Explaining Southern California's economy
What was Occupy LA really protesting?
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Protesters hold signs after a march to Los Angeles City Hall during the "Occupy Los Angeles" demonstration in solidarity with the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" protest in New York City on October 1, 2011 in Los Angeles.
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Signs showing "Sister Cities" stand in front of Los Angeles City Hall after a protest march during the "Occupy Los Angeles"demonstration in solidarity with the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" protest in New York City on October 1, 2011 in Los Angeles.
Howard Gerber joined OccupyLA last night after camping out at Occupy San Diego on and off for the past few weeks
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Protestors check out the police helicopters above OccupyLA
For nearly two months, OccupyLA protesters have held their ground on the lawn of City Hall. As winter approaches, getting through the night has become a significant test.
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Protesters marching Downtown L.A. for "Occupy L.A."
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Occupy LA protestors march through the downtown Los Angeles financial district on "Bank Transfer Day," November 5, 2011. Bank Transfer Day, created by the Occupy movement, is a national effort to get people to move their money from large corporate banks into smaller banks or credit unions. AFP PHOTO / Robyn Beck (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
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Police maintain a presence outside of a Bank of America branch on Saturday, November 5, 2011 just a few blocks from Occupy L.A.'s encampment at City Hall.
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Hundreds of Occupy protesters gathered in downtown L.A. for a march through the financial district.
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Participants in Occupy Los Angeles rally on the steps of City Hall after marching from Pershing Square on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011.
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LAPD Chief Charlie Beck at Occupy L.A.
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Police raided the Occupy encampment at City Hall arresting 200, and little of the protesters' preparations came to use in the largely peaceful raid.
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Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa talks to members of the media in front of City Hall in downtown in the early hours of November 30, 2011 in Los Angeles.Protesters remained on the City Hall lawn despite a deadline, set by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, to dismantle their campsite and leave the park which the city declared closed as of 12:01 am November 28th. 1400 members of the Los Angeles Police raided the park this morning and removed or arrested all of the Occupy LA protesters.
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The morning after L.A. raided and cleared out the Occupy L.A. camp, city employees dragged tents from the lawn into dumpsters.
It's the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Movement, which started out innocuously enough in a park in lower Manhattan before sweeping across the nation and the world. In Los Angeles, we had our own Occupy experience, centered on City Hall downtown. It assembled a few weeks after the protesters in New York and held its ground until the end of November, when they were ejected by the LAPD. Along with way, Occupy L.A. distinguished itself as both the most peaceful of the major expressions of the movement in U.S. cities; and as the occupied city that saw the most cooperation between city government and the protecters (not surprising, given that City Hall is right across the street from police headquarters).
The L.A. Times runs down what Occupy L.A. has been up to since. The answer is not a whole lot, although there have been periodic disruptions since last year:
Occupy LA: Time to go — peacefully
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Occupy LA protesters demonstrate on the front lawn of Los Angeles City Hall after the midnight deadline set by city officials to shut down the encampment expired on November 28, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Friday gave the protesters outside City Hall until 12:01 am Monday to dismantle their campsite and leave. This morning, although some arrests were made, police have not yet cleared the camp.
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LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 28: Los Angeles Police Officers in riot gear deploy around the Los Angeles City Hall after the deadline to dismantle the occupy campsite expired on November 28, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last week gave the protesters outside City Hall until 12:01 am today to dismantle their protest campsite and leave. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
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LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 27: Occupy LA protesters block the streets around Los Angeles City Hall before the midnight deadline by Los Angeles city officials to shut down the encampment on November 27, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on last week gave the protesters outside City Hall until 12:01 am today to dismantle their protest campsite and leave. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
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Mike Ferry yawns after a long night showing down with the police
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A member of Occupy LA camps out in a tree after the midnight deadline set by city officials to shut down the encampment expired in front of City Hall in downtown on November 28, 2011 in Los Angeles.
