tagged w/ Occupy Movement
-
Three hundred feminists blanketed the concrete in Washington Square Park last night, their attention focused by the now-familiar mic check. The “Raging Grannies” had just performed. A banner, framed by the park’s iconic arch, declared that the first NYC Feminist General Assembly, presented by Women Occupying Wall Street (WOWS), was in full swing.
After seven months of reporting on feminism and the work of women activists in the Occupy movement, I wanted to know: could this meeting be a model for how OWS collaborates with other social movements? Might I witness the forming of a new activist coalition, bringing SlutWalkers, Occupiers, second-wavers and radicals together to fight back against the assault on rights we know as the War on Women?
The assembly gathered activists of a wide range of ages, ethnicities, abilities and gender presentations, with a noticeable majority of cisgender (that is, non-transgender) white women. Not a single police officer looked on, a rarity for an OWS event.
We began in consciousness-raising knots of three. Facilitators from WOWS instructed us to speak in turn without interruption about our personal involvement with feminism. In my cluster, blushes and downturned eyes in response these big questions gradually turned into animated conversations when we fell into small talk: “When did you move to New York?” “Wasn’t May Day awesome?”
Later, we broke into larger circles to brainstorm goals, leading into an hour of intense discussions. As the sun set, speakers from each breakout group shared their results, echoing over the human microphone. Soon, the usual Occupy hand signals dissolved into vocal responses: applause, hoots, and shouting.
A few themes emerged: first, the need to fight the assault on reproductive freedom and second, the need to make feminism more inclusive of trans people, the disabled, incarcerated women, women of color, and “different discursive styles.”
Many goals presented were big-picture. We should fight capitalism, reclaim our history, unite with labor, and educate our kids about misogyny. There were some Occupy-style solutions: those whose voices dominate should “step back” for an entire meeting. Let’s have more feminist tweets from Occupy’s account. We should distribute free condoms, as an art project, all over the city. Men should notice when they are “mansplaining” (this one got a thunderous ovation).
Occasionally, the conversation got a little jargony: my group’s representative announced our rejection of the notion that we could even come up with a set number of goals in a timed scenario. “It’s a temporality that’s...anti-feminist!” she said, getting knowing laughs.
A number of speakers alluded to an uneasy alliance between OWS and mainstream feminism. “We want Occupy’s support fighting women’s issues,” one speaker said. “We are Occupy!” shouted someone from behind me. “When I was presenting the breakout group questions last night, a woman asked if we were trying to separate feminism from the purpose of the movement,” said Simran Sachdev, an organizer with WOWS. “What she was missing is how feminism is integral to the movement!” Occupy won’t create change, Sachdev said, “if it doesn't recognize the need to include the values of feminists, women, and transgender individuals.”
A push to inject feminism into Occupy and bring the action-oriented focus of OWS to feminist issues were the genesis for this General Assembly, which emerged from the Women Occupying Wall Street Caucus, a group forged in the early days of the Zuccotti Park occupation. Its members wanted to address oppressive behavior within their own ranks and pick the brains of experts on feminism.
“We have a lot to learn. Many of us are new to feminism,” said Lisa Rubenstein, one of the GA’s organizers. “This is the great thing about Occupy. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve learned in these eight months.”
In planning the GA, WOWS expanded its membership to include participants like Dior Vargas, who had bypassed Zuccotti Park entirely. “I felt that I couldn’t relate to OWS’s mission,” Vargas, who works in publishing, said. But organizing around feminist issues offered “a place where I could make a difference.” “As with all the previous movements, it doesn’t take very long before feminism becomes an obvious next step,” novelist Alix Shulman, another organizer told me. “It’s one thing to be alive for a great political movement as I was for the second wave, but to be able to do it twice in my lifetime is a huge privilege.”
The very public battles over reproductive rights all winter long provided the catalyst that pushed this group into high gear for the GA. “If there’s truly going to be a ‘war on women,' we need to form a peaceful army,” said Melanie Gold, a member of WOWS. Organizers said they didn’t want to kick start a new wave of feminism, but rather “a tsunami.”
