When Dick Cheney’s daughter –not a native New Yorker- decided she wanted to hold a protest in NYC, she was allowed to have a HUGE covered sound stage, a JumboTron, they shut down Foley Square for her and I don’t remember anyone caging the ralliers with movable orange soft fencing or macing them.

Dick Cheney’s daughter was allowed to shut down one of the busiest traffic aggregators in lower Manhattan. She was allowed to erect her outdoor theater stage right in front of the main door to the federal courthouse–where she was protesting against holding the KSM trial in federal court. She was given her full measure of symbolism and First Amendment expression

Well, of course she was. She’s Dick Cheney’s daughter.

Contrast that with the Occupy Wall Street protests. There, the NYPD is denying the protestors the right to use blue tarps to cover themselves when it’s pouring rain. Movable orange fencing is being used to corral people. And unarmed and non violent protestors are being maced, punched and dragged.

The NYPD is not allowing the protest to actually happen anywhere near Wall Street itself, denying the protestors their symbolic expression. I understand that yesterday they were herded all the way up to Greenwich Village. Here’s the video [cont'd]

There has been an almost complete corporate media blackout of a protest that has been going on 24/7 for over a week. Our own Kevin Gosztola has been doing an amazing job of covering Occupy Wall Street protests and creating a platform to view the work of the LiveStream videographers. Without this amazing work and a lot of folks Tweeting, many would never know this was even happening.

But then again, Occupy Wall Street is not some astro turf faux “movement” with fancy outdoor theaters built and paid for by millionaires who want to make sure that Curtis Sliwa and Andy McCarthy don’t get rained on.

Nope, Occupy Wall Street is a shoe string, leaderless mass uprising, so of course corporate owned media has to make sure its message does not get out over airwaves it leases from us, the public.

Congratulations to the NY Daily News for having the guts to run a story.

And congratulations and best wishes to all the sister “occupy [insert name of place with excellent folks]” protests that are springing up all over the country. I found out about you all from Twitter, because, ya know, corporate media doesn’t think that’s news.

Mayor Mike should be ashamed of the disparate treatment being shown to different protest groups based on the content of their speech. Ray Kelly works for you, not the other way around, though sometimes it’s hard tell.

Ray Kelly opposed holding the KSM trial in NYC and Ray Kelly put out a red carpet for child of Cheney and her astro turfers to rally for his cause. Contrast that with the actions seen over the weekend.

One of the things that struck me is that most of the really heinous acts appear to have been done by police supervisory personnel, whom you can pick out wearing white shirts. The rank and file cops, in blue shirts, often seem uncomfortable performing their assignments. They appear to be trying to behave more professionally. I realize that’s just the impression I get from watching the Live Stream, but it makes me wonder.

Are regular beat cops not “with the program”? Are they not enjoying their orders from Kelly? Why are supervisors doing hands on policing thuggery?

Ray Kelly has disgraced this City and his own police force. Mayor Bloomberg, however. bears the ultimate responsibility, because Ray Kelly works for him.