Ted Hall, in different states of OWS fervor.
Edward T. Hall III, better known as “Ted” to his friends, has become one of loudest voices on Occupy Wall Street. The lanky redhead with the neon-splotched hat looks vaguely like a Scream-era Matthew Lillard, making him easy to identify in YouTube videos of protests, where he can frequently be found preaching to the crowd in almost every single instance of arrests during the occupation of Zuccotti Park.
Before becoming a member of OWS, Mr. Hall made a minor splash in the tabloids, when he jumped a JFK luggage carousal in an attempt to get around airport security without I.D. and talk to a girl.
So why is The New York Times making him the poster boy for the protest?
Last Friday, The New York Times posted a video in its City Room blog, called “Opposite Sides of the Protest Come Together, Briefly.” The video shows Mr. Hall discussing the movement with Jimmy Vivona, a stockbroker on Wall Street. The point of this get-together seems to be that Mr. Hall comes from money and a trust-fund (he’s the grandson of anthropologist Edward T. Hall), whereas Mr. Vivona pulled himself up by his bootstraps to make a lot of money on Wall Street, yet it’s Mr. Hall who is protesting as part of the “99%.”
Isn’t it ironic, doncha think?
Not for anyone who has done their homework on Mr. Hall, who has a history of general rabble-rousing. The first red flag in The New York Times article may be that Ted identifies himself as a “leader” of the Occupy Wall Street movement, a leaderless collective. He jumps in front whenever a camera is on, and can be found in numerous videos and articles about Occupy Wall Street. (He even does it in Spanish!) But that doesn’t make him a leader, and it doesn’t necessarily help the cause.
A source on Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly had previously told The New York Observer that Ted was often on the front lines, trying to incite police officers by screaming at them and leading chants against them. An early ABC video of the protests seems to confirm this analysis.
(Note: We don’t know why Mr. Hall is identified as Collin Quinlivan in this video.)
He also doesn’t seem to be completely in his right mind.
It seems odd that Mr. Hall has not gotten himself arrested at the protests yet, seeing as that would appear to be his main goal. He was quoted in Capital New York saying the Brooklyn Bridge protests were “the best P.R.” the occupation could have gotten. He also is very well-versed in the psychology of protests:
“Counterinsurgency theory is based on securing peace in pocketed areas,” he said. “Basically, you occupy the space and you protect the citizens from the insurgents. That’s kind of what what we’re doing. We’re occupying a space and protecting the people from authority, from the police. And the more they fight us? The more they’re seen as the enemy.”
The jury is still out on Mr. Hall’s ability to get others riled up enough to get arrested, but we wonder if a trust-funder with a history of being on the wrong side of police lines should not be speaking for the OWS movement as one of its leaders in The New York Times.
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This guy is classic he is living off a trust fund and crying about the rich.
He should man up and give up all his money, since he is part of the 1% he seems to hate.
Well said.
The guy isn’t living off a trust fund – this was just a hateful article filled with misinformation.
So what is he living off?
Agree with thee
Oh Ted, I am so sorry
Could it be a bit of guilt about be more fortunate than the others in the motley crew?
There are more than a few trust fund babies there-that’s how they can afford to be there.
The core is the professional activists and the trust fund baby radicals.
You can see it in the videos the sign that was all over the place in the intial week- ‘A job is a right: Capitalism doesn’t work. Worker’s World Party”.
In most of the cities where this has sprung up, you can see the professional rganizers at the core of it, including Lisa Fithian.
What a self-serving piece of shit that guy is. Undoing the good work of the real protesters and attempting to use the OWS to get his own name out there. The only reason the biased NYT concentrates on him is that he makes racy copy, but he’s not “news”.
The real OWS leadership should expel him, but they’re probably too cowardly to do it.
Uh…there is no ‘real OWS leadership’
Lol, ah sure.
So we’ll just forget about the leaked emails from your professional activist organizers like Lisa Fithian and Vlad Teichberg, and other anarchists/socialists who are actually going going from city to city giving “trainings” to people?
Too bad that the internet calls you on your shit.
Expect us.
I am expecting you guys. Organize another one of these in Salt Lake. I’d absolutly loooooooove to rip you guys apart in an interview.
Expect us as in… Anonymous? The internet Hacktivist group? Please tell me you guys don’t support these OWS anarchists
This guys a clown. On the second Saturday of OWS (Sept 24), we performed a street taking march all the way to Union Square. Once we got to Union Square we started to rally. Two ppl gave good speeches through the people’s mic, then, Ted got up and told the crowd that we were interrupting an event being held by a large dj group, and that we should leave out of respect for this corporate event. This announcement, though loudly booed, managed to kill some of the rallying spirit. Within a couple minutes, protesters marched off, out of Union Square, towards 12th and University Pl, where Tony Baloney was waiting.
I was meeting friends at the Union Square rally who hadn’t arrived yet, so I didn’t leave with the crowd. Once Occupiers had left Union Square, the DJ event began again. And there was Ted, standing right next to the stage, watching the event, dancing. He’s an asshole, a clown, an attention whore, and a generally bad guy.
Chill out people it’s political theater. Just because an article tells you something about someone doesn’t make it true. Someone heir to some money doesn’t make them automatically one of the 1%. No one is saying people can’t aspire to be wealthy. $250k a year income taxed at reasonable rates would help the country, and they still acquire wealth. This kid does not make that kind of money. Look past his theatrical persona and listen to his interviews. He is bright. Corporate profits and control over individuals choices is the commonality.
Why $250k and what are “reasonable rates?” Why not $50k threshold? To a vast majority of people on this planet, $50k or even $20k is rich and puts you in the global 1%. And why is taking property from citizens “helping the country?” We’ve had 2 parties with 2 Congress’ and two Presidencies spend the wealth (multiple trillions) of an entire generation (only one, if lucky). And, sorry, what exactly do we have to show for it? ”Take private property from the rich–just because they are rich–then flush it down the toilet.” This is your sales pitch?
This is nothing but baiting, pure and simple. Whoever wrote this should be ashamed of themselves at such piss-poor journalism.
What a spoiled brat. I’d like to protest him!!! Scary to think this is America’s future!!!
Trust fund recipient? Highly “educated” rich bastard leading the prosest. How fuckin pathetic!
I would not say that Ted Hall is the “voice” of Occupy Wall Street. I would, however, say that he is a truly committed and active member of it. I visited him recently to talk to him and discussed this article with him. It seems to me that the agenda of the author of this article is not to write unbiased news, but more to try and crush Mr. Hall and the movement by giving them bad press.
Lol.. Agree with you.
Reblogged this on uncoverthefakeroots and commented:
some info about a facilitator in new york, more on him later.