Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Joining Occupy Wall Street

Here is how you do it:



About OCCUPY TOGETHER

Welcome to OCCUPY TOGETHER, an unofficial hub for all of the events springing up across the country in solidarity with Occupy Wall St. As we have followed the news on facebook, twitter, and the various live feeds across the internet, we felt compelled to build a site that would help spread the word as more protests organize across the country. We hope to provide people with information about events that are organizing, ongoing, and building across the U.S. as we, the 99%, take action against the greed and corruption of the 1%.
We will try our best to provide you with the most accurate information possible. However, we are just a few volunteers and errors are bound to occur. Please be patient as we get this site off the ground and populated and please contact us if you have any info on new events, corrections, or suggestions for this site. You can contact us at info[at]occupytogether[dot]org.
We will only grow stronger in our solidarity and we will be heard, not just in New York, but in echoes across this nation.
For more information about us, the movement, and answers to questions, please check out our FAQ.
Important note: Occupy Together will never ask for any monetary donations. We suggest that, if you want to donate monetarily, that you visit this site to help those who currently Occupy Wall St.

Important Update Regarding Actions

If you’ve started seeing Occupy Together in your daily email box as we have, you probably know the word is spreading like a wildfire. The site has recently been linked on occupywallst.org, Adbusters, tweeted by Michael Moore and sent out in a MoveOn.org newsletter. WHEW! Talk about growing exponentially!
You have to remember, when we started this we were merely two designers who couldn’t get to NYC to support in person. We saw these solidarity actions forming in other areas and though “you know, it would be great to gather this information and make it readily available and easily accessible for everyone!” Little did we know we’d go from listing 4-5 locations in one night to receiving hundreds of emails in a day. We were slowing the flow of information because us volunteers weren’t able to keep up. This was a huge issue for us to solve because if we’re not making this information as accessible as possible then we’re not helping the movement.
This is where the internet gets awesome. Through this process we’ve been in touch with some very incredible and talented people with much more technical knowhow than we will ever have. The beauty of it all is that this just started as an idea by two and has grown into a collaboration by many. We are all in this together, it only takes one (or in our case two) to take the jump and you’ll find others to support and join you along the way.
We were contacted by the good people at meetup.com, who got in touch because they heard we were in need of some technical assistance and advice. They listened to our pressing issues at hand: adequate server space for site performance, SEO & RSS issues, and what seemed to be most daunting of all, our inability to keep up with all of the information we’ve been sent. They talked us through all of these issues, but most helpfully, showed us how we could use meetup.com as a tool to provide real-time event listings and updates. Who would have known there was a site out there that was made SPECIFICALLY for this kind of DIY, grassroots activity :D
All of the volunteers talked it over… we work in the spirit of the movement. No one is leading, everyone has a chance to voice concerns and we all make important decisions together. We all decided the best way to foster the growth of this movement and provide access to information around the world was to use meetup.com as the method of finding, listing, and updating events. The GREAT thing about all of this, is that it’s completely in line with the whole idea of this decentralized movement. Any single person can start an action in their area, and where one stands up there will likely be another to join you! Plus, you don’t have to belong to the site to view the information and meetup.com is very concerned with user privacy. So, if you’re not a Facebook or social media user, no fear! You can still get real time information and updates in your area too!
Long story short, we’re going to integrate meetup tools into www.occupytogether.org. For the most part there won’t be a huge difference. You will look on the map for your location and once you find it you’ll click on a link that will take you to a page with all of the information of solidarity actions being organized in your area!
We hope you all understand and share our sentiment on this decision. We’ve done our best to add all existing locations that were on our website, and we will continue to add the events that were emailed to us through tomorrow. However, now you are all individually empowered to add new and update old information at any time!
Lastly, we want to mention that we’re very aware of the server problems we’ve been encountering. We will have a new home on our very own dedicated server here within the next 24-48 hours. You have all been great in being patient with us and supporting us. We hope we won’t wear your patience out as we wait to move to our new home!
Occupy Together

Major Site Restructuring Due to Number of Cities Organizing

Wow, the groups organizing and occupations popping up across the country is growing exponentially by the day. So much so that, in order to have proper navigation and organization on the site, we had to begin categorizing these pages by state. Because of this, every occupation’s permalink has been changed. We’re sorry for this inconvenience, especially if you have directly linked to our page, but it was necessary for people to quickly find what they were looking for on our site. We ask all of those who previously linked to their occupation’s page on our site to update their link accordingly.
Again, we apologize for the inconvenience and hope that this change will prevent us from having to do any major overhauls in the future.
Thanks.
In solidarity with Occupy Wall St.,
Occupy Together

Occupy San Francisco Takes It To The Streets

We will be posting a lot more videos from different places across the country. All of these are so incredibly inspiring that, as I write this, I have goosebumps. We will let you know how to submit your videos shortly.

Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution ( Occupy Wall Street )

A really great video from Occupy Wall Street.

Source: Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Portland Model

We’ve witnessed an exponentially growing list of communities that are banding together with our brothers and sisters on Wall St. by organizing solidarity actions in their cities. This rise in support has been incredibly inspiring and has promoted many of you to become active in organizing an event in your area. Through the enthusiasm and excitement of wanting to show your support you are all working diligently to organize events in a short amount of time. As we have followed some of theses group’s efforts we’ve seen many different approaches to organizing. We’ve also fielded many questions on advice and how to information on effectively organizing. We wanted to feature Portland as an example for those of you would like a model to follow or to take from as they have done a great job joining and organizing efforts in a very short amount of time. Of course, each group dynamic is going to vary and what worked for Portland may not work for you, but at least this will give you an idea of how others are doing it.
A couple of members from Portland filled us in on their process:
Basically it all comes down to networking and extensive planning. The initial construction of the Occupy Portland Facebook group was backed by some pretty frequent tweeting. Once we started getting a huge following, there were more and more discussions popping up on the Facebook group. We were discussing where it should be, what Portland laws were regarding “urban camping”, as well as a number of other concerns. We then held a General Assembly to further organize where were all in consensus with our future actions and demonstration details. After we compiled notes from the GA, we discussed them further on the Facebook group. Once we had the frame work of what everyone wanted and expected we set up a Facebook page and web site to better organize and announce future details.
Advice using Twitter:
Sending messages to those working at Occupy Wall Street was definitely helped us gain notice. People are heavily following #occupywallstreet, #takewallstreet, #usdor, as well as a number of other widely used hash tags. Each tweet sent out would include a tag with a trending tag, my city (#pdx) as well as a link to the facebook group.
Also we paid attention to the amount of followers people had, and mentioned them as well.
Portlanders were watching, so they were bound to jump on board once they knew about a protest here. Nearly all of us are using Twitter, so they used the same approach when spreading the group link around the internet.
Advice using Facebook:
We first started a Group that opened up discussion to hear out everyone’s ideas, concerns and thoughts on how they could help. This was a very important stage in our organizational efforts.
General Assembly:
I think the most important thing for us was using the General Assembly model and making each decision everyone’s decision. This helped us remain unified. Legal assistance, bike deliveries, medics, photographers, people who can stream the protest, and similar topics were brought up. We covered nearly all the bases, and most of us left with a pretty hefty amount of notes. Notes from the General Assembly were posted online on a page for everyone in the Portland group to see.
Legal Advice:
Contact your local National Lawyers Guild early on for legal advice in your area. We are holding a seminar with the National Lawyers Guild so that we can become versed in the proper execution of a demonstration like this. They have confirmed that legal observers will be present durring our demonstration. We are also planning to hold a meeting with them where we discuss the importance of nonviolence and the proper way to conduct oneself in civil disobedience.
Additional Thoughts:
It’s extremely important to make sure extensive preparation goes into a something this big. Some people have certain contacts who would be useful, others are volunteering to do a specific job. It all comes as we address what needs to be seen and done upon Occupation.
We stressed something several times: this needs to remain non-violent. Remaining peaceful helps the overall image of this nationwide movement. If things do become violent, we acknowledge that staying calm only helps the cause. If we have arrests then we will have the footage immediately uploaded. It helps those in NYC by showing that the cops are abusing our rights, and that this thing is nothing like the misleading media says.
Helpful Links: 
nycga.cc Find up to date information on the NYC General Assembly.
occupywallst.org News, video feed, forum & chat.
http://nycga.cc/2011/09/24/principles-of-solidarity-working-draft/ Working Draft of the Principles of Solidarity
www.nlg.org National Lawyers Guild

A Really Great Article About Occupy Wall St. In The Guardian

There was a really fantastic article that is making its rounds across the internet as the United States still sits in a media blackout on this topic. It will only be a matter of days, however, that this story spreads wider across the country. Already, many are beginning to hear about what is happening with those who Occupy Wall St. and the ripple effect it is having across the country.
Check out The Guardian article, it’s a good read (and don’t forget to share it with all of your friends).
“We might do well to consider the collapse of the European colonial empires. It certainly did not lead to the rich successfully grabbing all the cookies, but to the creation of the modern welfare state. We don’t know precisely what will come out of this round. But if the occupiers finally manage to break the 30-year stranglehold that has been placed on the human imagination, as in those first weeks after September 2008, everything will once again be on the table – and the occupiers of Wall Street and other cities around the US will have done us the greatest favour anyone possibly can.”

