Bill McClellan Unaware That Policy Is Sometimes Set in St. Louis?

Today's Post-Dispatch includes a column from Bill McClellan about Occupy St. Louis, or at least about some clown who spray-painted the word "Occupy" on a sign in Frontenac. Though I agree with McClellan that it was dumb to vandalize the sign, it probably was slightly over-the-top (as noted by @nextstl on Twitter) for McClellan to compare this to the Taliban blowing up 1,500+ year old statues. And then there was this amazing gem from McClellan:

Actually, I never quite understood the Occupy St. Louis part of the movement. Occupy Wall Street, I got that. I would have been fine with Occupy Washington. Maybe even Occupy Palm Beach.

But Occupy St. Louis? Who around here sets policy?

I'll have to consult with some local experts and historians on this, but I'm pretty sure there are, in fact, policies that are set in St. Louis. Some people refer to these as "local" or "St. Louis" policies. And on occasion, these policies might be thought to favor the interests of big businesses and the wealthy over the interests of the general public, which is exactly what the Occupy movement opposes.

Tea Party Fan Tells Occupy St. Louis He's "Having Serious Thoughts" About Becoming a "Sniper for the 1%"

For some reason, a St. Louis area man thought it would be a good idea to tweet this:

I looked him up on Facebook, and, sure enough, he's a fan of the "Tea Party Patriots."


In fairness, I don't see any indication that he's connected to the local tea party. But it's another great example of the type of deranged thinking the modern day Right celebrates nowadays.

Mayor's Staff Plots How to "Disarm" OccupySTL Members

More fun with Sunshine Law requests! Mary Ellen Ponder, a staffer for Mayor Slay, sent Jeff Rainford (Slay's Chief of Staff) an email suggesting a strategy for "disarming" the Occupy St. Louis members:



The text:

Jeff,

I would like to recommend that you start the meeting by asking them what they want from the City. I suggest this because I think it will disarm the occupiers. I also think it will make the meeting less hostile. If at all possible, I would like to know who Jeff plans to bring to the meeting.

When you ask the occupiers what they want from the City, they will say they want to continue their freedom to assemble in public spaces: they believe it is their individual right to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests. The right to freedom of association is recognized as a human right, a political freedom, and a civil liberty. They will say they believe this freedom, documented in the 1st amendment, trumps all other laws.

Also, i do not think we should move to remove them until after November 17th. On November 17th, the AFL-CIO and Jobs with Justice plan to rally and march with the occupiers. If we remove them before November 17th, November 17th will turn into a rally and march against the Mayor instead of a rally and march about joblessness.

I don't think it's a bunch of anarchist kids anymore. I think there is a decent number of labor peeps and veterans that support this movement.

Sincerely,
Mary Ellen

Being but a humble distributor of the facts, I will refrain from comment.

Did the City Decieve Occupy St. Louis About Helping the Homeless?

Last weekend, shortly after the city decided to kick Occupy St. Louis out of Kiener Plaza, I saw the following post on facebook:

I generally like Eddie (who used to work for the Post-Dispatch and now works for Slay), so I decided to investigate what this claim was about. According to the occupiers, Roth and city officials had promised that when they evicted the Occupy St. Louis group from Kiener, they would make sure to find housing for the homeless who had flocked to the Occupy demonstration because it provided a safer and friendlier environment than living on the street (and because housing was not available through the city). Yet, when last Friday rolled around and the police arrested anyone staying in Kiener past curfew, the only thing the homeless received was a slip of paper with the same old phone numbers to call. When they called, they were told there was no new space available.

The claim that Roth promised to provide an alternative came from a general assembly on Wednesday of last week where Roth and fellow Slay representative (and former union supporter) Mary Ellen Ponder were there to present their non-negotiable proposal. As can be seen from this video, there was already tension regarding the city's proposals about the homeless at Kiener, with one of the occupiers asking Roth why the homeless were being used as a bargaining chip by the city:


The comment in question from Roth, however, came earlier in the meeting in response to a different question from one of the group's longtime members, Cheryl, who also happens to be homeless. Roth says in the following video, "I'll be happy to come down with some people tomorrow to make sure to check with you and others."


