New Year’s Eve: OWS Retake Wall Street as NYPD focus on Times Square

Sunday, January 1, 2012 by the Sunday Mail/UK

'Whose Year? Our Year'

Celebration: Protesters returned to the park en masse shortly before midnight in downtown Manhattan. The Occupy Wall Street movement made a surprise invasion of Zuccotti Park last night while the police focused on New Year's Eve celebrations elsewhere in New York.

Around 800 demonstators piled up metal barricades, hoisting American flags and banners while scuffles broke out between activists and police.

Shortly before midnight, 100 NYPD officers had surrounded the park in downtown Manhattan with reports of pepper spray being used.

One individual was arrested after an officer was stabbed in the hand with scissors. The policeman was taken to Bellevue Hospital and believed to be in a stable condition.

Zuccotti Park hasn't been occupied since police cleared it on November 15 in an early morning raid. The movement escalated at 8pm last night, when around 100 protesters entered the park and erected a small tent.

The New York Times reported: 'By about 10.30 pm, there were more than 300 people inside... One man carried a big white placard that read - New Years Revolution.'

Shortly before midnight, OWS protesters announced on Twitter that they had reclaimed the park and unfurled a huge hand-painted banner reading 'OCCUPY WALL STREET'.

They tweeted: 'Barricades being torn down at liberty [Zuccotti] park...Happy new years!!'

As the new year was welcomed around the city, demonstrators chanted: 'Whose year? Our year.'

On Occupy Wall Street's official website it stated: '2011 was an amazing awakening. Let's start 2012 off right! Come celebrate with thousands of other members of the 99%, at our park and in the streets, as we make our special New Years Revolution together.'

Police in riot gear entered the park at 1:30am where 150 people remained and arrested five demonstrators. Authorities closed the park until 9am this morning.

Activists had been camped out in Zuccotti Park since September 17 to protest against the unjust distribution of wealth in the U.S. and the excessive influence of big business on government.

The movement spread to other U.S. cities including Los Angeles and Portland as well as Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered the protest to be cleared in November because health and safety conditions had become 'intolerable' in the crowded plaza.

One million revellers filled Times Square to welcome in the new year last night amid tight security. More than 1,500 members of the NYPD were patrolling the massive 17-block party to ensure everyone’s safety. They also used more than 3,000 cameras and numerous check-points with bag inspections. Alcohol was banned from the event.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg is the Cliche that has Historically Helped Fuel Protests

SNL Bloomberg/Occupy Wall Street Spoof

NYC Mayor Bloomberg Threatens to Shut Down Occupy Wall Street

Bloomberg, 4th Richest Person in US Due to Wall Street, Is About to Snap the Mouse Trap Shut on Those Who Threaten His Fortune

by mark karlin on Wed, 10/05/2011


Mayor Michael Bloomberg is threatening to shut down democracy on Wall Street.

You might expect that from a man who is the fourth-wealthiest person in America, with $19.5 billion dollars in his pocket. Moreover, Bloomberg made a lot of money as a Wall Street financier, but he catapulted into the multibillionaire category by revolutionizing financial market information and selling a specialized terminal and access services to the financial industry (followed by Bloomberg media services).

In short, his fortune is directly integrated into the Wall Street status quo.

That may be why he told a New York City radio show host last week that "New Yorkers need 'to help the banks.'" The Village Voice headlined its story on the plutocratic pronouncements of Bloomberg, "Mayor Bloomberg: 'We'll See' If The City Will Let Occupy Wall Street Continue." 

Bloomberg seemed in a baronial haze, claiming, "The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line." Is the mayor mainlining Fox "news" as his source of information? He royally added, "so anything we can do that's responsible to help the banks ... that is what we need."

Yesterday, BuzzFlash at Truthout wrote that there is little doubt that law enforcement officials - at the behest of corporate-backed politicians - are infiltrating and planning ways to discredit the Wall Street autumn of democracy.

In his plutocratic cloud of personal financial interest and self-serving disdain for the right of assembly, Bloomberg resembles a monarchist, not a mayor.

If the Occupy Wall Street movement spreads and grows, you can count on Mayor Bloomberg to pull the curtains down on this exercise in America's basic right of redress.

As Thom Hartmann noted in a book excerpted on Truthout, Thomas Jefferson warned that "the artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy."

Bloomberg is just waiting to snap the mouse trap shut on democracy.

Rich Running Scared?

(I hardly think so.--jef)

***

Saturday, August 07, 2010 – by Staff Report

Billionaires giving half their fortune to charity ... They have devoted almost all their time and energy to building up fortunes worth billions. And now they are going to give most of it away. ... Star Wars director George Lucas, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hilton hotels owner Barron Hilton are among those who will provide an estimated £250bn. Others pledging fortunes include media mogul Ted Turner, fashion director Diane Von Furstenberg, David Rockefeller, the heir to the Rockefeller fortune, and construction billionaire Eli Broad. The unprecedented commitment was brokered by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett (pictured together left) over a series of intimate dinners. They set up The Giving Pledge, which asks billionaires to make a 'moral commitment' to give away at least 50% of their wealth to charity either during their lifetime or after their death. So far 40 have signed up. -- UK / This Is Money

Dominant Social Theme: The most admirable thing ever.

Free-Market Analysis: We've watched this story unfold and are quite taken by its admirable qualities. There is something amazing about watching so many important people come together to give so much money to worthy causes. That this cavalcade of generosity would be led by such luminaries as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet only adds to its impressiveness. These individuals could be out golfing instead of extracting billions from their friends and acquaintances for charity.