Should National Efforts Unify & Align With A National/International Event?

Brothers and Sisters on Wall St.,
We’ve been busy over at OccupyTogether.org helping people become aware of solidarity events in their area taking place and organizing. There have been many expressing that it would be a good idea to organize a national event in solidarity with Occupy Wall St. so that our voices of support can be heard louder. We would like to communicate with you on Wall St. and see how we can be most supportive of your efforts.
We’ve been discussing this topic here: https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=294421993905616&topic=324
We also have someone who has suggested and will facilitate a national conference call if beneficial. Discussed here: https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=294421993905616&topic=325
Occupy Together would ultimately want the word from those of you on Wall St. before we’ll organize, endorse and promote any national event. At Occupy Together we stand by the developing mission of Occupy Wall St., but we are not representatives for Occupy Wall St.
Please get in touch, we’re able to communicate with many occupying groups at once and would be able to help form a louder voice across the nation.
Solidarity,
Occupy Together

It’s Been a Busy Day


We’ve had a huge response the last couple of days and unfortunately, the blog portion of this site has suffered a bit because of it. We are still trying to get a solid footing as we maintain the webpage, the facebook page, and the twitter feed. What you have seen so far is the product of a three person effort to provide the Occupy community with a space to organize, promote, and support this movement and it’s really been a 24/7 effort to keep things up to date. Luckily, it seems that a lot of you have been willing to lend a hand so that this will become even more efficient. Thank you all for your support so far.
There was a large march in NYC that resulted in an estimated 80 arrests. Many protestors endured police aggression, pepper spray and mace, baton beatings, and harassment during their march this afternoon. Little to no media coverage has been so far, even after such a challenging day. Still, the protestors remain steadfast and determined as the rest of country slowly begins to get word of what is happening.
Many other events, demonstrations, and assemblies were held around the country including Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose in solidarity with Occupy Wall St. We hope that these all went well and would love to hear any news about these events that participants have to offer.
We have begun to add pictures on our Photos page from flickr sites. If you have any photos from your events, please contact us with either a .zip/.rar of your photographs or a link to your flickr page.
More downloadable posters have been added as we continue to provide a free mode of distributing information and gaining awareness about this movement. With the media largely silent, we will need to take it upon ourselves to gain numbers and even stronger momentum.
We wish everyone the best as they continue to organize and demonstrate. Stay safe, stay peaceful.

Downloadable Posters are Now Live and Available!

This project and this movement is about mobilizing the masses and nothing is more important than numbers when it comes to a protest’s strength and longevity. That is why we are providing everyone with free downloadable posters, graciously provided by graphic designers around the country, to not only promote this site and efforts down on Wall St. but to help mobilize in other communities, to inspire, to promote, to inform, and to strengthen the occupiers’ efforts. Please, feel free to download these, print them, and start hanging them everywhere.
To all graphic designers out there, if you would like to donate some of your time and energy to this effort, we want to make your work available. Please provide us with a PDF of your poster and we’ll get your poster up ASAP.

Many New Updates Coming In

WOW! The response from this has been overwhelming and so encouraging. Thank you so much for all of the information that all of you have been sending us. We have been making some updates to the site to make the Events more navigable, so bare with us. We’ll be updating as quickly as our fingers move to get all of you the most up to date information. Again, we are going by what organizers within these states are giving us so if you are finding some of the information to be false, please let us know and we’ll get things corrected.
Again, thank you all so very much. Once we get things better organized and updated, maybe we can tackle some of the tougher issues like “making the red seem less angry.”

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Occupy Wall Street -- Need for Socialism







Illustration: our right to protest and our democracy from the real inside.


THE NEED FOR NEGATIVE THINKING



            Which comes first?  There is no shortage of clergy, motivational speakers, and just ordinary fools about the power of positive thinking, and there is no need to challenge it.  Certainly, positive thinking enables us to accomplish things, to believe that things can be done; in fact, it can make all sorts of positive changes in our life.  Having said that, the question remains: what needs to be changed?  What is wrong that we need positive thinking and action to correct it?  

