[...] Associate Judge Thomas Donnelly ruled the October 2011 arrests were unconstitutional because the city routinely chooses not to enforce the curfew for events the city supports, such as the 2008 Election Night rally for President Barack Obama. The judge noted that no arrests were made at that event, even though it went well past curfew.Here Chicagoans are at the 2008 Election Night rally in Grant Park (though I don't know if this clip is before or after .. the witching hour .. the speeches are over):
Recently declassified Air Force records detail the investigation of an analyst who expressed support for WikiLeaks and its founder Assange. The inquiry was closed when it found no evidence that the analyst had leaked classified material, but the documents reveal that Assange may have been designated an enemy of the United States—the same status as the Taliban and al-Qaida—as the analyst was under investigation for the crime of “Communicating With the Enemy.”
That crime carries a potential death penalty, and its inclusion in an investigation into contact with WikiLeaks suggests that the government now views anyone who publishes classified material that could be seen by anyone considered an enemy as an enemy themselves. The list of candidates for enemy status extends far beyond Assange. Any media outlet, including The New York Times, which has published far more sensitive secrets than WikiLeaks, would become a potential enemy of the state.Discussion with Michael Ratner, a legal advisor to Mr. Assange, concerning the terminology. Ecuador is seeking safe passage for Mr. Assange through the U.K. from its London Embassy, and since the asylum issue is resolved in their favor:
Anna Afanti, 50, a secondary school teacher, removed a surgical mask she had been wearing to ward off the tear gas to lambast Greece’s foreign creditors. “They just want to impoverish us, to bring our salaries down to the level in India and swoop in and buy everything on the cheap,” she said, referring to planned privatization.
Ms. Afanti, who traveled about 40 miles from the town of Halkida to Athens with several colleagues to attend Wednesday’s protest, said her salary had been cut by a third since the crisis hit, making it harder to care for her three children, one of whom is disabled. “I should have left this country a long time ago,” said Ms. Afanti, who teaches English and Italian literature. “Now I’m stuck here."
Courtesy of the New York Times/photographer: Angelos Tzortzinis
Via Nathaniel Mahlberg's site with Fellowship Of Reconciliation, the download for the newly released Debt Resister's Operation Manual, a 132 page book from Strike Debt/Occupy Wall Street. He attended the launch of the book with his church, Judson Memorial, the 
Hello Citizens of the Free world.
On November 15, 2011, the NYPD surrounded the Zuccotti Park and poceeded to forcefully dismantle the Occupy Wall Street encampment. As part of this effort, the authorities made all media leave the scene and the only images of what happened came from one live streamer who stayed in the center of the park until his arrest, and one other citizen journalist who kept filming on his camera and managed to somehow smuggle the footage out of the arrest zone. Today We release a trove of video shot by NYPD itself - from 14 different angles including survellience cameras.
While it is clear that a lot of this police footage is incomplete and has been edited , some may say even tampered with, to remove the most damning incidents (sometimes in very obvious edits) there is still enough material to paint the picture of what really happened in Zuccotti park once the media cameras had left.
We the Anonymous Police are placing this information in the public domain for the people to use it to identify offending officers and explore the inconsistencies between the official narrative and reality.Also, YaBasta500 has posted a short compilation (shown below) from the 60 hours, with links as follows:
In the videos, Lt. John Pike of the campus police is seen slowly and deliberately spraying the students, pausing to shake the can before continuing. At least one other officer, Alexander Lee, is also seen spraying.
By linking arms, the seated protesters engaged in "active" rather than "passive" resistance, according to the district attorney's report, which relied not only on the officers' accounts but on University of California-commissioned studies of the incident, on experts in the use of force, and on UC policy.
Officers may use pepper spray when they encounter active resistance, the report says.\The Sacramento Bee reports that officials stated, "[...] there is insufficient evidence to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the use of force involved in the November 18, 2011, pepper spraying was unlawful and therefore warrants the filing of criminal charges [...]."
Pike was later relieved of duty; his police chief, Annette Spicuzza, resigned under fire; and withering reports from a specially-convened task force led by former state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso and independent consultant, Kroll, detailed a dysfunctional police department and "systematic and repeated failures" by university leaders.
"I guess the Reynoso report, the Kroll report and video is sufficient in some cases but not in others. I'm sorry to hear that," Briggs said. "There seems to be a willingness to rely on video evidence in some cases but not others. My thoughts go back to the day itself," she said, adding the events "cast doubt that Lt. Pike and others were acting lawfully."
Remember Yom Kippur last year? Remember the power of 1,000 voices crying out in unison for social and economic justice in the language of the Hebrew prophets, from the midst of Wall Street? That definitive moment in progressive Jewish action was an expression of desire for a just world that continues to call out from within our hearts and souls. Let’s show the world that, with or without a park to occupy, we have not given up the struggle, and that we will not give up, until we have achieved the redemption of the world.Since a shofar is played on Rosh Hashanah, in honor of the Jewish New Year, here is an excerpt from Alvin Curran's composition and world premiere of Shofar III at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - and composed for shofar, keyboard, electronics, bullroarer, corrugated tube, and percussion. It is performed by Curran and William Winan.
Last year, Washington Post reporter Petula Dvorak chronicled the story of two homeless D.C.-area students, Ronnell Wilson and Miracle Lewis.
Lewis--in her late twenties--had worked as a flight attendant for United Airlines, but decided to go back to school after mass layoffs in 2008. She got a scholarship to study business and took temp jobs to make ends meet. But when temp work "dried up," she found herself living in the Calvary Women's Shelter in Northwest Washington, D.C.
“Debt is the tie that binds the 99 percent,” Occupy organizer Yates McKee has written: from the underwater and foreclosed-upon homeowners who were first pummeled by the economic crisis, to the millions of debt-strapped students who are in default or on the brink, to all those driven into bankruptcy by medical bills, to workers everywhere who have been forced to compensate for more than thirty years of stagnating wages with credit card debt, to the firefighters and teachers who have had to accept pay cuts because their cities are broke, to the citizens of countries where schools and hospitals are being closed to pay back foreign bondholders. Given the way debt operates at the municipal and national levels, the issue affects us all—even those who are fortunate enough to be debt-free, as well as those so poor they don’t have access to credit. Debt is one of the ways we all feel Wall Street’s influence most intimately, whether it’s because of a ballooning mortgage payment or a subway fare hike or a shuttered clinic.
What’s surprising, then, is that debt hasn’t been made more of a central issue of Occupy organizing until now. Though the Occupy Student Debt Campaign has done some important work (particularly around what it called 1T Day, when student loan debt hit $1 trillion), the issue took center stage only after a series of small Occupy Theory assemblies that were held once a week beginning in May in Washington Square Park, attended by some of the same people who were at the Tompkins Square Park gatherings that planned the initial occupation. A few weeks in, the group found its focus; on June 10, during the inaugural NYC Debtors’ Assembly, there was a palpable spark. People testified through a cardboard “debtors’ mic” for more than two hours, many noting that they had never spoken publicly about their burden before. A deeply personal issue—one that is often a source of private shame—was being politicized before everyone’s eyes. The epiphany that suddenly connects the individual to the collective speaks to one of Strike Debt’s best slogans: “You are not a loan."
