Occupy Houston yesterday

Wore my black suit, my white shirt, and picked out a tie that I would be most likely not to be upset about if it got ruined -- you know, mud or blood or something -- and jumped the train downtown early yesterday morning to join the march by 8:30 a.m.

I counted about 200 people at the assembly area, walked over to say hello to Richard Shaw of the AFL-CIO, and gave a lengthy interview to a Bloomberg.com reporter who furiously took notes (no camera). She asked me my age, where I was from, what I did for a living, my tax bracket, my annual income ... and whether that was a Hermes tie I was wearing. I said, "I don't think so," and turned it over to look at the label. Neiman Marcus. *heavy sigh*

The march began at nine and we stopped just a few blocks away in front of the Chase tower, chanted "They got bailed out, we got sold out" and some other things while people in the building came out and took pictures of us. There were about 50 yards of empty plaza between us, with a handful of HPD spaced appropriately between. A good video of that scene from FOX 26:



On to City Hall and the reflecting pool grounds in front, where we scaled the steps and got a little louder at the front door before moving back to the top-step staging area. I estimated the crowd at around 500 by now; several people spoke and more announcements about the continuing occupation were made. Around 10:30 a single conservative disruptor with a sign that said "Blame Yourselves!" waded in to the assembly, was surrounded quickly by maybe six HPD officers, escorted several feet back and  maintained his self-appointed police security while a handful of people exchanged vocal pleasantries with him. I left the protest at 11 a.m. with a gritty slime around my neck that was assembling itself to trickle down my back. By the time I made it to the Main Street light rail station in front of the Foley's/Macy's and boarded the southbound, I was whipped. Sore feet, sore back, sweated all the way through the collar to the afore-mentioned neckwear.

I was interviewed by ABC-13, FOX 26, some radio station whose call letters I didn't catch, and the Bloomberg.com reporter mentioned previously (must have been the suit). But I don't appear to have survived any video edits Pardon me. FOX 26 did give me some airtime here (about 1:05 in). I am however also seen but not heard in this one, giving my radio interview starting about the :50 mark.



As previously linked, the Houston FOX affiliate's reporting was thorough and fair and balanced. Really. No, really; they did a good job. More local coverage:

Chron: Protesters target bank, City Hall as Occupation spreads to Houston. With short video and 14 photos. I'm in #9 (number 9, number 9 ... that's odd. Must be the Herman Cain Effect, who was also in town to pimp his book and bad-mouth the protestors' First Amendment exercise. Speaking of exercise, Herm ...) Update: They have added some photos to the slideshow; I'm now #13 of 18.

KTRK: Occupy Wall Street spin-offs come to Texas, including Houston. Houston's ABC affiliate had the best coverage by far. Excellent video report, tying in with the beatdowns in New York. Two more raw videos, one long from the overhead chopper, one short on the ground. 79 photos.

Houston Community Newspapers: OccupyHouston puts ‘civility’ in civil unrest at downtown protest. Nice touch pointing out the kindler, gentler part. The pre-march announcement from the legal team -- about 6-10 green-hatted volunteers -- coached the crowd, emphasizing the "non-violent, non-disruptive" nature of the protest. Since the organizers didn't have a permit, we would repeat instructions to 'stay out of the street and cross in the crosswalk' at the ten or so intersections we navigated between Market Square Park and City Hall. I did this myself, making sure to stand close to the horse-mounted HPD officer so he could hear me as I cautioned the marchers. More than once, a horse stretched his muzzle over to me and sniffed my arm or nibbled at my shirt.

News 2 Houston: Houstonians Protest Big Business. The NBC affiliate locally provides a weak headline, a dry account, and an antiseptic (3b and 4a) video.

If you see any more reports, video, or audio, please add them in the comments.

Update: More from Neil.

Nobody can predict the moment of revolution

Memo to the Super Rich, your high-paid lobbyists and your no-compromise political puppets whose sole mission is destroying the presidency: Yes, you are succeeding. You’re also killing the economy.