Although this wasn’t the first feminist GA in Occupy history (activists in LA, DC and elsewhere have had women or feminist-centered GAs) it was the first in New York. Organizers wanted to emerge from the GA with a trajectory towards fighting back.
“You don’t have to agree on everything to work together and be productive,” Sachdev told me earlier this week, when I asked her how she’d feel if some attendees were fans of Occupy bête noire and high-profile Planned Parenthood donor Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
And after the report backs, announcements, and a final performance from Mahina Movement, there was plenty of energy, if not a concrete action plan.
Aspects of this GA offered a model for how Occupy can work with other progressive movements without accusations of “co-option” on either side. The fact that the organizers of the GA were both new to and familiar with Occupy meant that the attendees came from both inside and outside the movement, an example of horizontalism—rejecting hierarchy—in action. Beyond that, the GA reinforced the notion of Occupy as platform for ideas, rather than organization. The simple act of presenting feminist ideas in the Occupy format--in a public space, welcome to all, mingling with strangers beyond the reach of institutions--was refreshing and inspiring, the opening of a door of possibility, almost like the early days at Zuccotti Park. I realized with a start during the event that I’d never been in a public space that simply existed for feminist-minded conversation before, without a destination or goal or even work-oriented networking.
Will that door of possibility lead to a new coalition or plan for action? That remained unclear. None of the goals mentioned in the report-backs included targeted plans like “organize a sit-in in the US Conference of Catholic Bishops offices.” No specific march or strike or radical art project is in the works, and no one appeared as a representative from an established feminist organization to start building a formal coalition. At this point, the OWS ethos may not mesh with most institutional organizations, and perhaps that’s okay. What the feminists at the GA wanted more than a formal partnership was to keep converging and talking. So the one thing there will definitely be? Another GA.
When Rubenstein took a “temperature check” about how often participants wanted to gather, almost everyone present raised hands to indicate they wanted monthly feminist GAs. The organizers grinned. “Come back with an idea for an action that is both fun and uncomfortable,” Rubenstein exhorted the crowd before it dispersed.
http://www.thenation.com/article/167969/can-occupy-fight-back-against-war-womenThree hundred feminists blanketed the concrete in Washington Square Park last night,... more
-
-
more videos to come as this unfolds, on occupytheplanet.org
-
-
Projet En Vue is documenting the stories of Oakland residents. Visit us at www.projetenvue.org
Why are you here?
Well, to revolt for a life worth living, like the first banner that Occupy Oakland ever created for the first march in the week and a half that the camp was there, before the first raid, that's kind of why I'm here. Revolt for a life worth living. And, you know, we gotta spring forward, take back every park that we ever had, 'cause it's ours anyway. This is all the common space. And any time any of our comrades in other places or other cities get fucked up, we're going to be there to support them. It comes down to that. And, you know, no matter what, solidarity. I may not agree with every tactic, they may not agree with every tactic. It doesn't matter. Solidarity.
Yeah, I've been here the whole time, so it's, like, (laugh) - Well, you know, like, let me put it this way, like: Planning for the general strike, like, trying to set up a nice day of events and all this other shit and then a hundred thousand people showing up? And I'm like, that's pretty crazy, 'cause nobody will tell you that, honestly, that they were expecting those numbers. But, between that and, like - I mean, January 28th I was out with my parents, you know, when they started tear gassing in broad daylight and everything and I was like, 'Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?'
I always blame it on the police, that's the ultimate thing. And, also, it's like, what's funny is that the rest of the world seems really surprised by what they did to us in Oakland, yet all of us in the camps were like, 'Oh shit, the cops are gonna kick our asses soon, we gotta get ready.' 'Cause OPD sucks and we all know that, unlike in many other cities where they may be privileged enough to have a police department, we don't. And most of the police department isn't even from Oakland. Seven percent of OPD are actually Oakland residents, apparently. Some statistic I heard.