            The power of stupidity.  For some time, the American people have sensed that there was something wrong, but were unable to identify exactly what it was.  All they knew was that their standard of living was plummeting and that government was not responding to their concerns.  Indeed, the first obvious signs of this in recent years has been seen in what has designated itself as the “tea party”.  These were justifiably angry people, but they were also sadly lacking in critical thinking skills, knowledge of history, and basic understanding of essential details.  They looked quite strange on television, what with their outlandish hats draped with tea bags and carrying nonsensical signs.  They were even heard and recorded as shouting such inanities as “keep your government hands off my social security!” 

            Herding the stupid.  Soon, agents amongst the upper 1% in income, the people who own up to 50% of the wealth in this country, took over and organized the movement, if such it can be called, and infused a rigid right wing ideology into it (stopped the need for thinking).  They were led into a mass campaign to elect right wing zealots into office this election (many of which they recalled through recall elections after seeing how their “ideas” worked), but they still are angry and still hold many of these right wing ideas.   The people they support actually militate against the people’s own best economic interests, but these people are too ignorant to understand this. 

             Who owns what?  So, for example, when they hear the “down with taxes” chant, they do not realize that the greatest amount of unpaid taxes is in the hands of the upper 1% (and there is no way these people are in the upper 1%).  I have also heard stated that 95% of the wealth of the country are in the hands of the upper 1%, but I think that relates more to the upper 5%.  They do not know this, but they are, clearly, unhappy, and they have forced Republican Presidential candidates to make Asses of themselves in order to get nominated.

             Determining guilt.  One group that does focus on the correct target is the so-called 99%ers.  Obviously, anyone not in the upper 1%.  They have been occupying Wall Street now for about a month and have only recently received coverage.  No media had covered them at all until Keith Olbermann began to point this fact out.  As many now know, Keith Olbermann is now with current TV, a cable channel called “Gore’s channel,” to identify it with the ex-vice President and recent Nobel Prize winner Al Gore.  This is worth looking at in a little depth in itself.

             Meditation can help, with money.  After his inane Presidential campaign, replete with his choice of a turncoat V.P. Candidate who tried to help impeach his own President, hearing shouts of “Gore, Gore, Corporate whore,” changes in style as advisors reacted to polls and ratings, in short, after acting like a typical politician, and then having the election stolen from him and the theft ratified by the Supreme Court, Al Gore disappeared from the public.  He went off to Europe somewhere, did some deep reflection, and somewhat later emerged, even wearing a beard.  He had obviously reflected on things.

             Your own media.  He soon began work on the environment and a new network channel called “Current TV.”  Since he and a friend had plenty of money, they were free to run it as they pleased.  Recently, an ex-sportscaster and ex-Fox employee, Keith Olbermann, who chaffed at much of the restrictions placed on him by corporate media (MSNBC has been taken over by Comcast, an even more right-wing corporation that General Electric), had left MSNBC, spent some time on-line keeping things going, and has been hired by Current TV as third in charge and as Director of News.  Another addition will be Cenk Uyger of the Young Turks which has a huge Internet following.  (He also left MSNBC after having the highest ratings in that time slot of the channel, ever.)  It is quite clear that the bulk of the media is in the hands of six major corporations.  (And before someone points out that Keith is now paid ten million per year, be aware that Rush Limbaugh earns 400 million/year to spew right-wing nonsense.)  Keith began coverage of the occupy Wall Street movement some two weeks before the New York police helped broaden interest by gassing several women they penned in a small plastic cage and then interest and coverage grew as 700 were arrested.  Now it is well known.

             21st Century Capitalism.  So what is it about?  Well, the first thing is the sheer artificiality of modern, 21st Century Capitalism.  Karl Mark did not even dream of such fantastic practices.  He only saw master and slave, owner and employee, relationships and their excesses.  This modern form is something quite different.

             What physical is produced?  Actually, it has nothing to do with job creation or investment.  It is now nothing more than gambling, but in an even more outrageous form.  Investors bet against themselves, and then insure themselves against loosing.  Here is how it works:  first, some contractor of builder would build a house.  He would pay for the labor and materials and then try to sell it for a profit.  This is typical capitalism, as most people understand it.  The builder invested, say, $100,000 into the house and then sells it for $200,000.  The profit is $100,000, which is taxed as “Capital Grains,” if he is lucky.  Simple, yes?  No.

