Here’s the audio of the interview with Mayor Quan (via Gregg Levine) where she mentions a recent conference call among “18 cities across the country” to discuss the occupy movement. From the 5:30 mark:

Quan: I was recently on a conference call of 18 cities across the country who had the same situation, where what had started as a political movement and a political encampment ended up being an encampment that was no longer in control of the people who started them.

And I think what you’re starting to see is the occupy movement is looking for more stability. I spent a lot of last week talking to peaceful demonstrators… They’re now looking for a private space where they can go to do community organizing around the issues that started the movement.

There was a recent conference call, and now there’s a bunch of evictions. Never say that our political leaders can’t work together on the really important stuff.

I’d like to know the names of the 18:

Oakland Mayor Quan lets slip in BBC interview that she was on conf. call w/ leaders of 18 #occupy cities discussing how to break up camps. – @GreggJLevine

Are Democrats and Republicans working together to silence dissent? Bipartisanship!

That’s probably true, but I doubt many people at FDL support or vote for Republicans. What’s new, for me, is that I no longer see the advantage of voting for Democrats, even as a lesser evil. The occupations have shown that the Democrats are beyond corrupt – they are hostile opponents to a free speech and economic justice movement that is so temperate, its signature tactic is setting up tents and sleeping outdoors in public parks.

The occupations have demonstrated that Democrats will use force to protect the privilege of the economic elites. Your natural right to free speech ends when a Democratic mayor says it ends. They will use force to oppose and shut down anyone who becomes too disruptive (or just an annoyance) to the people who own this country.

Wow. Watch the video that Kevin linked to (and recorded) of Ethan McCord, one of the first soldiers on the scene after the air attack shown in “Collateral Murder”. It’s no wonder Iraq refused to give legal immunity to US military forces. And for the US government, soldiers in the military are just as expendable as Iraqi children.

I grew up very conservative. I grew up thinking, you know, it’s my duty to serve in the military.

When 9/11 happened, I ran out and joined the military. I have to go serve. I have to go fight the Muslims who attacked us on 9/11. And, what I found strange is, when I got to Iraq is I felt that I had more in common with the people over there than I did with the people who sent me to war to begin with.

It’s interesting that even the police are using the people’s mic to communicate with the occupiers. Tonight, Josh tweeted that one police officer twinkled:

You can guess what the policeman did. He held his hands up in the air and wiggled his fingers!

Transforming society one person at a time:

Justin, who helps run @occupywallstnyc, tells me other cops were watching. “I think the next time we ask them to do it, we will get more.”

Here’s a video that shows how the consensus process works, including demonstrations of some of the hand signals (via In These Times).

We amplify each others voices. We amplify each others voices. So we can hear one another. So we can hear one another.

On Saturday night, I read that two groups of protesters separated by police near Times Square used the people’s mic to communicate across the police lines. It’s a great technique. And it keeps the police from shutting down a protest by simply arresting the person with the bullhorn.

Good evening athena1. Kevin Gosztola mentioned that Naomi Wolf was arrested tonight. According to Josh Harkinson, she’s now been issued a summons and released:

@NYPDNews just jumped on the #PeoplesMic: “Mic check. I’ve just been informed that @NaomiWolf has been issued a summons & released” #ows

Josh is at a bar right now, next to the police station, talking to some of the occupiers who marched to the police station, and tweeting about what went down at the station.

Micah Uetricht, who contributes to In These Times, was one of the people arrested in Chicago. He tweeted a picture of the human chain they formed, and kept tweeting even after he was arrested.

@MotherJones in the back of paddy wagon with a bunch of awesome protesters. #occupychi

The Iraq anti-war protests were much larger in the lead-up to the invasion. According to a BBC report from February 17, 2003, “Between six and 10 million people are thought to have marched in up to 60 countries over the weekend – the largest demonstrations of their kind since the Vietnam War.” The numbers for some of the cities is astounding:

• Barcelona – 1.3 million according to police

• London – 750,000 according to police, 2 million according to organizers

• Rome – 650,000 according to police, 3 million according to organizers

Thanks for the link to the gallery. FWIW, the justin.tv stream is down now, too. But Ustream was back up briefly (now it’s out again).

I’m turning in for the night. Have a goodnight athena1. Thanks for the roundup and the updates.

To push the protesters around and to intimidate them. Also, it elevates the officers, giving them a good view of what’s going on in the crowd.

I lost the livestream at Ustream, but there’s a livestream at justin.tv that’s still running.

I had to close down Firefox and restart everything. Flash leaks like a sieve, and it ran my Firefox memory usage up near 1GB.

While things get tense in Chicago, there’s some potentially good news from Seattle:

A Seattle police sergeant just told me “it’s unlikely” any #OccupySeattle protesters will be arrested tonight. No hard decision tho

Micah Uetricht posted a picture of the human chain they formed in Chicago, “staring down cops.”

They’re cheering for everyone watching the livestream while we’re cheering for them.

We need people sharing this livestream footage. We don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. We need everyone seeing this.

From the livestream:

The cops are in the middle of Michigan Avenue… We’ve been warned twice to leave… We probably have about 1,000 people, between the crowd across the street and the people right here.

People’s mic starting up now. There’s a proposal to form a human chain, for people willing to get arrested.

It’s back on. And now it’s gone again.

I have video and audio, but it’s not live anymore. Even time I load it, I see the same video re-start.