Occupy Everywhere & Economic News Round-Up

Occupy Oakland protestor and veteran Scott Olsen holds a banner at a protest
before he was injured (TW for image at link). [Keith Shannon photo; via.]
The Guardian—Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen awake ahead of brain surgery:

Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran who suffered serious head injuries after being hit by a projectile fired by police during the Occupy Oakland protests, has woken up and is lucid as he awaits surgery, hospital officials and family members have said.

Olsen, a 24-year-old former US Marine, was struck in the head during anti-Wall Street protests on Tuesday night. He has been upgraded from critical to fair condition.

Olsen "responded with a very large smile" to a visit from his parents, Highland General hospital spokesman Warren Lyons said. "He's able to understand what's going on. He's able to write and hear but has a little difficulty with his speech," Lyons said.

Dahlia Lithwick at Slate—Occupy the No-Spin Zone: One of the best things about Occupy Wall Street is the way it confuses and ignores the shrill pundit class: "Think, for just a moment, about the irony. We are the most media-saturated 24-hour-cable-soaked culture in the world, and yet around the country, on Facebook and at protests, people are holding up cardboard signs, the way protesters in ancient Sumeria might have done when demonstrating against a rise in the price of figs. And why is that? Because they very wisely don't trust television cameras and microphones to get it right anymore. Because a media constructed around the illusion of false equivalencies, screaming pundits, and manufactured crises fails to capture who we are and what we value."

Politico—Occupy to march on NYC banks: "Occupy Wall Street protesters will march to five banks in Manhattan on Friday and deliver thousands of letters to the companies—in the form of a 'mass paper airplane throwing.' ... Thousands of letters that were submitted to occupytheboardroom.org will be folded into paper airplanes, and at some of the banks, protesters will execute a 'mass paper airplane throwing event,' after which the planes will be collected in a large mailbag and left in the lobbies of the banks."

Google—What search trends tell us about Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party: "Search interest for [Occupy Wall Street] jumped ahead of the [Tea Party] on September 24, and hasn't looked back. In a historical context, when viewing the snapshot of their nascent birth, we can see the peak of [Occupy Wall Street] has slightly more interest in American than searches for the [Tea Party] did during the groups peak in 2009."

Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch—Pat Robertson: Christians Should Oppose Occupy Wall Street: "On The 700 Club [yesterday], Pat Robertson told a questioner that Christians should not be involved in the economic justice movement Occupy Wall Street. Robertson dubbed the protests 'atavistic' and a 'rebellion' with 'no purpose' behind it. The televangelist even warned that the movement 'could be used for radicals who want to destroy this nation.' While Occupy Wall Street tackles issues of inequality and avarice in the financial system, Robertson alleged that it has nothing to do with Christian virtues of righteousness and fighting oppression. This wouldn't be the first time Robertson chastised Occupy Wall Street. He previously called the protestors 'nuts' and 'clowns' who are being used by President Obama to 'revolt'."

Speaking of Obama and his alleged revolution against Big Money (lulz)...

New York Times—Obama Backers Tied to Lobbies Raise Millions: "Despite a pledge not to take money from lobbyists, President Obama has relied on prominent supporters who are active in the lobbying industry to raise millions of dollars for his re-election bid. At least 15 of Mr. Obama's 'bundlers'—supporters who contribute their own money to his campaign and solicit it from others—are involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies. They have raised more than $5 million so far for the campaign. Because the bundlers are not registered as lobbyists with the Senate, the Obama campaign has managed to avoid running afoul of its self-imposed ban on taking money from lobbyists."

Meanwhile, in Europe...

Paul Krugman in the New York Times—The Path Not Taken: "Financial markets are cheering the deal that emerged from Brussels early Thursday morning. Indeed, relative to what could have happened—an acrimonious failure to agree on anything—the fact that European leaders agreed on something, however vague the details and however inadequate it may prove, is a positive development. But it's worth stepping back to look at the larger picture, namely the abject failure of an economic doctrine—a doctrine that has inflicted huge damage both in Europe and in the United States. The doctrine in question amounts to the assertion that, in the aftermath of a financial crisis, banks must be bailed out but the general public must pay the price."

And in related news...

Corynne McSherry at the Electronic Frontier Foundation—Disastrous IP Legislation Is Back—And It's Worse Than Ever: "As with its Senate-side evil sister, PROTECT-IP, SOPA would require service providers to 'disappear' certain websites, endangering Internet security and sending a troubling message to the world: it's okay to interfere with the Internet, even effectively blacklisting entire domains, as long as you do it in the name of IP enforcement. Of course blacklisting entire domains can mean turning off thousands of underlying websites that may have done nothing wrong. And in what has to be an ironic touch, the very first clause of SOPA states that it shall not be 'construed to impose a prior restraint on free speech.' As if that little recitation could prevent the obvious constitutional problem in what the statute actually does."

They're coming after our ability to connect and organize, folks.