Bloomberg's blackshirts are attacking Union Square in New York...

[backscatter712]

http://www.ustream.tv/timcast

[Chan790]

1. How much longer before that asshole is out of office?

I can't wait. Until then, my favorite tee-shirt reads "Fuck Bloomy!" In all the time I lived in NYC, I never got anything but positive looks and support for it.

[Lint Head]

2. Thanks!

[Lint Head]

3. 500 cops!

[aquart]

4. Attacking or standing around collecting overtime?

There's a difference. How many arrested? Injured?

[backscatter712]

5. They've got the park surrounded.

You've ever watched these raids live? It takes time for them to play out. There's usually a couple hours or more of cops deploying, forming lines, erecting barricades, coming out with riot gear..., but when they give the go signal and the police attack, it happens quick.

[backscatter712]

6. Seems the police are holding off for the moment.

Maybe they decided there was too many people and too much publicity (too many people watching Timcast), and decided to back off for a while, maybe just a couple of hours, maybe for the night.

Who knows what's going to happen?

But for a while, there was a record number of cops - two cops for each protester at least, coming at the park from all sides, and Tim was saying it looked like they were deploying as if they were preparing to kettle and arrest everyone.

[backscatter712]

7. Things appear to have calmed down for the time being.

The Occupiers seem to have won for tonight - many of the police are leaving.

It was scary earlier - I thought they were going to crack skulls.

[sabrina 1]

8. Their strategy is to strike in the middle of the night when many people have already left.

They learned that attacking peaceful US Citizens in the middle of the day didn't make them look good.

Reminds of the 'Night Raids' the military does in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our police departments are so militarized it's frightening. Especially since they have such an adversarial attitude towards the American people.

OWS should start changing its strategy also. Making sure that large crowds remain throughout the night with lots of coverage. If they want to handle this like a military operation then the protestors will need to be more creative about foiling them. The goal is to crush the movement obviously.

[starroute]

9. At this point, it doesn't look like anything is going to happen

Tim Pool is just sitting around talking with some other livestreamers about how much they need to catch up on their sleep. A lot of cops have left, a lot of occupiers have left ...

I don't know quite what that whole show of strength was about -- unless the cops have decided that if they can just stop the occupiers from occupying, they win.

Meanwhile, they're not noticing that the real strength of the occupiers at the moment is in taking the streets. The march after the rally was so large that the police couldn't stop it, control it, or even keep up with it. It was guided by the hivemind, meaning that even the marchers didn't know where they were going until they found a direction.

At one point, they happened upon the Wall Street bull at an unguarded moment, pulled down the barricades, and were polishing its testicles and posing on top of it until a dozen cops showed up to guard it with their bodies. (Tim Pool got video and will post the clip of that tomorrow.) And then the crowd just moved on.

Last fall's occupations were great for getting people together and forming relationships and strategies. But mobility has its own advantages.

[aquart]

10. So. Lotta standing around collecting overtime.

[backscatter712]

11. Your tax dollars at work... n/t