The day of the first raid - I got arrested at the first raid on the camp of Occupy Oakland, and I remember uh, the LRAD weapon that they used for, like, two - twice, right? It's, like, Pow! Big sound cannon. I was, like, holy shit! This just got real, you know? And then I look down and there's laser sights on me, I'm, like, what the crap? And I turn around and I start running and rubber bullets start flying over me and, like, shit starts exploding. And that's when I was like, OK. Whether I like it or not, the cops have just made this a war zone. Better get used to it. (laugh) Like, and that's actually held through pretty much.
OPD manages to create any magical scenery that we manage to retake into a fucking warzone. And NYPD, I mean fucking A! Yeah, no. NYPD, there are fifty thousand of mother fuckers and they've got their own, like, FBI spy net, whatever thing, like, 'We gotta protect New York from any more Muslim terrorists!' Crap, like, NYPD is crazy. I mean, like, we - For us it's like, 'Oh, let's go take the streets, why the fuck not?' They weren't even allowed to march in the streets most of the time until they finally took the Brooklyn Bridge and got fucked up again, like, fucking A. I mean, again, it's, like, par for the course. I'm not going to say that I'm surprised at police brutality 'cause cops are pigs, but it's also - It's also, like, nobody should have to go through that. Especially- Nobody should have to be in a seizure for fifteen minutes while handcuffed and receive no aid or support. Like As a basic human being, like, that's what happened yesterday. A woman was either beaten too badly - I'm not really sure of all the stats on it, but she was not given aid and was left on the ground in a seizure for fifteen minutes. Somebody - Somebody's head was smacked so hard against a department store window that all the glass is still cracked. Like, there's no reason for any of that. There's no reason for any of that. I mean, you're trying to, like, what? Subdue people so they don't actually come out and protest something that actually, like, fights for their interests too? These guys are absolute pigs and monsters, and anybody who's part of the police-industrial complex, whatever the hell you want to call it, it's systems of domination that are eating away at them and breaking us in the interim. (laugh) We're gonna have to keep fighting back.
How do you think the movement has changed since it started?
Well, it finally goat a little bit less white and middle class, that's what I like about Occupy Oakland, like (laugh) - My favorite thing is that we've actually tied together, like, stances against police brutality as well as many other causes. Occupy's become the umbrella for foreclosure defense, for food justice, for what have you. But police brutality, recognizing that no matter what society you're in, the police exist as an organized body to sup - Like, basically maintain a monopoly on organized violence, shit ain't gonna be good. When you have absolute power, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We see it in jail all the time, the way they arbitrarily throw people in solitary for giggling when they're getting patted down because they're like, 'This is an absolute violation of my rights, but all I can do - My defense mechanism is laughing at how absurdly wrong this is.' You know? And, like, fuck this rights discourse. The only rights we have are the ones that we can actually assert and fight for. Everything else is just something on paper that they'll, you know, make up a new law to tomorrow to take away. Like - (laugh)
Did you grow up here your whole life?
No. I'm actually from Los Angeles, um... I went to Santa Cruz for the past two years. I was part of the student occupations there. I came up during the Oscar Grant movement a lot up to Oakland and then I moved here because for one thing it's the most radical city in America and for another thing it made sense. Like, Oakland's beautiful and I'm in love with Oakland and I'm proud to be a resident now here.
I'm here for liberation, on all levels. To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable is the best way to put it. (laugh)
Was this planned?
This was not planned. This is the beauty of Occupy Oakland! We don't have anything necessarily planned, but people of Oakland show up and everything's popping.
And have a dance party in front of the police department!
