc. of all US representatives. People in office won't like that? Retire!

2) Outlaw all "working"/soft dollar gifts from lobbyists.

3) Demand new accepted and expected benchmarks for the _prosecution_ of revolving door job favors. Just now at the SEC are two such cases that could serve as a new precedent! One was where an SEC officer ruled on damages for Madoff victims, while he held a fund that he knew he was going to be inheriting from Madoff proceeds (he said he asked for permission to not recuse himself -FROM A SUBORDINATE!!). In another, a lawyer left the SEC and jumped ship to be retained by Allen Stanford, who at the time was being investigated by the SEC.

Most of those who used to work at DOJ now are retained to defend white collar criminals; should we allow that? Or a better question might be: should we encourage it? Maybe we could introduce a rule where you cannot enter into criminal defense practice, directly or indirectly, after leaving law enforcement until, say, 10 years from your date of retirement? [That's a fer' instance; I welcome other suggestions from the floor that can still afford the protection of defendant rights...] Often people who used to work at DOJ and are now defending clients that have been criminally charged often see other staffers at the golf course and have discussions off the record; that just _can't_ go on.

4) Replace Geithner with someone who has LESS conflicts of interests, such as Volker or Krugman. _Eventually_ the positions held by Geithner and Bernanke should become more of a those held by a functionary, IF we ever were to fix the political process (which eventually has an opportunity to fix the economic process); but for the short term at least we can do that. The damage is done on the bailout; the banks and Paulson and Geithner's buddies got over, but we can eventually get over on them some day -if we don't F around and seriously fix the political process. Bernanke's position will eventually lapse -he can then go move permanently to Jackson Hole with Dick Cheney. I'm sure Mr.Geithner has a very lucrative career ahead of him, once he is gone.

5) Bring back the "Equal Time" rules; people demonstrating a sincere effort to run for office (proven with signed petitions, hours campaigning, etc.) should have the same access to media as the Fric and Frac parties. That extends to the Internet too. The owned parties drop millions on server farms at reelection time to run their banner ads, swift boat videos, etc. All parties have to account for their campaign spending, and _nobody_ running for elected office gets to significantly outspend the others. Make and enforce penalties for external parties who do it. Since the DOJ is getting good at executing website takedown notices, they should also start getting marching orders to takedown political advertising that violates principles of equal time. Might I suggest that if a party wants to spend more time on getting out their political message, they should either get the other parties they are running against to agree, or set aside a matching donation for the opposing side to also spend on publicizing their message. [That should nip the "abridgement of free speech" red herring, no?]

The corporate media outlets broadcasting on airwaves that you or I are not federally licensed for are not going to want to hear they have to give up a fraction of their air time for free (even though they used to...); that's why we have to take this issue to the 'net. They will sandbag on reporting such a request like no tomorrow.

Once you don't have to raise a zillion dollars just to get your political platform heard when you run for office, the soft-dollar bribes and revolving door jobs offered to "friends" aren't as desperately needed. And now you can spend more time making better bills and planning, as opposed to spending 70% of your time running for office.

6) We need a new legal act to proactively protect whistleblowing and the expression of non-violent views on the 'net. Various agencies have of late been using the pretense of hacker threats/national security to start shutting down the 'net -BART protest, I rest my case! Trying to claim that whistleblowers are hackers is as logically ludicrous as alleging that non-violent protesters are bank robbers.
(We KNOW where the real bank robbers are!)

Why not use this and the following weeks to codify such an eloquent new “Bill Of Rights”?
(I am open to suggestions for a more inventive name that puts a better signature on it...) I might have forgotten an important point that could also be added to the list; but I promise you, if we do not keep this list short by focusing on at least attempting to fix the political process and start throwing in everything but the kitchen sink, we will end up nowhere! The simpler you can make such a codified agenda, the better its chances of meeting with middle and working class approval and getting passed.

It's very hard to write such a contract in such a way that is short, easy to understand and in plain language -yet not easily loopholed! But I see that is what now needs to be done.

Then we campaign the bejesus out of it; and we can concisely answer the question just what are we protesting for.

Once we get a political process back in place that is no longer all that easy to buy, then we can start debating and working on all the other problems.

And to those who have made up their minds that the situation is hopeless and that violent action is the only solution -you may very well be proven right, but please just go and join an organization with such an agenda; maybe you will have better luck than they did with the French Revolution (hey, I guess it eventually got sorted out, but wasn't that quite the killing fields, if you also tack on all those who got killed in the consequent Napoleonic wars?) Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but that is not the agenda of most of those sleeping in the rain in Zuccotti Park.

And to those at home watching on YouTube -enjoy the view!
Even if you can't leave your job to come from afar to rally,

surely you can make SOME donation in resources that would not likely be prone to misuse:

collapsible nylon chairs

luggage carts with nylon cords (NOT luggage...)

compact folding rain awnings from a camping supply place, that can be thrown up and taken down for the police on a moment's notice (and put back up again...)

buy a tab at local food establishments (you can mail us the proof-of-purchase)

“sani-wipes”/prepackaged hand-towelettes

paper towels (the recycled kind, thank you very much!)
packaged camping food
strong coffee, dammit!!
(of course: fair trade...)

The best would be to look up the local camping supply places in Manhattan, and get us a tab there (call+Email them; phone a donation in with your credit card...)

Pool your donation with others, to greater simplify our receiving it...