From “The Stockbroker’s Lady”
Occupy Wall Street
When I first became aware of the Occupy movement I was encouraged and felt that at last Americans might be waking up and ready to stand up to the wealthy men who owned and controlled their government and were stripping their country of its assets and destroying their way of life. In September 2011, I visited the Occupy camps in Eugene, Salem and Portland, Oregon. In Eugene I joined around two thousand protest marchers and it was invigorating to be with all these people pulling together for a cause.
I was most interested in the Occupy Wall Street activities in New York City where the billionaire crooks syphon off America’s lifeblood. Charles Schwab was a member of the NYSE and I wondered if OWS organizers might be interested in my battle with him and the US government.
In October 2011 I contacted a man named Steve who was working with the OWS media group. I provided a brief summary of my story and suggested he check out my website. If interested, I suggested he and his leaders consider organizing worldwide “Occupy Charles Schwab” protest marches. Steve responded with enthusiasm and said he would present my suggestion to the Action Committee to see what they thought. The next day I received an email from Steve who said the committee members were interested and were going to bypass the normal approval process and run with it. He said training for the protesters would begin right away. In another email he told me that the link to my website had been tweeted to over 200,000 people worldwide. Once more I was extremely excited. Steve wrote to tell me that organizing a worldwide protest would take lots of time, so they would first go it alone in NYC. On November 17 they were planning to march to the NYSE. Once there they would be conducting discussion groups and addressing various grievances, one of which would be my story about Charles Schwab. Steve told me several journalists had been notified and would be on hand to cover the story.
On November 17 I eagerly watched as the protest march got underway. The organizers announced that their destination was the NYSE and their purpose was to shut it down. All was going well until they reached the exchange where they were confronted by dozens of police officers who had barricaded the entrance to the exchange. The protesters milled around for a while until the organizers turned them around and led them back to the park where they had started. It was reported the next day that Mayor Bloomberg had ordered the arrest of three journalists who were present during this march. Bloomberg was also being blamed for abusive police action against the protesters—free speech and freedom of the press be damned.
On November 19, OWS attempted this march again and the protesters were told the barricades had been removed and the police would be more cooperative. When the protesters reached the exchange, however, something was wrong. They did not stop as planned, but kept moving, marching around the block and again back to the park. The organizers later reported that undercover cops had infiltrated and learned about their plans ahead of time so they would be ready for them. I was not privy to their discussions, but assumed their plans changed when they reached their destination and discovered there were no journalists present. This was a tremendous letdown.
After their second march on the NYSE failed, OWS organizers cut off communications with me. I was sorry to learn that Steve would not respond to my emails and had even blocked me as a Twitter follower so I could no longer receive his tweets. My guess was that the Obama administration had learned about their plans to publicize my story and issued another gag order. I could imagine President Obama and Schwab on the phone with NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg talking about how OWS plans to expose Schwab must be stopped. I’m sure it was an Obama gag order that caused OWS to cut off communications with me. So much for freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
June 22, 2015
The Occupy Wall Street movement seemed well-funded and organized. However, they were no match for those who control law enforcement and the media. Many journalists were being arrested during this time. Probably the most important factor in the decline of the OWC movement was the failure of Americans to join the movement against the 1% who owned and controlled every aspect of their lives. Unlike Europeans, Americans are brainwashed into believing they live in a utopia and dare not complain.
By Wayne Pierce
Updated: 31 January 2022