This, as noted above, apparently did not happen. However, in my Sunshine Law request, I did see an email from Roth to Bill Siedhoff (who coordinates the city's response to homelessness) where Roth specifically mentioned a commitment to two men from the Occupy St. Louis group.

Here's the relevant text:

Hi Bill,

Mary Ellen and I were at Kiener Plaza last night for a second consecutive
night. We presented a proposal we hoped they might agree could serve as an
alternative to the encampment. One element is your stepped up effort,
already underway, to connect the homeless men and women who are participating in
the Occupy St. Louis demonstration with housing and other services.

Durin the back and forth with the demonstrators some, who said they were
homeless, disputed what you had said at Tuesday's meeting and claimed that the
City and other service providers have not been a presence at Kiener Plaza in
behalf of the homeless. I said that I believed the city could find through
its network of providers temporary shelter to all who wanted it.

Two men came up to me at the end of the evening and said they wanted to be
connected to housing and services. I said I would help them. One is going
to call me at 10 a.m. - and said he does not have a phone but will find one to
call me then.

Bill, could you please help me with these two guys--and use them to show the
group what we are capable of doing?

Please give me specific advice on how to simplify the path for these two men
that I can use for one of them when he calls at 10 a.m.

Many thanks,

Eddie

I checked with several members of the group and as far as they knew none of the homeless people at Occupy St. Louis had been helped out. It's still possible that Roth dropped the ball in following up with Siedhoff, but it certainly looks like he made an effort to help. Nevertheless, as far as the people I spoke with have heard, there has been no actual help. Whatever the exact story is, it seems clear to me that the Occupy encampment, just like Hopeville, is exposing some very serious problems in the City's ability and/or willingness to provide the homeless with adequate resources.

Slay Obeyed: Mayor Slay Messaged Dana Loesch to Tell Her He Was Arresting Protesters

Yesterday, I pointed out that Mayor Slay's office said one of the reasons they decided to arrest protesters was because of feedback from "talk radio." Apparently, they think it's good city policy to try to appease the furthest right-wing fringe that carries coffins to local congressperson's yards, calls USDA officials "racist" based on doctored videos, and regularly attacks St. Louis institutions like UMSL and SEIU.

And thanks to a helpful tip from a commenter, it sounds like Mayor Slay was so eager to appease the right-wing fringe in St. Louis, he sent Loesch a personal message on Friday to let her know that he was going to be arresting protesters. She couldn't just wait to read about it on the news like all of the other rubes; nope, she's gets a special message so that she could cheer about those darn hippies getting their due.

Here's the clip of Loesch telling her rabid audience that Slay sent her a personal message on Friday:


Throughout the occupy protests, protesters have often chanted the following to the police: "Who do you protect? Who do you serve?" I think it might be more appropriate to ask the Mayor these questions.

Slay's Representative Cites "Talk Radio Complaints" And "Newspaper Comments" As Reason For Evicting OccupySTL

Prior to last Friday's mass arrests by the city of St. Louis of people engaging in political activism in Kiener Plaza, Mayor Slay's representatives Eddie Roth and Mary Ellen Ponder went to the Occupy encampment to make a non-negotiable proposal. While they were there, they were asked why, after nearly a month, they all of a sudden decided to kick the occupiers out of Kiener Plaza.

Here's Cathy asking the question:

And here's Eddie Roth's response:

He went on to note that in his impression it wasn't a decision made by "the plutocrats."

Roth worked for the Post-Dispatch editorial team. He knows better than to take those comments seriously.