And everybody's boogying in front of the police station! Because they can't stop the party. I'm sorry. No matter how much they try. I mean when I was arrested, the first jail car we were in, we were all smoking a joint and we all slipped out of our cuffs. We were, like, kickin' it, calling down to LG. Like, they have - They all like to think they have control. They don't have control over shit.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1682512818/projet-en-vue?ref=live
www.projetenvue.orgProjet En Vue is documenting the stories of Oakland residents. Visit us at... more
-
-
sati
-
added this
-
21 days ago
- |
-
If we’re going to tell this story — and it’s the most important story of our time — we’re going to have to tell it ourselves.
by Bill McKibben, via TomDispatch
The Williams River was so languid and lovely last Saturday morning that it was almost impossible to imagine the violence with which it must have been running on August 28, 2011. And yet the evidence was all around: sand piled high on its banks, trees still scattered as if by a giant’s fist, and most obvious of all, a utilitarian temporary bridge where for 140 years a graceful covered bridge had spanned the water.
The YouTube video of that bridge crashing into the raging river was Vermont’s iconic image from its worst disaster in memory, the record flooding that followed Hurricane Irene’s rampage through the state in August 2011. It claimed dozens of lives, as it cut more than a billion-dollar swath of destruction across the eastern United States.
I watched it on TV in Washington just after emerging from jail, having been arrested at the White House during mass protests of the Keystone XL pipeline. Since Vermont’s my home, it took the theoretical — the ever more turbulent, erratic, and dangerous weather that the tar sands pipeline from Canada would help ensure — and made it all too concrete. It shook me bad.
And I’m not the only one.
New data released last month by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities show that a lot of Americans are growing far more concerned about climate change, precisely because they’re drawing the links between freaky weather, a climate kicked off-kilter by a fossil-fuel guzzling civilization, and their own lives. After a year with a record number of multi-billion dollar weather disasters, seven in ten Americans now believe that “global warming is affecting the weather.” No less striking, 35% of the respondents reported that extreme weather had affected them personally in 2011. As Yale’s Anthony Laiserowitz told the New York Times, “People are starting to connect the dots.”
Which is what we must do. As long as this remains one abstract problem in the long list of problems, we’ll never get to it. There will always be something going on each day that’s more important, including, if you’re facing flood or drought, the immediate danger.
But in reality, climate change is actually the biggest thing that’s going on every single day. If we could only see that pattern we’d have a fighting chance. It’s like one of those trompe l’oeil puzzles where you can only catch sight of the real picture by holding it a certain way. So this weekend we’ll be doing our best to hold our planet a certain way so that the most essential pattern is evident. At 350.org, we’re organizing a global day of action that’s all about dot-connecting; in fact, you can follow the action at climatedots.org.
The day will begin in the Marshall Islands of the far Pacific, where the sun first rises on our planet, and where locals will hold a daybreak underwater demonstration on their coral reef already threatened by rising seas. They’ll hold, in essence, a giant dot — and so will our friends in Bujumbura, Burundi, where March flooding destroyed 500 homes. In Dakar, Senegal, they’ll mark the tidal margins of recent storm surges. In Adelaide, Australia, activists will host a “dry creek regatta” to highlight the spreading drought down under.
Pakistani farmers — some of the millions driven from their homes by unprecedented flooding over the last two years — will mark the day on the banks of the Indus; in Ayuthaya, Thailand, Buddhist monks will protest next to a temple destroyed by December’s epic deluges that also left the capital, Bangkok, awash.
Activists in Ulanbataar will focus on the ongoing effects of drought in Mongolia. In Daegu, South Korea, students will gather with bags of rice and umbrellas to connect the dots between climate change, heavy rains, and the damage caused to South Korea’s rice crop in recent years. In Amman, Jordan, Friends of the Earth Middle East will be forming a climate dot on the shores of the Dead Sea to draw attention to how climate-change-induced drought has been shrinking that sea.
In Herzliya, Israel, people will form a dot on the beach to stand in solidarity with island nations and coastal communities around the world that are feeling the impact of climate change. In newly freed Libya, students will hold a teach-in. In Oman, elders will explain how the weather along the Persian Gulf has shifted in their lifetimes. There will be actions in the cloud forests of Costa Rica, and in the highlands of Peru where drought has wrecked the lives of local farmers. In Monterrey, Mexico, they’ll recall last year’s floods that did nearly $2 billion in damage. In Chamonix, France, climbers will put a giant red dot on the melting glaciers of the Alps.
