By Yotam Marom

The occupation of Wall Street is now in its third week. Thousands of people have worked and fought for it, have given it their time, their bodies, their ideas, their blood. People have used their bodies as shields, sent letters of solidarity, marched, slept out, donated, tweeted, and more. There are thousands more still who have not been with us, whether because of geographical reasons or because they are busy struggling elsewhere.

I have been involved, in some way, with the occupation on Wall Street since the first planning meeting a number of months ago, and I have been out there almost every day since the occupation actually began, though mostly keeping quiet and working on the sidelines – often critically. I have participated in assemblies and working groups, done outreach to community organizations, pushed demands, been to dozens of meetings, gone hoarse from chanting about the banks, been bruised by metal police batons while marching for Troy Davis, and had about a million incredible conversations – at the occupation at Liberty Plaza itself, in other political contexts around New York, and even in jail with the 87 friends I made during the mass arrests of September 24th. I am not an authority, and others have struggled and sacrificed much more than I, but I have learned a lot; enough, I think, to begin sharing some of it.

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The New York City Transit Workers Union filed a restraining order Monday to prevent the NYPD from forcing city bus drivers to transport arrested demonstrators in MTA vehicles, NY1 reports.

On Saturday, 744 people, protesting as part of the ongoing Occupy Wall Street movement, were penned and arrested as they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. The NYPD, strapped for a way to take so many prisoners to city precincts, commandeered five MTA buses and their drivers.

The Transit Workers Union Local 100′s executive committee, which oversees the 38,000-member organization of city subway and bus workers, had voted unanimously only a few days earlier to support the protesters.

According to The New York Daily News, Union President John Samuelsen called ordering bus drivers to drive prisoners “a blatant act of political retaliation.”

“This was a peaceful protest until the police came along,” Samuelsen told The New York Post, adding that cops are technically allowed to commandeer bus drivers in case of an emergency but scoffed at the notion that Saturday’s events were even close to crossing that threshold.

“This is not 9/11. There was no state of emergency whatsoever. They have no right to press our bus operators into performing emergency services,” he said. “We’re down with these protesters!”

Police officials have yet to comment on the injunction filed by the TWU.

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News is by now get­ting around that today there were mass ar­rests of Oc­cupy Wall Street pro­test­ers—700 or more—on the Brook­lyn Bridge. As over a thou­sand marchers made their way to­ward the bridge a few min­utes after 3 p.m., they split into two groups. Some fol­lowed mem­bers of the Di­rect Ac­tion Com­mit­tee who led the way up the el­e­vated pedes­trian walk­way in the mid­dle of the bridge. An­other group, how­ever, broke away and took to the Brook­lyn-bound road on the bridge’s south side, even­tu­ally fill­ing the whole road­way so that no traf­fic could get through. The front row of them locked arms and pro­ceeded. At first, po­lice had blocked nei­ther en­trance.

Be­fore the marchers on the road­way reached the first stone tower, and hav­ing been led by a pha­lanx of se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, they were in­ter­cepted from the other side. (Even The New York Times of­fers ev­i­dence that the po­lice may have pur­posely planned to lure marchers into a trap.) Out came dozens of dark-blue shirted of­fi­cers with plas­tic cuffs—ac­tu­ally, card­board boxes full of them. Some of­fi­cers un­rolled the same type of or­ange nets they had used the pre­vi­ous Sat­ur­day to make nearly 100 ar­rests, while oth­ers lined up op­po­site the pro­test­ers, halted them, and began to ap­pre­hend and cuff them, one by one.

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When I suggested the other day that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was a closet supporter of Occupy Wall Street, I was being somewhat ironic. Little did I know Kelly would go this far to publicize the protesters’ cause.

In arresting some seven hundred marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon, the N.Y.P.D. managed to turn the protest into the top story on the BBC World News site. That’s right. The arrests topped the friendly fire killings in Yemen, renewed fighting in Libya and Syria, and speculation over whether Chris Christie will enter the presidential race—all for a peaceful demo involving perhaps two thousand people.

It isn’t clear whether the police deliberately allowed the demonstrators onto the bridge or whether they temporarily lost control of the crowd. But interviews with the protesters suggest that many of them thought they had been given permission to use the roadway, indicating that they weren’t willfully breaking the law. Whatever happened to begin with, the N.Y.P.D. brass clearly seized the opportunity to show who’s boss.

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UPDATE: Radiohead is no longer playing at #OccupyWallStreet

The Occupy Wall Street protesters camped out in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park are buzzing over a big secret musical guest scheduled to play this afternoon at around 4pm. We hear that it’s Radiohead, who are in New York for a couple concerts.

It makes sense: Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke has a history of lefty anti-globalization protest. What do you think: Are the millionaires from Radiohead authentic enough to be the bards of revolution? They’re certainly capable of mobilizing people: When their New York show sold out in minutes they almost caused a Twitter riot.

