The Return of Occupy: Beaten, but Not Down
You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming. ~Pablo Neruda My head hurts. Three months after my arrest during an Occupy Wall Street protest on #D17, and two days away from my meeting with the Assistant DA about said arrest, I got beaten just outside of Zuccotti Park. I wasn’t the only one, and I have no doubt I won’t be the last. The NYPD has complete authority in this town. I hate using the term “police state,” but when I saw a girl thrown from a bus and tossed to the ground, in handcuffs, having…
Vultures Picnic – My Home is Now a Strange Place (Installment 2)
By Zach Roberts It’s weird where life takes you. In 2006, I started working for Greg Palast. He was one of my heroes. Most people know him for breaking the story of the stolen 2000 election. That was how I was introduced to his work as well, but the story that made me want to work for him was one of the lesser known ones from his best-seller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy “A Well-Designed Disaster: The Untold Story of the Exxon Valdez.” It blew me away. Everything I knew about one of the most important events in American history…
The Golden Calf and the Bronze Bull – What Would Moses Do?
~Photo by Zach Roberts By Shannyn Moore I remember wondering what gold tastes like. As a child sitting in Mrs. Harris’ Sunday school class, I listened raptly to her recount the biblical tale of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai armed with the Ten Commandments. He’d spent the last 40 days and nights meeting with God. Moses unleashed his fury when he saw what his people had been up to: drinking, partying and worshipping a golden calf made from melted jewelry. Moses smashed the tablets carved with God’s handwritten laws, ground up the idol and made them drink it. Those…
Mudflats on Wall Street (Video of Arrests at Protest)
The Mudflats’ New York Bureau Chief, Zach Roberts, has been doing an outstanding job covering the movement known as Occupy Wall Street. He has been our boots on the ground since the protests began, recently putting himself in harm’s way to expose the latest happenings. We’ve posted his photos before, but his current shots, and some outstanding video footage show a decidedly different mood than his earlier coverage. The following videos show some of the arrests that happened Wednesday night in the Wall Street area. A quick email from Zach said: People need to see this stuff… They threw…
Alan Grayson and the Purple People
By: Zach Roberts/Russell Burlingame I’m finally getting to look over the footage I shot while at Netroots Nation, and I came across this gem from the always quotable former Florida Congressman Alan Grayson. He uses the the release of The Green Lantern movie as a way to talk about what the Democratic Party does for America, versus what the the Republican Party does. The speech is cited in a fundraising email, but I believe the video here, for TheMudflats.net is the first anyone will be seeing it. Grayson spoke at a Minneapolis church – the first stop on the Democratic…
Voices from the Flats – Dear Sarah, You're Not Alaska.
By Zach Roberts Special note: This is a message to Sarah, that I sent to her via Facebook. Alaskans will get all the places, some of the references and some of the names. If you don’t get them, give it a Google, or read TheMudFlats.net (why aren’t you reading it already? What’re you a member of the Paliban?) Or better yet, get your butt on the next flight up to Anchorage. Yes I know it’s November and it’s cold… that means flights should be cheap. Go to Spenard Roadhouse get the Bacon Jam and tell them I sent you. ***************…