And across North America, as the sun moves westward, activists in Halifax, Canada, will “swim for survival” across its bay to highlight rising sea levels, while high-school students in Nashville, Tennessee, will gather on a football field inundated by 2011’s historic killer floods.
In Portland, Oregon, city dwellers will hold an umbrella-decorating party to commemorate March’s record rains. In Bandelier, New Mexico, firefighters in full uniform will remember last year’s record forest fires and unveil the new solar panels on their fire station. In Miami, Manhattan, and Maui, citizens will line streets that scientists say will eventually be underwater. In the high Sierra, on one of the glaciers steadily melting away, protesters will unveil a giant banner with just two words, a quote from that classic of western children’s literature, The Wizard of Oz. “I’m Melting” it will say, in letters three-stories high.
This is a full-on fight between information and disinformation, between the urge to witness and the urge to cover-up. The fossil-fuel industry has funded endless efforts to confuse people, to leave an impression that nothing much is going on. But — as with the tobacco industry before them — the evidence has simply gotten too strong.
Once you saw enough people die of lung cancer, you made the connection. The situation is the same today. Now, it’s not just the scientists and the insurance industry; it’s your neighbors. Even pleasant weather starts to seem weird. Fifteen thousand U.S. temperature records were broken, mainly in the East and Midwest, in the month of March alone, as a completely unprecedented heat wave moved across the continent. Most people I met enjoyed the rare experience of wearing shorts in winter, but they were still shaking their heads. Something was clearly wrong and they knew it.
The one institution in our society that isn’t likely to be much help in spreading the news is… the news. Studies show our papers and TV channels paying ever less attention to our shifting climate. In fact, in 2011 ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox spent twice as much time discussing Donald Trump as global warming. Don’t expect representatives from Saturday’s Connect the Dots day to show up on Sunday’s talk shows. Over the last three years, those inside-the-Beltway extravaganzas have devoted 98 minutes total to the planet’s biggest challenge. Last year, in fact, all the Sunday talk shows spent exactly nine minutes of Sunday talking time on climate change — and here’s a shock: all of it was given over to Republican politicians in the great denial sweepstakes.
Continued at linkIf we’re going to tell this story — and it’s the most important... more
-
-
Here is a link to a rare interview with one of Oaklands Occupy Lead organizers from Projet En Vue.
www.projetenvue.org
Well, to revolt for a life worth living, like the first banner that Occupy Oakland ever created for the first march in the week and a half that the camp was there, before the first raid, that's kind of why I'm here. Revolt for a life worth living. And, you know, we gotta spring forward, take back every park that we ever had, 'cause it's ours anyway. This is all the common space. And any time any of our comrades in other places or other cities get fucked up, we're going to be there to support them. It comes down to that. And, you know, no matter what, solidarity. I may not agree with every tactic, they may not agree with every tactic. It doesn't matter. Solidarity.
Yeah, I've been here the whole time, so it's, like, (laugh) - Well, you know, like, let me put it this way, like: Planning for the general strike, like, trying to set up a nice day of events and all this other shit and then a hundred thousand people showing up? And I'm like, that's pretty crazy, 'cause nobody will tell you that, honestly, that they were expecting those numbers. But, between that and, like - I mean, January 28th I was out with my parents, you know, when they started tear gassing in broad daylight and everything and I was like, 'Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?'
I always blame it on the police, that's the ultimate thing. And, also, it's like, what's funny is that the rest of the world seems really surprised by what they did to us in Oakland, yet all of us in the camps were like, 'Oh shit, the cops are gonna kick our asses soon, we gotta get ready.' 'Cause OPD sucks and we all know that, unlike in many other cities where they may be privileged enough to have a police department, we don't. And most of the police department isn't even from Oakland. Seven percent of OPD are actually Oakland residents, apparently. Some statistic I heard.
