Occupy Wall Street Media Round-Up for October 31

Press focus is increasingly shifting to discussion of arrests and the process of occupying rather than the protesters’ critique of America. 

OWS & LABOR 

A Wall Street Journal story looks at the labor movement’s involvement with OWS as does an NPR story, which focuses on labor’s support role in the OWS movement.  

A  Huffington Post story says the battle to repeal Ohio’s controversial collective bargaining law is being credited with creating a good relationship between Occupy Cleveland and Cleveland police officers. 

Media continues to report on labor’s presence at Occupy protests in cities like Niles, Michigan (CBS-affiliate) and Las Vegas (The Republic). A local Time-Warner affiliate covered an Occupy Austin event during which dozens of unions, including mail carriers and iron workers, took to the streets in Downtown Austin. The Morning Call reported that union supporters and tea party activists squared off on Friday outside U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent's Lehigh Valley (PA) Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

LOCAL OCCUPY PROTESTS 

Associated Press story noted that “cities are dealing with the protests differently, some trying to work with protesters to leave peacefully, while others have sent in police to arrest them.”  

A Salon story looked at arrests made this past weekend across this country and the continuing “struggle to control public space.” The story quotes one protester from Denver who said that protesters are not upset with the police, but with the politicians:

“I hope our actions will help the American people see how determined we are,” one demonstrator told a local TV station.  “The police were under orders. They do their job. The problem isn’t with the police. It’s with the people who tell the police what to do, and that’s the politicians.” 

A USA Today story looks at the Occupy protests from the perspective of law enforcement and focuses on the challenges the protests have posed for police. The story also rounds up the arrests made this past weekend. 

A New York Daily News piece argued that the Zuccotti Park site is being partially overrun, possibly at the urging of the NYPD, by “swelling ranks of freeloaders and disturbed characters in the last few days [who have] pressed the working group members who’ve organized the protest and so far kept it from going off the rails to refine their ideas about just how open their movement should be.”   

Update on Occupy Oakland

Mercury News reported that the atmosphere at the Occupy Oakland encampment was peaceful, in contrast with the violent clashes between protesters and police last week. The San Francisco Chronicle posted a video of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan apologizing for Occupy Oakland violence, and then getting booed off stage. USA Today reported that the Oakland Police Department has launched an investigation into how Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen, 24, was critically injured during the clash between police and demonstrators last week.  

Over Friday and Saturday nights, nearly 50 Occupy Nashville protesters were arrested, according to The Tennessean. Both times, Night Court Magistrate Tom Nelson tossed out the warrants and freed the protesters. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday morning to stop nightly arrests of Occupy Nashville protesters on grounds that the state is violating their First Amendment rights.  

On Friday night in Rochester, New York, 32 people were arrested. 

A CBS local-affiliate reported that 3 Occupy Tampa protesters were arrested. 

In Denver on Saturday evening, police in riot gear hauled off 15 Occupy Denver protesters to establish an encampment just hours after a standoff at the Capitol steps degenerated into a fight that ended in a cloud of Mace and pepper spray.[1]

In San Diego, police arrested 51 demonstrators Friday after declaring an unlawful assembly. Police said they were responding to complaints about unsanitary conditions, including damage to public property. San Diego police Chief William Lansdowne said negotiations with the demonstrators had broken down and officers received no cooperation, according to the AP.[2] 

A CNN story reported that police arrested more than two dozen Occupy Portland protesters who refused to leave a park after warnings that the park closed at midnight, police said. Authorities in Portland "gave protesters numerous opportunities to simply walk away or choose to be arrested," Mayor Sam Adams told CNN affiliate KPTV. Occupy Portland had a different take: "Six mounted police and approximately 65 police in riot gear pushed supporters to the sidewalks and conducted the arrests over a period of several hours," the group said in a statement.

POLLING 

Talking Points Memo reported on the results of a Fox News poll question: “How concerned are you that the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations will eventually turn into street riots?” The results: 16 percent are very concerned, 31 percent are somewhat concerned, 28 percent not very concerned, and 23 not at all. The same Talking Points Memo story also featured a TPM Poll Average of American support of the OWS movement, using data from polls by CBS/NYT, CNN, USA Today/Gallup, NBC/WSJ, Pew, and others.  Currently, 39% support while 35% oppose.   

ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN THE MEDIA

A smart analysis by EJ Dionne in the Washington Post helps demonstrate the success of OWS thus far in raising the visibility of inequality and pushing the GOP to awkwardly play defense of their embrace of inequality, and encouraging Obama to speak more forcefully and honestly about economic issues than he had heretofore.  

The New York Times featured an interactive visual that illustrates where the 1% fit in the hierarchy of income, highlighting the vastness of wealth inequality in the country.  The visual illustrates what is revealed by the Wall Street Journal calculator that determines “what percent are you?”

RIGHT WING MEMES 

Conservatives continue to push stories about the OWS tapering down, like this post on conservative blog Hot Air about cold weather in the United States, and a post on conservative Red State about the results of thermal scan in London that “revealed” that many tents were not actually occupied with people. Stories about Occupy protesters as a social disturbance continue circulate, such as this post on conservative blog Powerline.  

Conservative publication National Review featured a Wall Street Journal story about Barry Silbert, a 35-year old financier who argues that America’s public capital markets are broken and that the U.S. needs more robust private markets. The author of the article suggested that Silbert is either “saving capitalism from financial regulators or trying to evade them.” 

[1] http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-10-30/police-struggle-with-occupy-protests/51008506/1

[2] http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-10-30/police-struggle-with-occupy-protests/51008506/1