Eric and I rode our bikes down to the Occupy Wall Street site to spend Thanksgiving, thinking it might be a nice place to spend the fallacious holiday. I hadn't been down there since Wall Street's Bloomberg's henchpeople kicked everyone out and destroyed and stole their stuff including thousands of library books. It was sad to see the long wall that had served as the People's Library's stacks empty, and protected by some Danger tape and two cops.
I wrote a report back on going to the Occupy Wall Street Library (OWSL) with Radical Reference this weekend over on the Rad Ref site.
I thought I might follow up, perhaps a little defensively, but I mean it to be reflective, on one of the things I brought up, and that is my feeling ashamed that I/we hadn't gotten involved sooner. Folks from the library first reached out to us on 9/21, but we couldn't rally to get involved. Five, even three years ago, we probably would have been engaged with the project from its conception, maybe even conceiving it ourselves.
In case by any bizarre chance, the mainstream media are not covering what's happening outside the convention centers at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, a good source for protest news is Infoshop.org.
The RNC Welcoming Committee in the Twin Cities has announced that it is ordering tasers for protesters. However, "The Welcoming Committee has no plans to purchase machine guns, rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, concussion grenades, batons, water cannons or helicopters, all of which will be at the disposal of local police and federal agents in September."
It was a very copful weekend. In addition to riding in Critical Mass and getting a ticket for doing so on Friday night, I participated in the Radical Homosexual Agenda's Parade without a Permit on Saturday evening, and on Sunday, hung out with Eric's uncle, a retired Atlanta police officer.