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LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 28: Members of the Los Angeles Police Department wearing riot gear ride on the sides of trucks after the midnight deadline set by city officials to shut down the encampment expired in front of City Hall in downtown on November 28, 2011 in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last week gave the protesters outside City Hall until 12:01 am today to dismantle their campsite and leave. This morning, although some arrests were made, police have not yet cleared the camp. (Photo by Michal Czerwonka/Getty Images)
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Protestors check out the police helicopters above OccupyLA
Of all major U.S. cities with Occupy movements, LA has been by far the most calm — and the city government has been the most accommodating. The City Council voted early on to support the movement, while Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has affirmed the protesters right to assemble, as well as nodded favorably toward their cause. The city also gave the movement a lot of time to prepare for what was supposed to be a departure today from its encampment at City Hall.
But they're still there. And filing a lawsuit to stick around.
To borrow a line from "Gladiator," some people should know when they're conquered. Or, more accurately, when they're been treated with kid gloves for an exceptionally long period of time. To its credit, LA is taking the sluggishness of the Occupy departure/non-departure in stride. That's consistent with how the city has dealt with Occupy so far.
Bankers v. politicians: Why the financial crisis still hasn't ended
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Hundreds of Occupy protesters gathered in downtown L.A. for a march through the financial district.
Here's a real barn-burner of an opinion essay from David Coates, a professor at Wake Forest who harbors no love for the global banking class — the financial elites who brought us the financial crisis, as well as the eurozone crisis, and who are currently getting rid of elected leaders in Europe at a brisk clip while doing whatever it takes to stall reform in the U.S. Not surprisingly, Coates sees Occupy Wall Street — which in recent weeks has come under siege from authorities — as being a populist movement that's trying to push back against the bankers.
This a taste of his lash, from the Huffington Post:
We live in troubled and ironic times. The times are certainly troubled. The IMF's Managing Director has recently spoken with some justification of a looming "lost decade" for the global economy — warning of "dark clouds" blocking the capacity of the world's leading economies to deliver a renewed bout of economic growth and generalized prosperity. The times are also deeply ironic: since the governing solution to those dark clouds — in countries as substantial as Italy and Greece, and in institutions as powerful as the IMF — would currently appear to be the replacement of elected leaders by appointed technocrats. The solution favored by the powerful is the transfer of state authority from democratically chosen leaders to governors drawn predominantly from the ranks of the very bankers whose inadequate supervision of their own industry darkened the skies in the first place. In this manner, a global financial crisis that initially discredited bankers has incrementally morphed into one to be settled on terms directly specified by bankers themselves. A crisis of economics has been turned into a crisis of democracy. It is an outrage.
Is it all over for Occupy? The Twitter perspective
Entering "#OWS" in Storify produces some interesing stuff, drawn from Twitter. As you can see, outrage developed today over whether the New York poilce had destroyed the Occupy Wall Street library after evicting protestors from Zuccotti Park — and arresting close to 200 of them.
Follow Matthew DeBord and the DeBord Report on Twitter.
Why the Occupy Movement is getting kicked out — and why it doesn't matter
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NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 15: Occupy Wall Street protesters and police stand outside Zuccotti Park after police removed the protesters from the park early in the morning on November 15, 2011 in New York City. Hundreds of protesters, who rallied against inequality in America, have slept in tents and under tarps since September 17 in Zuccotti Park, which has since become the epicenter of the global Occupy movement. The raid in New York City follows recent similar moves in Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
UPDATE: KPCC is reporting that Occupy LA — which hasn't yet been shut down and is actually right across the street from police headquarters — may become a kind of "oasis" for Occupy movements that have been forced out of public sites. It would be quite a trek for Occupy Wall Streeters. But you never know. It's getting cold in New York...
In the very early hours of Tuesday morning, New York City police descended on Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, the site of the original Occupy Wall Street movement, and cleared the site of protestors. Almost 200 people who refused to go quietly were arrested.
Tensions are mounting at other Occupy sites around the country. In Oakland, protestors have been particularly aggressive. In Los Angeles, they're been mostly peaceful. But it's becoming increasingly clear that, despite a high level of political support in many cities, local governments are losing patience with 24/7 demonstrations at public sites.
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