The day of the first raid - I got arrested at the first raid on the camp of Occupy Oakland, and I remember uh, the LRAD weapon that they used for, like, two - twice, right? It's, like, Pow! Big sound cannon. I was, like, holy shit! This just got real, you know? And then I look down and there's laser sights on me, I'm, like, what the crap? And I turn around and I start running and rubber bullets start flying over me and, like, shit starts exploding. And that's when I was like, OK. Whether I like it or not, the cops have just made this a war zone. Better get used to it. (laugh) Like, and that's actually held through pretty much.
OPD manages to create any magical scenery that we manage to retake into a fucking warzone. And NYPD, I mean fucking A! Yeah, no. NYPD, there are fifty thousand of mother fuckers and they've got their own, like, FBI spy net, whatever thing, like, 'We gotta protect New York from any more Muslim terrorists!' Crap, like, NYPD is crazy. I mean, like, we - For us it's like, 'Oh, let's go take the streets, why the fuck not?' They weren't even allowed to march in the streets most of the time until they finally took the Brooklyn Bridge and got fucked up again, like, fucking A. I mean, again, it's, like, par for the course. I'm not going to say that I'm surprised at police brutality 'cause cops are pigs, but it's also - It's also, like, nobody should have to go through that. Especially- Nobody should have to be in a seizure for fifteen minutes while handcuffed and receive no aid or support. Like As a basic human being, like, that's what happened yesterday. A woman was either beaten too badly - I'm not really sure of all the stats on it, but she was not given aid and was left on the ground in a seizure for fifteen minutes. Somebody - Somebody's head was smacked so hard against a department store window that all the glass is still cracked. Like, there's no reason for any of that. There's no reason for any of that. I mean, you're trying to, like, what? Subdue people so they don't actually come out and protest something that actually, like, fights for their interests too? These guys are absolute pigs and monsters, and anybody who's part of the police-industrial complex, whatever the hell you want to call it, it's systems of domination that are eating away at them and breaking us in the interim. (laugh) We're gonna have to keep fighting back.
How do you think the movement has changed since it started?
Well, it finally goat a little bit less white and middle class, that's what I like about Occupy Oakland, like (laugh) - My favorite thing is that we've actually tied together, like, stances against police brutality as well as many other causes. Occupy's become the umbrella for foreclosure defense, for food justice, for what have you. But police brutality, recognizing that no matter what society you're in, the police exist as an organized body to sup - Like, basically maintain a monopoly on organized violence, shit ain't gonna be good. When you have absolute power, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We see it in jail all the time, the way they arbitrarily throw people in solitary for giggling when they're getting patted down because they're like, 'This is an absolute violation of my rights, but all I can do - My defense mechanism is laughing at how absurdly wrong this is.' You know? And, like, fuck this rights discourse. The only rights we have are the ones that we can actually assert and fight for. Everything else is just something on paper that they'll, you know, make up a new law to tomorrow to take away. Like - (laugh)
For more from Projet En Vue, visit www.projetenvue.org
For more information about our project, visit http://kck.st/HOhPv2Here is a link to a rare interview with one of Oaklands Occupy Lead organizers from... more
-
-
sati
-
added this
-
28 days ago
- |
-
'It’s important for all of us whose lives are being damaged to know that it’s right that we get a little angry at those forces causing this problem.'
Across the planet now we see ever more flood, ever more drought, ever more storms. People are dying, communities are being wrecked — the impacts we’re already witnessing from climate change are unlike anything we have seen before.
But because the globe is so big, it’s hard for most people to see that it’s all connected. That’s why, on May 5, we will Connect the Dots.
In places from drought-stricken Mongolia to flood-stricken Thailand, from fire-ravaged Australia to Himalayan communities threatened by glacial melt, we will hold rallies reminding everyone what has happened in our neighborhoods. And at each of those rallies, from Kenya to Canada, from Vietnam to Vermont, someone will be holding a…dot. A huge black dot on a white banner, a “dot” of people holding hands, encircling a field where crops have dried up, a dot made of fabric and the picture taken from above — you get the idea. We’ll share those images the world around, to put a human face on climate change–we’ll hold up a mirror to the planet and force people to come face to face with the ravages of climate change.