Thanks to your self-destructive ideology, America is now in the second of back-to-back Lost Decades. A new one on the heels of the 2000-2010 Lost Decade where Wall Street lost more than 20% inflation-adjusted. Get it? You guys launched America’s second Lost Decade of 21st century.

Yes, two consecutive job-killing Lost Decades. The first created by Wall Street’s obsessive greed. The new one triggered by the widening wealth gap that’s feeding endless partisan political wars powered by super rich conservatives hellbent on re-establishing the same free-market, trickle-down Reaganomics policies that have been sabotaging America for the last generation.

Unfortunately, the new one gets worse. Why? The coming Lost Decade is a backdrop for a wave of class warfare destined to trigger a historic revolution in American politics, bigger than the ‘29 Crash and Great Depression.

The cavalry has arrived in Lower Manhattan. Representatives from no fewer than 15 of the country's largest labor unions will join the Occupy Wall Street protesters for a mass rally and march today in New York City.

The AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers, and Transit Workers' Union are among the groups expected to stand in solidarity with the hundreds of mostly young men and women who have spent the better part of three weeks sleeping, eating, and organizing from Zuccotti Square.

Their arrival is being touted as a watershed moment for the "Occupy" movement, which has now seen copycat protests spring up across the country. And while the specific demands of the "occupiers" remain wide-ranging, the presence of the unions – implicitly inclined to making more direct demands – may sharpen their focus.

Actually, they have more in common with the tea party movement than the hippie dream, with one key difference: They’re smart enough to recognize the nation’s problems aren’t simply about taxes and the deficit.

They want jobs. They want the generation in power to acknowledge them. They want political change. They want responsibility in a culture that abdicates it. They want a decent future of opportunity.

If that isn’t American, then what is?

Another key difference between today’s kids and their hippie forefathers: They’re willing to gut it out.

The press seems confused. There were signs about Afghanistan, taxes, Wall Street greed, corporate responsibility and just about every pet cause out there. But what some decry as a lack of focus is really about them not getting it: This movement is about money. It’s about wasting money. It’s about greed for money guiding those in power. It’s about the inequitable distribution of money.

Most of all, it’s about process. In a “general assembly” meeting Saturday, Occupy Wall Street came up with its first official document. It is a powerful summation of grievances, not just of the young, but of many Americans: home foreclosures, workers rights, Internet privacy, health care and bailouts.

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

Occupy.

Everybody has a piece of advice for the protesters at Occupy Wall Street. They should put their clothes on. They should stop raising their fists. They should fact-check their handwritten signs. They should appoint leaders who can give pithy quotes to reporters. They should get with an electoral program. Nicholas Kristof even offered to help them out with a neat list of demands, in case those holding signs saying “We Are the 99%” just needed to have the unfairness of the carried interest rule explained to them. [...]

It’s not that the demands being suggested by OWS’s volunteer policy advisors in the blogosphere are not worthy ideas. At a time when we desperately need to rein in financial speculation and change the incentives on Wall Street, a financial transactions tax is a terrific policy proposal. Dean Baker has been talking about it for years. The thing is, we on the left don’t have a scarcity of policy ideas. We are positively bursting with them. Create a housing trust fund! A national infrastructure bank! And, yes, sure, eliminate the carried interest loophole so fat cats don’t get a bigger tax break than working people. (Some even have more radical ideas, which are quite sensible too.) But at best, we get a polite hearing for these ideas, which then fade away or are hopelessly watered down. We simply lack the power to put them into practice.

What do the powerless have left to do when the powerful have taken everything else away from them? Protest.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. -- John F. Kennedy

Yes, the revolution is coming. And as you have long been told, it won't be seen on your television (due primarily to corporate media corruption, greed, and fear). It WILL however be Facebooked, Tweeted, blogged, streamed, uploaded, shared, and experienced live in Houston and many cities across the country and even around the world, in the streets by the other 99%, unfiltered by the powers that be.

No television coverage that makes any sense whatsoever to those who mostly watch Dancing With the Stars and/or Fox News ... unless the police again try to provoke civil disobedience into violent confrontation, like they did in New York and like they have done in Houston previously.

Violence always gets televised. Let's not let that happen.