Photo by Josh Yospyn: Occupy DC protesters surrounded the Convention Center Friday night, trapping attendees of a dinner hosted by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity inside. One person was struck by a car and taken to a hospital.
More photos - Story on WJLA (disclosure: where I work):
You don’t get any better dichotomy than this — between those inside and those outside. Be sure to check WJLA’s coverage at the link.
Injured person at Occupy DC protests: This protester got hit by a car, reportedly. We’re hearing a few things right now (some via Twitter user @LucyKafanov): First, a few protesters have been arrested; second, they’ve started to return to McPherson Square after protesting outside of the DC Convention Center for a couple of hours, and they may hit the White House, which is nearby; and finally, the mood overall is volatile. Check out live video of the DC protest, and other Occupy protests, over here.
Here’s the scene from the Occupy DC protest: The video comes from Occupy K Street, one of the protest hot spots in the city (there are two). They have more videos here. (Unrelated editor’s note: Whenever Tumblr’s Mark Coatney stops into town to have a meetup, the bar he usually picks, The Passenger, is right in this general area.)
Occupy DC heats up outside Reagan tribute: Hundreds of protesters blocked streets near the Washington DC Convention Center near Mt. Vernon Square tonight, in an attempt to prevent people from leaving the center. Why’s that? Well, it’s currently hosting the Defending the American Dream summit, a Ronald Reagan tribute put together by Americans for Prosperity and featuring the two top presidential hopefuls, Herman Cain and Mitt Romney, amongst many other conservative icons. Here’s the scene from outside, via Washington Post reporter Tim Craig, who is there and writing stories about what’s happening and took the photo, above. Two people have been reported injured thus far — both hit by cars.
Yes, but this is a bit like saying “She shouldn’t have been wearing that tight dress.”
There is no ethics scandal here. There’s nothing ethically wrong with having an opinion, she didn’t use her position as an NPR employee to advance that opinion, and she certainly didn’t deserve to be fired.
Agreed; she wasn’t working as journalist and she didn’t deserve to be fired for what’s effectively an unrelated-to-work activity. There’s no conflict of interest between opera and a widespread political movement. But at the same time, it’s just like … I can see that reason not flying with NPR, considering how they’ve handled this type of thing before. None of this is to say “this is how NPR should handle this.” But it’s more to say “this is how NPR probably will handle this.”
(Source: theatlanticwire.com)
I find it puzzling that NPR objects to my exercising my rights as an American citizen — the right to free speech, the right to peaceable assembly — on my own time in my own life. I’m not an NPR employee. I’m a freelancer. NPR doesn’t pay me. I’m also not a news reporter. I don’t cover politics. I’ve never brought a whiff of my political activities into the work I’ve done for NPR World of Opera. What is NPR afraid I’ll do — insert a seditious comment into a synopsis of Madame Butterfly?NPR freelancer Lisa Simeone • Discussing her firing as the freelance host of two NPR music shows, Soundprint and World of Opera, for playing spokesperson for Occupy DC. (EDIT: Simeone only got booted off Soundprint, not World of Opera, which is run by an NPR affiliate who is standing by Simeone. The earlier version of the article we used was incorrect.) We can to some degree see her point, but … this is NPR we’re talking about here. They’ve had to fight off two pretty significant controversies in the past twelve months, and they’ve approached them with some hardcore seriousness. So, yes, while the Occupy movement has nothing to do with opera, she’s also working with what’s perhaps the organization that needs to walk on eggshells the most regarding ethics scandals. Say what you will Lisa — you do have some valid points — but you should’ve been aware of how NPR would’ve handled this based on what happened with Juan Williams.
While most people in DC for the MLK Memorial dedication were content with the spectacle of that, Dr. Cornel West decided to get arrested in front of the Supreme Court. Seems like the best way to get the full civil rights experience.
As far as anyone knew I was part of this cause — a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator — and I wasn’t giving up before I had my story. Under a cloud of pepper spray I forced myself into the doors and sprinted blindly across the floor of the Air and Space Museum …American Spectator assistant editor Patrick Howley • Discussing his role in the Air & Space Museum protests on Saturday, which (in a story since deleted from the site, but repeated elsewhere) he claims to have helped escalate. Howley claims he did this in an effort to commit an act of journalism (and to mock the protesters in the process, which his article most certainly did), but the result appears to have been a large amount of negative press for a James O’Keefe-esque act. source (via • follow)
Members of Occupy D.C. react to pepper spray after the group tried to push its way into the National Air and Space Museum Saturday.
Photo by Jose Luis Magana (AP)
Hit the link for some more details about the antiwar protest we mentioned last night.
jron said: So…people should only protest away from families? I don’t understand the disagreement w the venue. Not one I’d participate in, but made sense to do it there.
» SFB says: No, it’s not necessarily that. Rather, this feels like a situation where it turns off people moderately interested in the cause by taking it a notch too far. The point could have been made in better ways — say, by not attempting to storm the doors and get past security. Let’s face it — detractors will be looking for any reason possible to dismiss this movement, and this is one of those cases where it gives those people additional fodder, instead of taking it away. That’s the concern with this particular protest. — Ernie @ SFB
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They were protesting a drone exhibit. The antiwar movement got a real kick in the pants today after a high-profile protest tied to Occupy DC and the similar Stop the Machine demonstration led to the shutdown of a well-known Smithsonian museum. One protester was arrested and another was pepper-sprayed during the protest. Honestly, we’re not sure how we feel about this one. We’ve been here before (there’s an IMAX theater here) and the museum is fairly innocuous and family-oriented. A lot of kids go there, a cred point underscored by the fact that the second “Night at the Museum” movie was partly set there. And based on a lot of the comments on the YouTube video, that seems to be what’s angering people — not the protest itself. What do you all think? Was this the right venue for this protest? source
Pretty small right now — the Washington Post’s Suzy Khimm says only 20 people met up yesterday — but nonetheless it’s interesting. They also have a specific goal — going after the huge amount of corporate money in politics. I work close to these guys; I might stop by. — Ernie @ SFB
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