I 'Occupied Wall St.' Today. You Should Too

Posters Squared

Yesterday police arrested 80 people for marching from the Occupy Wall St. site at Zuccotti Park to Union Square in New York. They pepper sprayed protesters and generally made a mess of things whilst giving the movement some much needed publicity. Today things were much more calm after a ton of bad press for the NYPD in main stream media (MSM). In the park was music, food and plenty of friendly and interesting people. Also, plenty of cardboard and markers and paint were available for poster making. The grounds are covered with thousands of posters made by participants supporting the event, now in day 10. See OccupyWallSt.org. I sat next to a girl from Bahrain who was making peace posters and answered questions from a Chinese student as to how democracy and freedom of speech should and are now working in America. I made two posters. I got paint on my hands. And I saw a few thousand other people who feel as I do about the current state of the broken American economic machine. It's not working well for us. But today made me feel as if it can change. It was nice. It was liberating. It was my America back again - and why I'm back home again.

Mayor Bloomberg Warns of "Panic in the streets if companies don't start hiring".

And the land of the free passes another day. Metro New York reports that not only was a man arrested for using a bullhorn at the Occupy Wall Street protest, but gasoline for an electric generator was confiscated by police and cited as a 'fire hazard' - fuel that would be otherwise legal if used for a lawnmower, chainsaw or motorbike. Welcome to America, where freedom of speech is ok, so long as you don't use a bullhorn and petroleum products, the ones we wage wars over, are reserved for those who don't have a problem with the current economic situation. I have personally seen the protest and can tell you that activities are entirely peaceful, but it certainly seems as if the police are being brought in to disrupt things. And they are doing a fine American job of that. Luckily, attorney Samuel Cohen supports our right to free speech and is representing the protesters. "What these people are doing is the essence of the First Amendment. We want to make sure this is allowed to continue", he said. For video of police brutality against peaceful protesters, click here.

In other news, Mayor Bloomberg warns of "Panic in the streets if companies don't start hiring". Maybe finally, somebody in some position of power is getting it. Maybe.

Homeless 101: An Education in US Social Service Agencies

In the case of an expatriate returning to America from overseas, one's first step is to the US State Department and Hilary Clinton. They will loan you the money to purchase a plane ticket to get home at an unspecified interest rate and waste no time in getting you to sign a contract at your embassy or consulate overseas that says you are required to pay the money back in 90 days from arrival in the US. This of course is impossible because you will be unemployed with little chance of getting a job that will pay well in 90 days. With a stated unemployment rate of 9% in the US, the real rate (including under-employed), as quoted by too many magazines, is closer to 16% (figure the former executive who is now a greeter at Wal-Mart). But you will sign the loan agreement anyway, because basically, you have little or no choice. America wants you in the same debt prison the entire country is in. That makes you a patriot.(Continued...)

This blog. aHBiNYC is now available as an eBook. It covers the writer's homeless experiences in New York City from September 11, 2011 through January 2013 in 245 pages and 50 chapters. To order simply use the PayPal button in the sidebar, send $10, and include your email address in the PayPal memo form. Thank you.

"Occupy Wall Street" Protesters Stage Intervention on the American Financial/Political Complex

Make Jobs Not War

According to CBS News protesters have been occupying Wall Street and surrounding streets since Saturday in an effort to call attention to the real terrorists of the world financial crisis - the banks themselves.I and a friend walked down Sunday to lend support only to find the police had blocked off Wall Street itself and shuttled them into less obvious areas. We found a town hall meeting with protesters in a small park featuring a speaker with a bullhorn and a rather calm and reasoned discussion of the current financial mess. Whatever suspension of disbelief the participants might have originally brought to the subject of the financial crisis was firmly dissolved and replaced by indignant condemnation of the unhealthy bed partners of big bank business (read Goldman Sachs) and government. Geithner and Paulson as wolves guarding the hen house comes to mind.

Welcome to Bellevue and the Ghosts of New York's Psychologically Challenged

Bellevue

Bellevue Hospital Center, most often referred to as "Bellevue", was founded on March 31, 1736 and is the oldest public hospital in the United States. Located on First Avenue in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, Bellevue is famous from many literary, film and television references, and as the training ground for many of America's leaders in medicine. Affiliated with the New York University School of Medicine since 1968, Bellevue has been the site of many milestones in the history of medicine,^[1] from the establishment of the first ambulance service and first maternity ward, to Nobel Prize-winning cardiac catheterization laboratory - according to Wikipedia. But that's not what Bellevue is most known for. New York magazine describes it  more succinctly as it is known to most New Yorkers:

"Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, the Bellevue that for 78 years has stood, gloomy and gated, on 30th and First, the Bellevue made infamous in movies and nightmares, the forbidding destination for so many celebrated and notorious New Yorkers that it stands as a chilling landmark: the Chelsea Hotel of the mad." Today Bellevue stands as a homeless shelter for men and whilst the lunatics of the past have vacated the premises an entire group of new lunatics have moved in. I know them well. I live there. (Continued...)

This blog. aHBiNYC is now available as an eBook. It covers the writer's homeless experiences in New York City from September 11, 2011 through January 2013 in 245 pages and 50 chapters. To order simply use the PayPal button in the sidebar, send $10, and include your email address in the PayPal memo form. Thank you.

Make Jobs, Not War!

What Obama's speech should have said: "Good evening. To get American working again, we must cut our massive war budget and find better ways to spend that money. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America."

Repatriation

Repatriation. The basic idea is that you will cease being an expat and go home. More to follow...