As the protest has grown, some of the occupiers have spontaneously taken charge on projects large and small. But many of the people in Zuccotti Park aren’t taking direction well, leading to a tense Thursday of political disagreements, the occasional shouting match, and at least one fistfight.

It began, as it so often does, with a drum circle. The ten-hour groove marathons weren’t sitting well with the neighborhood’s community board, the ironically situated High School of Economics and Finance that sits on the corner of Zuccotti Park, or many of the sleep-deprived protesters.

“[The high school] couldn’t teach,” explained Josh Nelson, a 27-year-old occupier from Nebraska. “And we’ve had issues with the drummers too. They drum incessantly all day, and really loud.” Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out,” said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group.

But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.

“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music,” said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it … they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”

To Shane Engelerdt, a 19-year-old from Jersey City and self-described former “head drummer,” this amounted to a Jacobinic betrayal. “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest,” he said. “They didn’t even give the drummers a say … Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.”

The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting.”

All belongings and money in the park are supposed to be held in common, but property rights reared their capitalistic head when facilitators went to clean up the park, which was looking more like a shantytown than usual after several days of wind and rain. The local community board was due to send in an inspector, so the facilitators and cleaners started moving tarps, bags, and personal belongings into a big pile in order to clean the park.

But some refused to budge. A bearded man began to gather up a tarp and an occupier emerged from beneath, screaming: “You’re going to break my fucking tent, get that shit off!” Near the front of the park, two men in hoodies staged a meta-sit-in, fearful that their belongings would be lost or appropriated.

Daniel Zetah, a 35-year-old lead facilitator from Minnesota, mounted a bench. “We need to clear this out. There are a bunch of kids coming to stay here.” One of the hoodied men fought back: “I’m not giving up my space for fucking kids. They have parents and homes. My parents are dead. This is my space.”

Read more here.

After waiting a full 24-hours to react to yesterday’s release of the 24-page police report of the Kenneth Gladney incident of August 6^th (24-hours?  I thought you guys were supposed to “post(s) rapid-response items as well as longer research and analytic reports documenting conservative misinformation throughout the media”) they give us this beautiful example of leftist equivocation:

The funny part is that the crew at BigGovernment has such a shaky grasp of how journalism works that they act like posting an everyday police report proves that all crazy their [sic] allegations are true.

OK…  but over here behind THIS curtain at Media Matters, they say:

The filing of the police report by ACORN — Russell can be seen holding a copy of it in O’Keefe’s video — indicates the Philadelphia ACORN office had no intention of helping O’Keefe and Giles conduct any illegal activities, and ACORN said the police report “proves our clear understanding of this scam that was being portrayed.”

So, in the case of a single page, six line police report filed by a third party who did not witness any occurrence at the ACORN offices, just the fact that the report was filed “indicates the Philadelphia ACORN office had no intention of helping O’Keefe and Giles conduct any illegal activities” even though the video proves otherwise (more questions on that police report here, which, by the way, is NOT a “Police Report” it is a “Complaint or Incident Report” that any citizen can ask the police to write up).

Meanwhile, in the case of a 24-page report full of eye-witness testimony with accompanying arrests… that’s just Big Government practicing lousy journalism!

Media Matters then goes on further to dismiss the arrests made because they were “merely” booked for “3rd Degree Assault”:

That’s right, third degree assault. But how could Gladney have been savagely beaten, as many right-wing bloggers originally claim, if the men responsible that night were only tagged with third degree assault, arguably the lightest possible charge for the offense?

Let me guess:  Some assaults are more equal than others.