Rachel Maddow does a wonderful piece on the freedom of speech aspects of Occupy Wall Street. She contrasts the police at University of California’s Berkeley campus shoving students with batons to the 1964 Mario Savio speech in support of free speech for students. The police violence against students last week happened on the very plaza that celebrates Savio’s great speech.
Author Archives: Cimaxion
Batman Confronts Occupy Wall Street
Thanks to Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds
New York City Police Attack and Destroy Occupy Wall Street Encampment
On the orders of New York mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD staged a brazen and unwarranted attack on the Zuccotti Park protesters of Occupy Wall Street late last night, removing and destroying the entire camp. This assault on Occupy Wall Street appears to be a coordinated nationwide effort with police departments in various cities operating in near concert.
New York has been foolish. The police should not have done this.
There are major protest activities approaching this week. The police assaults may be an effort to head things off before any more major statements can be made by the movement. However, it would be my guess that now all the gloves come off. It would not be unreasonable for massive numbers of protesters to shut down the entire Wall Street area. I think now the movement will be justified in the general public opinion when it escalates its actions. My guess is that if it wasn’t yet, Wall Street is about to become ground zero.
It does appear that there is a court order against New York to allow the protesters back into the park with their tents. However, Mayor Bloomberg is ignoring the court’s order.
It is also reported that the police destroyed the protesters’ library of 5,000 books during their raid. Get it? That’s basically a book-burning.
It looks like the police also prevented press coverage of the attack. Network news helicopters were prevented from flying and journalists were roughed up and kept away.
However, it has now become clear that the Zuccotti Park protesters last week surrounded an emergency medical technician to prevent him from taking a mentally ill patient to hospital. The EMT’s leg was broken in the scuffle. That story fits in perfectly with the experience of a Rolling Stone reporter who was surrounded and prevented from interviewing someone. One of those acts is a serious crime committed by the protesters against an emergency worker. The other is an infringement of the right to freely speak with another person. It is also an attempt to prevent a journalist from doing his or her job. I do not support such actions on the part of the protesters. But those are not reasons to destroy their encampments.
Here is Keith Olbermann excoriating mayor Bloomberg for his raging stupidity:
Here’s a television news report about the NYPD raid:
Here’s a live feed from the Zuccotti Park area:
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Traumatografo: Magnificent and Mysterious 1975 Film by Paolo Gioli
I did not know this filmmaker, Paolo Gioli, existed until yesterday. And that really bothers me because I feel a very strong kinship with this filmmaker just on the basis of having seen two of his pieces. What can a filmmaker do with his own backyard? That is the question that comes to my mind as I watch his films. Can a filmmaker take his camera out back and make something astounding? Of course. In fact, that skill is central to being a creative filmmaker. It is the feeling I get from Gioli. He makes films that have a guiding concern but he is not afraid to slip a little off of the main track and let you see him experimenting. One can observe his enthusiasm for a new mechanical technique and he allows his film to wander into the territory of the new machine or splicing method for a while. And then he comes back to the main thing. He never lets this get out of control and it is a miracle to watch. One can learn how to experiment by watching a brilliant experimentalist. It’s that simple.
There are many filmmakers I wish I could meet and perhaps work with. Gioli is one of them. In fact, this brings to mind again my thought that things like YouTube are the greatest cinematic development of the past half century. The reason has nothing to do with screen format or size or image quality. It has to do with intimacy. The feeling of connection one can get by watching a filmmaker’s work on the computer is far more intimate than could be achieved in a theater. It is this quality that is the most important contribution of online film to world cinema. Intimate connection to the artist. It has a powerful effect on artists and communicates ideas and inspiration from generation to generation far more effectively than any prior cinematic display technology.
Here is a nice long article by Bart Testa about this wonderful Italian filmmaker.
Here is an article by David Bordwell on how Gioli’s hand-made cameras influence his ‘vertical cinema’ technique.