Anyone and everyone can participate in this day. Many of us do not live in Texas, the Philippines, or Ethiopia — places deeply affected by climate impacts. For those communities, there are countless ways to stand in solidarity with those on the front-lines of the climate crisis: some people will giving presentations in their communities about how to connect the dots. Others will do projects to demonstrate what sorts of climate impacts we can expect if the crisis is left unchecked. And still others of us will express our indignation to local media and politicians for failing to connect the dots in their coverage of “natural disasters.”
However you choose to participate, your voice is needed in this fight — and you can sign up here: www.climatedots.org
These will be beautiful events, we’re sure. But they will also have an edge. It’s important for all of us whose lives are being damaged to know that it’s right that we get a little angry at those forces causing this problem. The fossil fuel industry is at fault, and we have to make that clear. Our crew at 350.org will work hard to connect all these dots — literally — and weave them together to create a potent call to action, and we will channel that call directly to the people who need to hear it most.
May 5 is coming soon; we need to work rapidly. Because climate change is bearing down on us, and we simply can’t wait. The world needs to understand what’s happening, and you’re the people who can tell them.
Please join us–we need you to send the most important alarm humanity has ever heard!
Onwards,
Bill McKibben'It’s important for all of us whose lives are being damaged to know that... more
-
-
May Day marks the first nationwide strike in US history, and now the Occupy Wall street movement has ressurected the worker's holiday, calling it "a day without the 99%". RT web producer Andrew Blake is in New York where it all started and thousands are gathered to rally today. He joins RT's Abby Martin for more on the day's event there.May Day marks the first nationwide strike in US history, and now the Occupy Wall... more
-
-
We will be sending 4 thousand + over to the Federal plaza downtown today, to let RAHMBO and the world know that this is SO NOT OVER! GET OUT IN THE STREET!
http://chicagospring.org/May1We will be sending 4 thousand + over to the Federal plaza downtown today, to let... more
-
-
-
Here's a great site that shows just how thoroughly workers are supporting the "job creators."
"The average CEO pay of companies in the S&P 500 Index rose to $12.94 million in 2011. Overall, the average level of CEO pay in the S&P 500 Index increased 13.9 percent in 2011, following a 22.8 percent increase in CEO pay in 2010."
Now you can sleep well, knowing that your CEOs are comfy.Here's a great site that shows just how thoroughly workers are supporting the... more
-
-
United , WE can do THIS !
-
-
Edited Version
Full Article here: http://truth-out.org/news/item/8544-six-people-you-need-to-start-a-revolution
Successful change movements run on diversity. Here are the essential skill sets no revolution can win without.
With the 99% Spring up and rolling and set to bring 100,000 new activists to the party this weekend, there's some increased friction between various progressive groups who are working to expand the movement this year.
It's a good time to remember that mass movements are — by design and necessity — big and diverse, encompassing lots of different kinds of people who bring all kinds of skills, resources, interests and priorities to the table. As progressives, we've always believed that that diversity is our most important strength.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"At some point, we have to decide we're going to trust each other, or this new revolution simply isn't going to work. Based on the patterns of history, there are six categories of people without whom no modern revolution has ever succeeded. And that success only happened when members of all six groups were able to put their personal misgivings aside, honor and value the irreplaceable knowledge each one brought to the table, and consciously built up enough mutual trust to bring about the future vision all the parties shared."
Activists
There's no doubt about it: you need rabble-rousers, organizers, rally makers, protest leaders — the people who know how to turn masses of people out into the streets, keep them there for as long as it takes, and get the rest of the country (media, politicians, the man and woman in the street) to pay attention to what they're saying.