And, in what can only be described as a remarkable coincidence, Jeff Rainford was on Dana Loesch's show today to receive her congratulations for kicking the violent dirty hippies out of Kiener Plaza (more on this later). It was the third time in less than a week that a representative from Slay's office was on her show.

Legal Analysis of Mayor Slay's Decision to Remove OccupySTL

Fox 2 News had lawyer Chet Pleban on yesterday to analyze the legality of Mayor Slay removing the occupiers from Kiener Plaza. For some reason I can't embed the video, but you can watch it here. It's pretty clear both people on the program have a lot of biases about the occupiers. The clip starts with them linking the Anonymous hacking to the St. Louis group, despite the fact that the Mayor's spokesperson Richard Callow said he didn't think the hacker was part of OccupySTL. They also call the part of the legal interpretation that says Slay is justified in kicking the occupiers out "the good news," later suggest that they're worried about riots from the group, and lament that horrible time in U.S. history known as the 60s. So yeah, it's pretty clear who they're rooting for.

However, what I thought was interesting is that Pleban suggested that while St. Louis City would normally be justified in removing they occupiers (a claim I'm sure Occupy STL disagrees with), the city is now in a pickle because they waited a full month to take any action. So it sounds like he thinks they need to provide some legal justification for why they made the change. I find this interesting because it seems to track the trajectory of my own thoughts.

I previously stated that I could understand why the city felt like it had to enforce the codes on the books. However, I objected when Slay's Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford suddently tried to suggest (on Dana Loesch's radio show) that something had changed and that the occupiers were no longer "not harming anyone." It seems to me that he has not provided sufficient justification for that claim, and if the decision really was the result only of complaints from groups like Bank of America, then it does seem like a change in policy based on a decision to prevent the occupiers from speaking out (quite effectively) against corporatism run amok. Thus, following policy consistently from the beginning might not have been a violation of First Amendment. But changing how they enforce the policy based on the fact that the message was offending local businesses seems like it would be a restriction of free speech.

This is why last night I filled a Sunshine law request with the Mayor's office to try to ascertain what the actual complaints were, and to compare them to statements in support of the occupation. I'll let you know what I find out.

Former St. Louis Police Officer To Make Statement In Support of OccupySTL

Press advisory:

Occupy Police Stands in Solidarity With Occupy St. Louis

Former St. Louis County Police Officer to Make

Public Statement of Support While Denouncing Brutality

What: A Public Speech delivered by a former St. Louis Officer, directed to both officers and citizens of St. Louis. Topics covered in short will be: The officers history with St Louis Police, brutal tactics used against protesters by some departments, and what can result from it, including the officers own firsthand experience with police brutality. Oakland PD's open letter to the citizens of Oakland where they openly state "We are part of the 99%" Bad department leadership in a time when true leaders are needed, and finally Occupy Police's mission and position in the Occupy movement, which in less than 10 words is that "Police are part of the 99% too" and communities across the nation are needing them to stand openly with the rest of the 99, now more than ever -

Goal: To call out Mayor Slay and put an end to the planned raid @3 - To let it be widely known that officers are part of the 99% and that they don not have to obey commands put forth by unstable leaders who represent the interests of the 1% and not that of the common man or woman. Lastly to let it be widely known that Occupy Police supports officers and entire departments who protect their communities without the use of brute force or violence.

When: Today, Friday November 11th at 2pm sharp - Before the impending raid @ 3pm

Where: The corner of Market and 7th on the stage at Kiener Plaza in St. Louis

-Occupy Police Team & Officers of the 99

KMOX reported on this development earlier today.

Video: Rainford Dodges Request for City To Divest From Bank of America

As an update to my previous post, here's video of the exchange where OccupySTL asked the Mayor's staff about divesting from Bank of America.

Here's the initial question:

And here's Rainford's non-response response:

Notice that, despite saying he didn't want to give a "mealy mouthed answer," he didn't actually explain why they need to keep their money in one of the worst banks in the country rather than a local credit union or even to a bank like Commerce or Pulaski which doesn't have the same horrible track record as BoFA.

Jeff Rainford Declares That St. Louis Won't Move Money From Bank of America

I guess Mayor Slay's Chief-of-staff Jeff Rainford isn't a big fan of consensus decision-making. Or even that Far Left, touchy-feely process known as "consulting with others." From the KMOX report on the meeting between Slay's office and Occupy St. Louis:

Rainford refused the idea of moving city funds out of big banks, saying the banks provide revenue to the city and fund services downtown. He also refused to provide a building for the protesters to occupy.

Bank of America is one of the most unethical financial institutions in the country. Shouldn't Rainford at least provide an opportunity for the residents of St. Louis, or his fellow staff members for that matter, to weigh in?

Update: After seeing the video, Rainford does mention that people can introduce a bill to the Board of Aldermen regarding divestment.

If YAF Claims They Were Threatened at OccupySTL,They Owe Us a Full Video

There's a post up at Big Government claiming that OccupySTL sent email and voicemail "threats" to the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) of Principia College after YAF visited the Occupy camp in Kiener Plaza this past Sunday. Obviously, threats are serious business and I hope the school and police investigate as thoroughly as possible and figure out if they can file charges in this case if indeed it is confirmed as a threat. However, it's important to note that anyone can send emails or leave voice messages, and so far (despite the screetching at Big Government), there is no real evidence that the messages came from someone at OccupySTL. And given that the right wing has been desparately trying to discredit the Occupy movement from the begining, and the Loesch's tea party in particular has a history of inventing stories of violence, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical.

Anyway, just to review the timeline, a spokesperson for YAF was invited to call in to Dana Loesch's show last Thursday and announced they would be doing a protest of the Occupy group at Kiener Plaza. Other than that, there was virtually no promotion of the YAF action. Then, on Sunday, YAF (about 5 people, not all of whom were "young") went to the OccupySTL location with professional video equipment.



Rather than engaging in a "protest" where they held their signs for the public, YAF went to the center of Kiener Plaza and engaged in an argument with OccupySTL participants, filming the whole time. I was there at the beginning and it seemed like your average debate; not especially productive since both sides were to some extent talking past each other but certainly not overly agressive or confrontational. However, this is how it was described on Big Government:

Last Sunday a local chapter of YAF affiliated with Principia College organized a small and peaceful counter presence to the ongoing Occupy St. Louis demonstration at Keiner Plaza in downtown. According to the organizer, Mattson Wilcoxen, the group of mostly collegians and minors was met with violent language, intimidation, and death threats.

As noted above, this absolutely was not what I observed. I started recording but then quit because it was so uneventful; however, here's a good example of what the conversation was like:

The Occupy St. Louis Facebook page has a 10 minute clip of a discussion with one of the YAF members that shows the same thing.

Given that Big Government is quoting YAF as saying that they were threatened at the rally and that participants used "hostile language," and given we know they were recording the entire time, YAF has an obligation to provide full video of their encounter so that people can judge for themselves how each side was acting. This is the burden they impose on themselves by making the serious allegation that what looked like a normal debate was actually "hostile" and "threatening."

I should also note that the post at Big Government despicably tries to link the alleged threats to MORE, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment. The right-wing conspiracies theories about the group are funny in the abstract, but when they start making direct accusations about specific people based on zero evidence, it enters into a very nasty place, especially considering the mental stability of some of Breitbart and Loesch's followers. They can hate on MORE's politics all they want, but making ridiculous, unfounded allegations of "death threats" crosses the line of decency.

YAF and Big Government should make public the full video from the event. That way, we can see just how seriously they actually take the allegations of "threats" and "violence" they routinely make.

