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    The OB Media Rundown for 1/19/12

    January 19th, 2012 · · Daily Media Rundown 2 comments

    The Boston fishing party and Australians’ rights online

    An Australian activist is fighting an attempt by Boston authorities to subpoena information about her from Twitter in relation to the #occupy movement.

    Asher Wolf, a transparency and information activist, is based in Melbourne and over the past 18 months has quietly become one of the key people on Twitter for following news about transparency issues, WikiLeaks, net surveillance and the Occupy movement, via her extensive and systematic retweeting of information from around the world.
    . . .

    Australian lawyers Doogue & O’Brien, acting for Wolf and another, have told Goldberger and Twitter that they will resist the subpoena, given its broad scope and the “fishing expedition” nature of the request. “The ultimate effect of your subpoena is to pose a direct challenge to our client’s right to free speech. This is particularly concerning in light of the fact that one of our clients is a journalist who uses Twitter, amongst other media, to report on current affairs. Twitter encourages the free flow of information and reportage. The course which you have taken will inevitably stifle this important function.”

    http://tinyurl.com/7h7pw7l

    Actor: ‘Paul Robeson would have supported the Occupy movement if he was around today’

    On Tuesday, Tayo Aluko – performing as Paul Robeson in his one-man play “Call Mr. Robeson: A Life, with Songs” – took to the Hopkins Center’s Warner Bentley Theater stage carrying a chair on his back, accompanied by soft pangs of a reverberating piano that supported his deep baritone vocals. The performance, which mixed Aluko’s singing with a more traditional spoken one-man show, was a part of Dartmouth’s celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
    . . .

    In the program notes was a message from Aluko that documented his recent stay with a member of the Occupy Boston movement while on tour. The Occupy protester had recently been arrested for partaking in a sit-down in the lobby of a Boston bank.

    “Robeson would have supported the [Occupy movement] if he were around today, and it’s great to see the movement is literally worldwide,” Aluko said.

    http://tinyurl.com/89bj23x

    Globe regrets story

    A story in Monday’s paper about relationships that began during Occupy Boston featured a man, Robert Stitham, who is a registered sex offender. Had his status been discovered during reporting, the story would not have been published.

    http://tinyurl.com/7nsndqs

    Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/19/12” »

    The OB Media Rundown for 1/18/12

    January 17th, 2012 · · Daily Media Rundown Comments Off on The OB Media Rundown for 1/18/12
    ‘Occupy The T’ issues considered

    At the meeting, “Attendees stressed the importance of rejecting the state’s claim that there is no alternative to the two proposed regimes of cuts and fare hikes,” writer Doug Greene said.  He added, “Instead of deciding between the MBTA’s two proposed plans, ‘Occupy the T’ hopes to expose the role of for-profit financial institutions in creating and perpetuating the MBTA’s budget crisis. Several present argued that the banks should cancel the T’s debt and state fund the T directly by raising taxes on corporations and the richest 1% of state residents.”

    http://tinyurl.com/84kwr7z

    Lamar Smith Says SOPA Markup To Resume In February

    For all the talk from some that SOPA was “dead,” it appears it’s alive and well and getting ready for its big re-entrance. Lamar Smith has just sent out a press release saying that he intends to resume the markup in February

    There had been some talk that, due to Rep. Eric Cantor telling Rep. Darrell Issa that he would not take it to the floor, the bill was “dead.” But, we knew all along it was only “delayed.” Especially given the Senate’s planned vote next week. This really is zombie legislation. It will not die… because some businesses that don’t want to adapt want to make sure it never dies.

    http://tinyurl.com/7bzzsao

    Occupy protesters rally against Congress at Capitol

    In a sign of renewed vigor for the Occupy movement, which staged protests in many U.S. cities last fall, several hundred protesters gathered on the Capitol’s West Front Lawn to greet members of Congress returning from a holiday break with a day of rallies and protests they said would include attempts to occupy lawmakers’ offices.

    Occupy protesters from around the country who gathered on the rain-soaked lawn carried signs saying, “Face it liberals, the Dems sold us out,” “Congress for sale” and “Congress is not for sale.”

    http://tinyurl.com/6rh2uw2

    Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/18/12” »

    The OB Media Rundown for 1/17/12

    January 17th, 2012 · · Daily Media Rundown Comments Off on The OB Media Rundown for 1/17/12

    Those inspired hail King legacy in and around Boston

    And last night at the Arlington Street Church, the Occupy Boston movement dedicated its weekly gathering to exploring King’s legacy.

    “We see Martin Luther King as in the tradition of Occupy in that he occupied segregation, he occupied racial injustice, and he occupied discrimination,” said Brian Kwoba, 29, of Cambridge.

    http://tinyurl.com/732ja92

    Muzzling Dr. King

    True to form, then, it was business as usual at the city’s [Boston] annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast on Monday, with elected officials reducing Dr. King’s radical message to the usual platitudes about service to others – helping your neighbors with the snow shoveling, that sort of thing. Playing the “good Samaritan on life?s roadside” is fine for starters, King said, but “we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. … an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.” Oops. Sound familiar? Wasn’t there something like that going on this fall?

