History ... Live. OWS

www.ustream.com/theother99

Last night I got sucked into history.

Regardless of your views on the whole Occupy Wall Street ordeal, technology has made our world one crazy fast paced world.

Last night via Google+ I was directed to a Live Stream on livestream.com where NYPD were evacuating OWS Protestors from Zuccotti Park in NYC. Stream after stream started to pop up as police officers arrested peaceful protestors and started trashing tents, supplies, food and cleaning the park. One stream was coming from what was called "the Kitchen" in the middle of the park and as the protestors were chanting tear gas flied in and the stream went dead. Other streams started going down and people in the chat rooms wondered if the NYPD was interfering with the channels by firebombing (sending a lot of traffic to the sites). I believe people's batteries started to die, or they got arrested and the cops turned off their phones. It was crazy to watch and participate live via social networks, it was about 2:00 am California time but people were still going strong in NYC. Cops everywhere, protestors getting tired, real conversations being broadcasted live for the world to see. Thousands of people were jumping from livestream to livestream as #OWS was trending on Twitter. It was fascinating.

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

When I woke up this morning, I turned on the computer (luckily in the comfort of my warm home) and the streams were back up. People have not slept. This one "Occupier" has been streaming for almost 12 hours. People have brought him batteries to keep his 4g livestream going. Strangers have found him on the street to say thank you, and that they were watching his stream from home. His is a true citizen journalist! His stream has been on national and international news shows.

One attractive female who shared her twitter handle received over 2000 new followers in a matter of minutes. You can actually see her in the NY Times photo above! (bottom left)

One crazy side note, some people did not want to be filmed. I guess this particular guy's stream that I'm linking to has a phone with the words "LIVE STREAM" on the other side of his phone. He was verbally abused and physically abused in front of 10s of thousands of people. Just so you know, if you are in public, you can be filmed.

Now, police are keeping Zuccotti park empty as court rulings are being decided and marches are being planned.

This is America, this is the 21st century, this is crazy.

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times