Dana Loesch Selectively Edits OccupySTL Discussion To Claim They Want to Disrupt World Series

Patch Adams has a post out claiming that OccupySTL wants to disrupt the World Series. To give Patch a little credit (which is all he deserves since, after all, he's still pushing bunk info), he at least managed to include a screen shot of this:

Loesch, however, jettisoned any attempts to subtly turn a flat out lie in a mere misrepresentation of reality. She just flat out lied:


Actually, anyone who actually read the post would see that they weren't "planning on disrupting the World Series." Some people suggested it, but others (including the person that runs the facebook account) pointed out it would be a bad idea. And both Loesch and Patch mysteriously omitted this post which pretty explictly ackowledges that they have no interest in angering Cardinals fans:



Just another day of selective editing for Breitbart's protege.

Tea Party Smears Homeless Vet With PTSD In Effort to Discredit OccupySTL

The flailing St. Louis Tea Party, seeing their relevance decline almost to the point of oblivion, is getting desperate to try to discredit the actual grassroots Occupy Wall Street and OccupySTL movement. Tea Party bloggers Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft and Adam Sharp posted the following video with the header "Hippy Fight!"


The altercation, however, was not between organizers of the occupation, but rather between two homeless men, and organizers quickly cooled them down. In fact, one of the men is a homeless veteran who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. From a friend at OccupySTL:

Ronnie - who was yelling- is a homeless vet with ptsd who was sleeping in keiner since before we arrived. He has gotten in arguments with other homeless people - but hasn't bothered anyone else and has never actually hurt anyone.

Don't expect Hoft or Sharp to have any remorse about using a guy who fought for our country to try to smear the group. In fact, they take pride in the fact that they're deficient in normal human emotions like empathy.

Excellent OccupySTL Video Introductions

For anyone wondering more about the people camping out in Kiener Plaza to stand in solidarity against corporate greed, a couple of excellent videos were produced recently.

First, Renaissance Man Erich Vieth at Dangerous Intersections shot this great film about the rally on Friday:



And the Show Me Shows shot some high quality video of some of the participants and did a nice job explaining the movement:

Occupy St. Louis 10/14/11 from Jarred Gastreich on Vimeo.

Funny! Angry Conservative Tries to Prove OccupySTL is "Dirty." Finds Opposite

An angry local right-winger went down to OccupySTL with white latex gloves and garbage bags to try to prove the right-wing narrative that the group is disgustingly dirty. Hilariously, however, he found that the camp was clean and that he had nothing to do:

So, I packed up garbage bags, latex gloves and hospital masks (smell precaution, I sprayed a bit of Axe on the inside the mask in case these people stank really bad) and went up to the Occupy STL. To put it mildly, it was a joke. It was basically 20-30 people camping in the city, complaining about Capitalism in their brand new tents and nicely mass produced signs. There was no trash to pick up really because, with so few people, it's almost hard to make a real mess. It was very sad.

Actually, on Friday there was a 1,000 person rally in support of OccupySTL, but we wouldn't want facts to get in the way of analysis would we?

Still, even considering just the 20 or 30 people who camp out there, could anyone really be so clueless as to think that they wouldn't produce garbage after living there for two weeks? The reality is: they're doing a good job picking up after themselves!

Naturally, he didn't let the fact that it was actually clean get in the way of his assumptions about the occupiers. He just jumped on to his next assumtions. Still, it's funny to see even a right-winger begrudingly admit that the occupiers are responsibly picking up after themselves.

Right-Winger Fantasizes About Violence Against OccupySTL

Just as Andrew Breitbart salivated at the thought of civil war against liberals, a local right-winger apparently dreams of "doing the job police refuse to do" against the OccupySTL crowd:

Nutty.

Video: 1,000 People March With OccupySTL (UPDATED With Additional Coverage)

I finally got to visit OccupySTL in Kiener Plaza today and they really have something special going on. Today a crowd of 1,000 people marched to Bank of America to protest their unethical foreclosure practices. It was great seeing union folks gathered and on the march with the dedicated occupiers who have been standing up against corporate greed the past two weeks.

