Before the famous photo used to illustrate Time Magazine’s Person of the Year 2011 “The Protester.”
LOOKS GUISE I’M ON GIRLSANDREVOLTS.
DNC Delegate Leaves Party, Joins Occupy After Forced Vote at Convention »
The Democrats decided to try to reinsert “God” and “Jerusalem” back into their platform with a voice vote during the DNC. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the convention chairman, asked for approval from the delegates, but was met with strong opposition. After asking three separate times, and still not receiving enough approval from the delegates, he still determined that those present had voted in favor.
For one young delegate from Minneapolis, this was the breaking point. He got up, left the convention, and came to find us protestors, who were in Marshal Park at the time. Once at the park, he did a mic check to tell all of us what had happened, and that he did not approve of it. He then told us that he was leaving the Democratic Party, and instead would be joining the Occupy movement. This was the point where he realized neither party was actually acting as a voice for the people, and that instead he needed to take to the streets with rest of us to voice our opposition to the corrupt system.
He joined us on our march on the DNC through the streets of downtown Charlotte, still wearing the suit and tie he had on for the convention.
(Source: danceforthatanarchy, via uhavenothin2losebuturchains)
Children against fraudulent foreclosures. This is what direct democracy looks like. (Taken with Instagram)
Solidarity the Chalktivist Bunny strikes again.
The People's Record: At the Chalk Walk in LA »
My friend is a preschool teacher who went out to the protest today. She brought a couple of boxes of street chalk, the sort her students use, and a bunch of oatmeal raisin cookies for other protesters. She was there when the police went crazy and started corralling people and she was shoved and hit with batons. Right now she’s posted she is safe, but she’s still stranded in the middle of downtown because the LAPD has locked everything down. One of the last things she texted to a friend before everything went down was this:
“Actually I can tell you they put on riot gear before anything was thrown. I can tell you that they corralled me in. I’m telling you right now I begged a cop to let me go…and he told me to run.”
Representative Edward Markey released data on Monday from the largest mobile phone companies in the United States showing more than 1.3 million requests by law enforcement agencies for cell phone records in 2011.
Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. carrier, reported an annual 15 percent spike in requests, and No. 4 carrier T-Mobile USA said it has seen a 12 percent to 16 percent increase each year.
“We cannot allow privacy protections to be swept aside with the sweeping nature of these information requests, especially for innocent consumers,” said Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Law enforcement agencies are looking for a needle, but what are they doing with the haystack?”
READ MORE: Cell phone companies see spike in surveillance requests
Here’s the NYT article on this I posted earlier:
