for one, you can watch a good overview of Oakland, which does not sugarcoat the actions of the more violent protesters, in the democracy now piece from today:
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/30/occupy_oakland_over_400_arrested_as
excellent, excellent points are raised here that can really help define this movement. namely, the heavy police action, which included police trapping people and giving bizarro orders to disperse while they were trapped so that they could charge them with failure to disperse, was all in an effort to protect abandoned property. in other words, the city of Oakland places a greater value on abandoned property than its people. the mayor's statement may make you retch. but it's also very good food for thought on what this movement really means.
another issue, which i am still trying to piece together and will probably have to come back and edit as more shit comes to light, is the integrity of tim pool, the citizen journalist most followed by MSM, most cited, i thought most respected, is being questioned. words are not being minced. he's being called a snitch. as he has been for most of the protest, he's in NY, streaming. i have plugged his stream repeatedly.
there was an incident at the #J29 action in solidarity with oakland. i will start with his official statement on the incident:
http://t.co/kvsqQmm4
looking at the statement and looking at the flurry of tweets against him last night, it's easy to see it's a very one-sided statement. which could be fine. don't yet know. the gist of what i saw last night through my headcold was that protesters had requested that he stop filming a particular action. some tweeters are accusing him of putting OWS in harm's way. others are saying he's not part of OWS, that he's a snitch and a profiteer. i'm still trying to find the bases for these accusations, beyond what i can surmise is him having his camera knocked out of his hands, and him restraining the person and informing police.
counter accusations include police infiltration. this tweet shows confusion:
https://twitter.com/#!/TheReallyRick/status/163850712655200256
now, i directly asked tim pool to respond to the accusations of him refusing to respect protesters' request to stop filming some particular thing.
so i await more pieces of the story. could be people getting reactionary, or there may be an issue here. in any event, if you look at the man's feed and follow the various comments, it's also good food for thought on the idea of transparency and the role of journalism. can't deny i'm disappointed in his statement though, clearly there is a lot more to this chain of events and he could very easily have explained any contact with the police if it happened, and justified it if that's really how he sees it. he also could have easily allayed concerns about putting protesters in harm's way. all he'd have to do is state the truth as he sees it, but he left these two central points out of his statement, and that sticks out like a sore thumb. these two things really seem to be the crux of people's criticism of him.
it's also worth noting that he was also involved (at the time, i thought the only person) with "theother99" ustream. he had a falling out with them too, and now has his own ustream. i didn't pay attention to the nature of that disagreement.
gotta run. if i find out more, i will post.