Obviously there is a dominant social theme at work here. We would venture to say that it is along these lines: "Not only are Western (especially Anglo-American) billionaires among the smartest that you will find, they are also among the most generous and caring." In this article, then, we will reflect on this giving and probe its causes. Of course, perhaps there is nothing more to this Giving Pledge than a belated realization that those with great blessings ought to give back proportionately. Sometimes, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, a rose is just a rose.

So let us proceed then with the understanding that sometimes generosity is "just generosity." And certainly acts of generosity, without doubt, are being formulated within the parameters of this program. But being instrument of power-elite analysis, we need to ask WHY? As in "why now?" Why have powerful billionaires (at the behest of the power elite itself?) gotten together in 2010 to announce to the world that they are giving their money away? Why didn't they decide to do so in 2008, or 1998 for that matter? Has something changed? Are their forces at work (a generosity bug?) today that were not present a year ago, or ten years ago? And if there is a reason, what is it telling us about the society's larger trends?

We would argue, in fact, that there is a reason. As dedicated meme watchers, we have seen the power elite (and we don't necessarily include all generous billionaires among them) try to grapple with the reality that the financial system itself is radically tilted toward institutional gestures. When the financial crisis became severe in 2008, it was the big banks and securities firms that for the most got bailed out. Homeowners and others, especially in America, grappled with their burgeoning debts without the help of money printing.

While this is perhaps to be expected, as we have pointed out before, the spectacle of large institutions being laved with funds while the "little people" were left parched and hopeless, was at root immoral. In one poisonous fortnight, the reality of the financial system struck home to people in a way that it never had before. A very skilled meme watcher (as we have related before) brought this point home to us, sending us what we consider to be a seminal feedback on this issue. What he was basically saying was that the Internet had provided a window wherein people could see as they never had before how the system really worked.

In one instant, the reality of the system became crystal clear. The money that the elite was disbursing may have stabilized the financial system, but why was that money only flowing in one direction, people suddenly began to wonder. Not only that, but we must believe that many, probably for the first time, began to realize however foggily that the money that was given away was being "manufactured" – that it was being printed out of nothing and directed toward targets self-selected by those doing the printing. We wrote an article about it ourselves entitled, "Have the immoral actions of central bankers precipitated the decline of the West." Here is some of what we wrote:

And so it begins. You have seen the essential immorality of the system. You have felt it deep in the gut, just the way they did once they began to read Bibles (courtesy of the Gutenberg press) 500 years ago and began realizing that the Roman Catholic Church was profoundly immoral -- that its entire ethic (you can buy your way into heaven) was built on a kind of lie. Just as society is today. Yes, he's right. This financial crisis and the "outside the box thinking" (President Obama's term) of Ben Bernanke and others has not just doomed the elite's dominant social themes, it has probably doomed the freakin' CIVILIZATION.

Even stranger, Bernanke and the rest have not yet likely realized this. They are too busy patting themselves on the back. Do Bernanke et al. really believe that the average joe is awestruck and thankful for their chicanery. No, the average joe has suddenly realized that he lives in a society where a few people control trillions while he controls thousands. This is not just going to lead to a breakdown of society, over time it is going to lead to a meltdown of western civ.

Click here to read more: Have the Immoral Actions of Central bankers Precipitated the Decline of the West?

Do we need to belabor the point? This Giving Pledge from our point of view may constitute a direct counter-attack by the powers-that-be on the perception of unfairness that was made manifest by the egregious central banking bailouts of institutional cronies during the depths of the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve in particular, which created tidal waves of cash at the time, has fought very hard to withhold information about just who funds went to and the amounts that were sent.

We do believe the powers-that-be attempt to control public opinion (and thus the public) through various promotions, most of them fear-based. In this case the promotion is not fear-based and has something of a rushed quality about it. The cause-and-effect in our humble opinion is obvious however. Whether it will have the requisite impact is another question. We tend to doubt it.

It is important to note however, because it does tend to show (if one accepts our interpretation) that those at the top of the heap are getting the message about how things are being perceived by the plebes down below. The trouble is that people, if they have already made up their minds, are not apt to be swayed by such a spectacle. The damage has already been done and we would argue that dramatic Acts such as these may have actually do more harm than good, given that people are already cynical about the system.

Of course, being cynical ourselves, we don't believe for instant that all this charity will in some sense ease the plight of those who are injured financially or otherwise. For one thing, the massive charities and foundations of the West today are run by the same power elite that runs the financial system and has orchestrated the current problems of Western economic society. Secondly, the program smacks of a kind of hold-up.

Yes, we visualize it as a sort of elegant blackmail in which a billionaire who has somehow resisted becoming part of the elite's one-world promotion, gets a perfumed letter asking that half of his or her wealth be directed to a "worthy" cause. These worthy causes, being organized by the elite, will likely only further benefit the ultimate goal of further promoting and strengthening Western-style regulatory democracy to the detriment of those who want to live their lives without high taxes, high inflation and endless regulatory encumbrances.

Conclusion: The Giving Pledge is a very clever promotion from our point of view, and illustrates the elite's penchant for never letting a crisis go to waste. It may, however, prove "too clever by half" as the saying goes. Its ultimate importance may have more to do with its rushed nature and the insight it offers us into the current mindset of the very wealthy and the measures they are willing to take to take to shore up their aggregate public personas.