Here's my video wandering through the crowd of 1,000 chanting across the street from Bank of America:


Update: Here's some coverage from other St. Louis area bloggers:
Fired Up Missouri:Pics From Rally and March with Occupy St. Louis
Riverfront Times: Union Workers to Join Occupy St. Louis for Major Demonstration Today
Show Me Progress: OccupySTL is a Rorschach test for politicians and media
Occasional Planet: This is What Democracy Looks Like
Dangerous Intersections:Meet the protesters of Occupy St. Louis – October 14, 2011
Great photo collection from Chuck Ramsay.

Dana Loesch's Crocodile Tears About Bogus #OccupySTL Story

As I've already pointed out, there is no "civil war" in the OccupySTL group and last week's social media drama can be traced back to one person who was not communicating with the group and unilaterally decided to cut off contact. For as diverse and eclectic a group as they are, they've actually been remarkably consistent and organized with their social media postings, and after the initial minor glitch occurred one week ago the Facebook and Twitter accounts have been steadily growing and impressively successful.

However, right-wing radio host Dana Loesch, feeling threatened by a movement that unlike the tea party is actually appealing to young people, is now pretending to be "concerned" that the movement was "co-opted" by the right wing's favorite boogeyman: ACORN! Here's the kind of stuff Loesch is saying to try to pretend that she would be totally "down" with the Occupy movement, if it weren't for that pesky ACORN:

I honestly feel bad for the original grassroots group who I think had more in common with the indie tea party than they first realized. #ows

And:

I condemn those on the left attempting to intimidate and silence the original #occupystl founder with death threats. #MORE #ACORN

And

That's not right. Those folks should be able to protest without fear of union groups,ACORN groups exploiting and occupying the occupiers.

Gee whiz! It sure sounds like Loesch was totally down with the people, until this crazy co-option occurred...except for the minor point that it didn't occur, and the other minor point that she was never down with the people.

Again, despite what Loesch claimed, there was no "civil war." The group livestreams their General Assemblies for anyone to see for themselves, and these assemblies take a long time and use a consensus decision-making process. Needless to say, long meetings where you try to get everyone to agree are not for everyone. Some people are not going to stick around. It makes sense for the social media accounts to be connected to the people who engage in the community and the decision-making process, and this is in keeping with the egalitarian structure they've been trying to implement. Watch a meeting for yourself and see if it sounds even remotely plausible that the meeting is being secretly "controlled" by one group.

But what's really ridiculous is that Loesch is implying that she used to support the movement. From the very beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement and OccupySTL, Loesch has been ridiculing the participants and attempting to portray them as criminals. In fact, Loesch, calling them "unemployed manipulated hipsters" originally claimed that the Occupy movement was created by SEIU:

Note that this quote was from October 5, way before any of the so-called "infighting" occurred. Loesch also said that they looked like imbeciles:

And that their demands sounded like "Dr. Evil:"

And she said she was going to dress up like an Occupy Wall Streeter for Halloween:

Oh, and she called it "poopstock:"


The idea that Loesch is "concerned" about OccupySTL is ridiculous. In fact, it's pretty clear that this new conspiracy theory is nothing more than her trying to sabotage the movement.

Fact-Check: There Is Not "Civil War" In OccupySTL

Tea Partiers on Twitter have been pushing a bogus line claiming that there is a "civil war" among OccupySTL participants. Sadly, as is all too often the case, people not affiliated with the far right are willing to unquestioningly pick up a right wing smear and use it to criticize people who are putting a lot of effort into making the world better. There is not a "civil war" or "infighting;" there just happened to be one person, out of an amazingly diverse group of participants, who briefly took over the social media accounts, cut others out, and refused to communicate. These kinds of things will happen in a group that makes every effort to be accommodating to everyone who wants to participate.