This has been confirmed by #OccupyWallStreet.

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The conversation that began on Wall Street on September 17 has swept northward to Boston, and inspired a powerful national movement. Joining with nearly 100 actions in cities from Los Angeles to Dallas, Chicago,and Washington D.C., concerned citizens have come to speak out for greater economic equality.

Occupy Boston will gather at Dewey Square in Downtown Boston on Friday,September 30 at 6 p.m., to begin an ongoing protest, discuss the state of the union and develop out of that discussion a list of specific changes to ensure our government actually works for the benefit of all citizens.

Planning this event began with a group of over 200 people from all walks of life who assembled on Boston Common Tuesday evening to discuss taking action. Paul Harris of the Guardian covered the meeting, saying,”[..]the people behind Occupy Boston showed a strong dose of media savvy and organizational skill on [Tuesday] night, as they drew a committed crowd of volunteers to their cause: to occupy a slice of the city.”

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The executive board of the New York City’s Local 100 Transit Workers’ Union has endorsed Occupy Wall Street. The decision means they will be holding a “coordinating meeting,” according to Lisa Sabater of The Daily Gotham, with community and labor organization to decide how to “come together and better support the Occupy Wall Street campaign.” This is very significant news. It gives the action further credibility and adds to the support New York postal workers and the PSC union of City University of New York have shown to the occupation.

Last night, it was almost like MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and Current TV’s Keith Olbermann were competing to see who could air the most segments on Occupy Wall Street during their program. O’Donnell won giving filmmaker Michael Moore and the occupiers twenty minutes (almost) for two segments that were broadcast live from Zuccotti Park, where the occupation has been taking place. Then, O’Donnell did a segment on Officer Anthony Bologna, whom the NYPD claims they will now be investigating after he pepper-sprayed protesters (we’ll just have to wait and see if they actually do any reasonable investigation). Olbermann had on Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi and WNYC’s Arun Vendogopal to talk about the nature of the movement. And, in all seriousness, it may have seemed like a competition; really this is the kind of coverage the corporate media should be giving to the story. (See yesterday’s live blog for all video links.)

The NYPD’s treatment of protesters, especially when they do something that is “unpermitted” has certainly changed. Contrast how they handled an issue with the media using a tarp to cover their equipment yesterday…

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It’s unsurprising that establishment media outlets have been condescending, dismissive and scornful of the ongoing protests on Wall Street. Any entity that declares itself an adversary of prevailing institutional power is going to be viewed with hostility by establishment-serving institutions and their loyalists. That’s just the nature of protests that take place outside approved channels, an inevitable by-product of disruptive dissent: those who are most vested in safeguarding and legitimizing establishment prerogatives (which, by definition, includes establishment media outlets) are going to be hostile to those challenges. As the virtually universal disdain in these same circles for WikiLeaks (and, before that, for the Iraq War protests) demonstrated: the more effectively adversarial it is, the more establishment hostility it’s going to provoke.

Nor is it surprising that much of the most vocal criticisms of the Wall Street protests has come from some self-identified progressives, who one might think would be instinctively sympathetic to the substantive message of the protesters. In an excellent analysis entitled “Why Establishment Media & the Power Elite Loathe Occupy Wall Street,” Kevin Gosztola chronicles how many of the most scornful criticisms have come from Democratic partisans who — like the politicians to whom they devote their fealty — feign populist opposition to Wall Street for political gain.

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The occupiers took off on a march in the evening, as they have done for the duration of the occupation. They had drums and were chanting loudly, “All day, all week Occupy Wall Street.” A dance party was happening in an intersection. Police could have rolled out their orange moving cages to stop the protesters and force them back to Zuccotti Park (renamed Liberty Park by the protesters), where the occupation has been taking place. But, the word came from a commanding officer on the scene that the NYPD was to escort them wherever they wanted to go. The mobile freedom cages were rolled back up.

Naturally, they went to go show solidarity with the postal workers union holding a rally to protest impending layoffs and cutbacks to the postal service. Loud cheers erupted when Occupy Wall Street marchers showed up to the rally. Someone with Occupy Wall Street was even given the opportunity to speak. The representative with the occupation said over a megaphone the occupiers wanted to come down and show support because America needs its post offices. The representative invited postal workers to come down to Liberty Park and share their grievances with the occupiers. That received another loud cheer. Then they chanted together, “What’s disgusting? Union busting!”

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A teachers union and a postal workers union are now reportedly taking an interest in Occupy Wall Street. The PSC union at the City University of New York has already shown support for the occupation, as have members of the Industrial Workers of the World.

A few major segments on Occupy Wall Street ran on Monday night. “Countdown” hosted by Keith Olbermann interviewed a protester, who had been pepper-sprayed (someone who was not involved in the incident with Officer Bologna, which has become well-known). “Piers Morgan Tonight” had Michael Moore on the show and Moore discussed American capitalism and Occupy Wall Street…

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