Class-War Zones

Then—Washington, DC, 1932: Bonus Army marchers' shacks burn after attack by military.

October 25, 2011: violent pre-dawn police raid on Occupy Oakland camp.
photo: Jay Finneburgh/Reuters
caption: Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen, a former U.S. Marine and Iraq war veteran, is carried away after being injured during a demonstration in Oakland, California October 25, 2011.
Bag News Notes

This was a vet who had survived two tours in Iraq that sustained head injury from a police projectile. (Scott Olsen's condition has since been upgraded, from "critical" to "fair.")

A Majority Report listener called the 26th, to share her own experience—

"Woman arrested in OccupyOakland: tear gas came first, cop withheld medicine."

Medicine to treat her MS, that is.

Interesting that a major rationale for breaking up the encampment was concern over "sanitation": this slide show reveals the debris created by police on the site, which occupiers had been maintaining by their own organizational effort.

New arrests around the country, this weekend.

And weather happens: NYC occupiers camp out in snow, after having their power generators confiscated.

No matter how things play out with occupations themselves, the movement has been brilliant in forcing attention—and in highlighting the 99 Percent theme.

Majority Report has been invaluable at covering events, with Sam Seder's trips to Zuccotti Park, reports from listeners, and daily interviews. Weeks ago Sam's take was that this is a real turning point: a movement where participants' sense of having nothing to lose is so strong that they would commit to living outdoors, without basics of survival.

And the ingenuity with which the movement has developed strategies outside the official media is something Sam continues to cover extensively. And spotlighting the creativity of responses to the occupations' themes, have been interviews like one with "Fake Fox News Guy," artist Chris Cobb.

The word has been getting out, to more and more of the 99 Percent.

And there was a stunning performance in Congress.

Not by Congress—or it's execrable Super Committee.

But hearings before the latter were interrupted by a citizen, calmly and brilliantly speaking truth.