Penn State Students Riot and Attack TV Van Over Firing of Coach Who Would Not Call Police to Report a Child Rape
In a deeply troubling sign of the mentality of Penn State University’s student body, mobs of students rioted yesterday in protest of the university’s firing of football coach Joe Paterno. He is the coach to whom a child rape was reported by a graduate student who witnessed the crime and allowed it to continue. That graduate student is now active receivers coach, Mike McQueary. Why this person has not also been fired is a total mystery. Paterno apparently thought his duties only required him to report the grad student’s allegation to his boss. He neglected to call the police. It would seem that he also neglected to follow up on the crime at any time during a nine-year period. The moral failure of such neglect is immense. Penn State University was certainly correct to eliminate such a person from its staff as quickly as possible. But the callous disregard for the damaged lives of the young rape victims on the part of the Penn State student body is not only revolting, it is frightening. These are young adults about to move into society and take jobs. They are supposedly educated. But they are raging in the streets and destroying journalists’ equipment over a football coach who refused to take any sort of adequate action following the brutal rape of a ten year old child.
It would amaze me if the university did not immediately act to expel every student it could identify as having engaged in violence against the journalists’ van at the very least.
These are students that I would want nothing to do with. Ever. I’m sure there are students who disagree with these rioters and those should not be lumped in with these barbaric people. This is a mob that has been fielded by this university. It simply cannot be ignored. They are a repulsive example of what Penn State University has to offer to the state it serves and to its nation. They have no apparent feeling about the rape of a child. They seem to believe that a man can ignore his duty to protect children and still maintain his status as ‘living legend.’ These people in this rioting mob should remember for the rest of their lives exactly how they behaved in the face of children who were raped and who went unaided by the heartless, reprehensible Joe Paterno and other members of the Penn State administration. Horrible. Disgusting.
Here is video of the student attack on a journalism van. It appears to have been taken by one of the rioting students. Mature content with language:
Would you hire one of these people for your company? Would you want one of these people living next to you?
Penn State University Appears to Have Covered Up Child Rape in Football Program
Pennsylvania State University appears to have abandoned its primary duty to protect the children on its campus. The betrayal of its community and its children is shocking. Its football facilities appear to have been used for an ongoing series of child rapes by football coach Joe Paterno’s longtime assistant Jerry Sandusky. Two high-ranking university officials have been arrested for keeping the rapes unreported to law enforcement. That’s called a coverup where I come from. It would seem that a graduate student told a Grand Jury that he witnessed a 10 year old boy being raped in the football locker room. His decision at the time was to allow the rape to continue. Later on he says he went to coach Paterno’s home to discuss the episode with him. Paterno says he reported the allegations to university athletic director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the senior vice president of finance and business.
WHAT!!??
I’m sorry, but my jaw just hit the desk. Let’s go over that again. A graduate student witnesses the rape of a child and walks away. Goes to Joe Paterno’s house to discuss it! Joe Paterno goes to school administrators! No one calls the police! No one walks into the locker room, pulls the rapist off the child and beats his head against a wall. Are these guys kidding? There’s no use in this world for men who cannot help a child being raped. The rapist is an obvious psychopath and will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. That’s for sure. But these other men, Paterno included, have proven themselves to be unable to muster the small amount of strength required to stand up for a child. It should have been easy to walk in and stop that rape. It should have been a reflex. This graduate student continues to work for the university for 9 years without talking about the crime he witnessed. Well this fellow quite obviously serves no useful purpose in civilization. His departure would go unnoticed. The same for Paterno. You, sir, should be somewhat more than ashamed. You could go apply for work at the Vatican which, along with Penn State University, seems to run an efficient child rape network.
I am free to say that because high-ranking university officials have been charged with leaving the alleged crime unreported to police. This puts the official posture of the university as being one of active coverup. It seems probable that knowledge of the alleged crimes will be more widespread in the university than currently understood.
One thing you can count on – if it had been one of Paterno’s grandchildren getting raped in that locker room, he most certainly would have called the police. He didn’t because he just didn’t give a shit.
The disgusting refusal by grown men to defend a child warrants not only the immediate dismissal of Joe Paterno, but also the closing down of the school’s football program at least until a very thorough investigation deeper into the university’s structure can be completed.
The only correct posture when you see a kid being raped is physical violence against the perpetrator followed by a call to 911. Whatever Joe Paterno might say in the next few days to defend himself, ignore him and remember that defending a child from rape is a very simple and easy decision to make.