So what exactly happened? As I already reported, at least five days ago, one person who had access to the original facebook and Twitter accounts changed the password to lock out the other participants. For all we know, this person could have been a tea partier (note: I don't think it was), since the group was operating under a system of openness and trust and allowing anyone who wanted to to be involved. That person then claimed to have gotten death threats and subsequently closed the facebook account. No one else associated with the group received death threats, and the person refused to share or talk about the alleged threats despite being asked repeatedly about them.

There's a record of the conversation (I'm not linking to it here because, even though it's public, I'm not sure if people want their comments shared, but I'm happy to email it to friends who ask). In the conversation, you can see the person "Whisper Dharma" saying that she was deleting "admins:"

The list of admins on the fb page has grown out of control. There are new people there that don't even have anything to even do with the organization thus far and haven't been out there with us much, if at all. Since Sara handed the controls over to me when she bailed, this page is mine and as such, everytime you post as "OccupySTL" it can be traced back to me. I have made changes to who I feel comfortable with posting as "OccupySTL" as an admin. If someone needs to post here on this page, under the "name" OccupySTL, it is you 6. Others may have more information, but they can either 1. post on the page as themselves or 2. tell one of you. There have been some problems with people adding and deleting people at whim. I got a call this morning that woke me up saying she had been deleted by someone on here. If this continues after the changes that I have made I will have to narrow THIS list down even further. I do NOT want to do that. Please respect my wishes and do NOT add any further people. Thank you

.Other people in the group questioned the decision:

wait, i havent deleted anyone, and this should be a group discussion

soooo, no discussion?

You are making a dangerous precedent here with your unilateral decision to start cutting admins and moderators that we need to make sure this is watched 24/7. Just FYI

So you delete a bunch of people, without discussing anything with us, then turn off your phone and log out? and we're just supposed to groove on it? It is not YOUR page, it is OUR page as it represents the collective posts of everybody working hard to make sure our media outlets are up to date. If you have a problem with your name being attached to the valid posts we are making, kindly remove yourself from the list, as I have yet to see an admin post off-message since these people were added. If you have a problem, please bring it up in discussion. If you cannot make it to a general assembly, then please check in with us and communicate instead of making unilateral decisions. We as a group have decided to make decisions based on consensus, and when you defy that process you defy the entire group.

"Whisper Dharma," despite not answering anyone's questions, then deleted the facebook page and told the other people that she had been advised to do so by "her lawyer." As far as I know, there's no record of her reporting this to the police either. She also took control of the @occupystl Twitter page, and used it to tell other people to "go to hell." Dana Loesch is of course claiming that there are "rumors" that "liberals" sent the death threats, but there's no evidence of that either and, in fact, it seems pretty implausible.

Since the group places a lot of value on consensus decision-making and not having "leaders," they very rationally and responsible created new Twitter and Facebook accounts that have steadily grown. And, considering that all of that drama took place five days ago, it's pretty obvious at this point that it has done absolutely nothing to actually effect the movement. Nothing, that is, except for creating an easy "infighting" drama for people who are looking for excuses to criticize.

Update On Occupy St. Louis's Social Media Situation

I was a little confused about Occupy St. Louis's Twitter and Facebook accounts, but I've spoken to some friends and think it has now been sorted out, so I thought I'd post this in case anyone else was in the same boat I was. Basically, one of the admins for the old Facebook page changed the password to lock out the other admins and then completely deleted the page. The person claimed she was doing this because of threats she received, but no one was able to verify as she cut off communication. You can find the new Facebook page here, which is under the collective control of people on the ground at OccupySTL and is a result of their group decision making process.

Something similar appears to have happened with Twitter. The previous @occupystl account is not available to the people who are involved in the occupation and group decision-making process. The person running that account declared that OccupySTLers are "attention whores" who should "go to hell." People who are involved in the actual organizing set up a new Twitter account at @stloccupy.

So if you're interested in the efforts, please like the Occupy St. Louis facebook page and follow @stloccupy on Twitter.