    So we have Mayor Thomas Menino saying he’s “proud that Dr. King’s personal history is rooted in our city” – though the Mayor wasn’t particularly pleased when #Occupy Boston took Dr. King’s message seriously. We like the man, alright? We just don’t like all this non-violent civil disobedience and First Amendment rights stuff.

    Governor Deval Patrick, for his part, urged attendees to follow King’s example by writing letters to soldiers serving in the U.S. military abroad. Really? Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine to write letters to people who – due to their patriotism, financial need, or some combination of both – are getting killed and maimed by the greatest expansion of imperial power in U.S. history, presided over by the nation’s first black president, no less. But to ask this of kids in the name of Martin Luther King, without mentioning King’s condemnation of imperialist wars, is an active betrayal of his legacy.

    http://tinyurl.com/7w5c76f

    Occupy protesters to gather outside Capitol, demonstrate against influence of corporate money

    Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement will meet outside the Capitol for what participants hope will become the largest gathering of Occupy activists from around the country.

    Participants say plan to decry the influence of corporate money in politics and show the House of Representatives what real democracy looks like. The House reconvenes Tuesday after its winter recess.

    The protest comes as the nation’s capital has emerged as one of the strongest bastions of the Occupy movement, in part because the National Park Service has allowed protesters to maintain their encampments in two public squares near the White House.

    http://tinyurl.com/7pv47oz

    Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/17/12” »

    The OB Media Rundown for 1/16/12

    January 16th, 2012 · · Daily Media Rundown Comments Off on The OB Media Rundown for 1/16/12

    Occupy protesters in Quincy target Bank of America

    According to occupyquincy.org, Occupy Quincy is part of a larger group, Occupy the South Shore, speaking out against big banks, primarily Bank of America.

    “Bank CEOs take home millions in bonuses for making more and more families homeless with aggressive foreclosures and squeezing more money out of customers with inflated interest rates and fees,” the website states.

    Those who attended the peaceful rally were encouraged to close their Bank of America accounts and do business with local credit unions. Quincy police were present, but no issues were reported.

    http://tinyurl.com/7r3pzvl

    Occupy the Courts protests planned

    The Occupy Boston encampment in Dewey Square is a fading memory. But now some of the same protesters have their eyes on another target, at least for one day: the federal court system.

    Organizers of Occupy The Courts are hoping for protests at federal courts across the country on Friday to commemorate the two-year anniversary of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court opinion which found that corporations have a First Amendment right to make unlimited campaign contributions.

    http://tinyurl.com/79r3qcg

    Protesters organise global candlelit vigil in honour of Martin Luther King day (and there’s another three months of demos to look forward to)

    Occupy protesters coordinated a global series of candlelight vigils tonight in honour of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

    Hundreds of Occupy activists, alongside members of the National Action Network, braved freezing temperatures for a march through Harlem, New York.

    Protesters aimed to light candles at 7pm in every time zone from ‘California to Cairo, New York to New Orleans, Germany to Nova Scotia.’

    http://tinyurl.com/7y2e453

    Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/16/12” »

    The OB Media Rundown for 1/15/12

    January 15th, 2012 · · Daily Media Rundown One comment
    Harvard Administration seizes, dismantles Occupy Harvard domeOn Day Sixty-Six of the longest occupation in Harvard’s history, and in a direct reversal of their previously stated commitment to ensure free speech in Harvard Yard, university administration removed and dismantled Occupy Harvard’s geodesic dome this afternoon at 4:55pm.

    http://tinyurl.com/84ql225

    MLK anniversary inspirational reading: Posthumous letter from an assassinated journalist (2009)

    In the course of the last few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print institutions have been burned, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories, and now especially the last.

    http://tinyurl.com/7sph9z

    New York Times editor asks public: ‘I’m looking for reader input on whether and when Times reporters should challenge ‘facts’ that are asserted by newsmakers they write about’

    The comments at Brisbane’s blog post are blistering. . .  I will just quote one to give you the tone. Matt Talbot in California: “That this should even be an open question is a sign that our supposedly independent press is a cowed and timid shadow of its former self.”

    http://tinyurl.com/6uk9u23

    Bus drivers’ union wins historic contract

    Following nearly a year of bitter struggle, the 800 members of the Boston School Bus Drivers’ Union, United Steelworkers Local 8751 rang in the new year, having won a successful contract. It contained the first-ever “Retirement with Dignity” package for those who have served the city’s schoolchildren and the cause of equal, quality education since 1974.
    . . .

    The union rallied daily with the Occupy Boston encampment at Dewey Square and Occupy the Hood in Roxbury’s Dudley Square. They led militant marches with Verizon and hotel workers, set up sound trucks for anti-war and labor marches, and participated in teach-ins, community speak-outs and veterans’ demonstrations.

    The bosses noticed, even docking union officers’ pay when they left a meeting early to join the occupation, hoping in vain to slow the workers’ momentum. The union gained the upper hand in the yards, on the streets and in the communities.

    http://tinyurl.com/7l4ueny

     

    Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/15/12” »

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