Intellectuals
But even the best activists can't move the masses if they don't have a coherent story to tell, clear arguments to make, and game-changing policy changes to demand. Every successful movement has a compelling, factual story about why change must happen and well-reasoned theory for how that change must occur. This R&D function is what intellectuals bring to the revolution.
Artists
It's a tragic truth that the kinds of imaginative people who can envision new societies — the intellectuals — are typically not the same people who know how to communicate those visions to the great mass of people. In fact, the intellectuals are often crummy at it. To get people off their butts and out into the streets, you need professional storytellers — writers, artists, songwriters, poets, filmmakers, actors, ritualists — who are gifted at grabbing people by the guts and not letting them go.
Insiders
The activists, intellectuals and artists are all loath to admit it, but the bare fact is that no revolution succeeds without a cadre of shrewd political operators who intuitively understand how power works, and are ready to rush in and deftly pull exactly the right levers the minute they're left unguarded by the powers that be.
Supportive Elites
Marx may have been the first one to notice that revolutions only really take off when they're backed by a group of disaffected elites -- both economic and intellectual --who are willing to bring their connections, influence, organizational skills, money, fame and other resources to bear.
The Masses
And finally, we come to the basic truth: You cannot have a mass movement without the masses. Margaret Mead said that a few truly committed individuals can change the world. But they never do it alone; they do it by getting a big enough slice of society engaged and ready for the fight.Edited Version
Full Article here:... more
-
-
That’s what this article and book are saying on AOL-owned HuffPo Radio piece called: Both Sides: Are We All Pre-wired Left or Right? Do Beliefs Precede Facts?
"Left and Right then self-segregate into their own enclaves where they only hear their own side ratified — think a Tea Party rally and Occupy Wall Street protest."
Do you agree? Is it left to recognize facts that a growth-based, unchecked plutocracy is using up our resources? Are you a socialist to understand how Bank of America and Goldman Sachs profited from deceit at the expense of 99% of us?
Is this Ron Paul supporter a left-wing freak for understanding that the monetary supply is based on debt — nothing?
Should we let this go unchecked, or skip the fallacy of left/right?
http://occupyeducated.org/2012/04/16/is-occupy-leftist-huffington-post-thinks-so/That’s what this article and book are saying on AOL-owned HuffPo Radio piece... more
-
-
April 7, 2012 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- A march and rally across the city were the focus of what organizers called the kickoff of "Chicago Spring."
Occupy Chicago called Saturday a citywide day of action. Groups all across the city rallied in 13 neighborhoods. Some events were in Chicago's suburbs, as well. Those gathered talked about a number issues, like foreclosures, residents' visions for their communities and genocide.April 7, 2012 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- A march and rally across the city were the focus of... more
-
-
i know that keef getting justifiably fired has a lot of y'alls attention, but our rights are being stripped away: literally.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court’s conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs but also public health and information about gang affiliations.
read more at OccupyThePlanet.orgi know that keef getting justifiably fired has a lot of y'alls attention, but our... more
-
-
Come Together on April 7th to Launch the Chicago Spring!
Occupy Chicago is a nonviolent nonpartisan people’s movement. We welcome all, who, in good faith, act to reclaim our economy and democracy from corruption and corporate influence in government.Come Together on April 7th to Launch the Chicago Spring!
Occupy Chicago is a... more
-
-
99 to 1, those are pretty good odds.
-
-
-
Anonymous Message To American Citizens Concerning Ron Paul
Against New World Order Slavery http://www.new-world-order-plan.orgAnonymous Message To American Citizens Concerning Ron Paul
Against New World Order... more
-
-
D S Simon Productions partnered with CommPro.biz to conduct a survey on the media’s coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement and its effects on corporate communicators. After hundreds of media and communicators weighed in, it became clear that Occupy Wall Street had and is having an astounding impact on corporate social responsibility initiatives. Douglas Simon, President & CEO of D S Simon Productions, discusses some of the key findings the survey revealed.D S Simon Productions partnered with CommPro.biz to conduct a survey on the... more
-