            The power of folklore.  The next step is quite a bit of chicanery.  Since we have a long tradition of the so-called middle class, however one defines it, as having their house as their largest investment, with house prices rising yearly, the middle class prospers.  (At least, during the last millennium.)  But now, a bank will somehow invest in the house and it is sold for $500,000 to $750,000 – on paper.  A mortgage is signed, listing that as the price or value, and soon the mortgage is re-sold to another bank for less, but the face value remains the same.  The person who signed the mortgage is only paying 1% interest/year and made little or no down payment, but through this process up to a million dollars is created.  Simply repeat this process with many cheaply built houses, give them a high valuation, and you soon have a fortune.  Sell those mortgages as quickly as possible, perhaps in bundles, and you have quite a value there.  On top of it, put three of these houses, each really worth perhaps $200,000 together at $500,000, get them a AAA+ rating, and sell the package at two million dollars ($2,000,000).  The next bank gets them insured for four million dollars.  The people in the house loose their jobs, default, and you collect on your insurance that the same bank sold you.  Then you multiply this by a million and soon you are talking about real money.  That’s real capitalism.

             Changing your name.  Of course, you make sure that all the politicians owe their seats to you and that all the media is owned by you.  The next step is to get taxpayers to reimburse you for your “losses.”  Make sure, while you are at it, that you are called the “job creators” so your own taxes do not go up.

             Get out.  Meanwhile, what happened to the guy and his family who originally bought one of the houses?  If he has any sense at all, he will just stop paying his mortgage and if the bank wants to foreclose, demand that they produce the original documents.  The odds are they don’t have them or know where the hell they are.

            Psychology.  One final thing you must remember: all corporations are, by law, sociopaths.  I know a little bit about Psychology.  Corporations are legally bound to eschew any other motive than to make money.  No morality, honesty, or any other sort of obligation to society in allowed.  Our Supreme Court just reaffirmed this, in fact, and endorsed their need to own our entire society – so long as it is profitable.  Have fun voting – if you can.
            To Oversimplify is a virtue.  Much of the analysis is a very simplified version of what is going on.  It is intentionally kept much more complicated.  Nevertheless, on this very site, The Absurd Times , all you need to do is type in “Nobel Prize Economics,” to find articles by three Nobel Prize winning economists, all attacked as being wrong by the major (corporate) media.  I’ve just tried to give an idea of how absurd this whole idea of “job creation” by “people” such as Wall Street of Goldman-Sachs is.  What we need is for all the money to go to a community fund and then equitably distributed.  This is not class warfare.  Class Warfare is what we have now – except it is the class of the upper 1% against the rest of us.   


           




Monday, October 03, 2011

Occypy Wall Street

I'm still busy with the article, but here are a couple updates.  The first is from the group itself (they have organized) and the second a commentary before the 700 were arrested:



First ‘Official’ Statement From the Occupy Wall Street Movement



Sunday, October 02, 2011


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This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. You can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycga@gmail.com.
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive. 
Venezuela--_2006-057

Corporate Spectre?

By Jones, David at Oct 02, 2011 15:38 PM
So in essence the demon here is "limited liability" , the legal status corporations get? I think this is problematic in that it obscures the oppressive, undemocratic social relations inherent to the profit system more generally. The message is the same essentially as Sarah Palin's or even Ron Paul's : We want a kinder, gentler, "small business" capitalist model like back in the good old days. Not "crony" or "corporate" capitalism but free market capitalism, on the one hand, or Keynesian capitalism on the other. Neither of which is possible now.

Wall Street is simply a symbol of a power structure which has proven itself unjust and unsustainable (i would add barbaric). All the "they have's" listed above are only symptoms of that structure. Until the courage is found to deny consensus until the word capitalism is inserted in place of corporations, this will just be another exercise in progressive movement building dominated by NGO's and non-profit community organizers. ( a perfect example being Van Jones' piece).


ZNet

 

Occupying Wall Street On A Saturday Afternoon

Before you read on, watch this: a video from the base camp of the #OccupyWall Street protest that is now in its seventh day. It’s called “No One Can Predict the Moment of Revolution.” (The video was produced by Martyna Starosta and her friend Iva.)

These are the faces of a wannabe revolution, more than a protest but not yet quite a major Movement. The spirit is infectious, perhaps because of the sincerity of the participants and their obvious commitment to their ideals.

Occupy Wall Street is more than a protest; it is as much an exercise in building a leaderless, bottom-up resistance community with a more democratic approach to challenging the system where everyone is encouraged to have a say.

But saying that also leads to a conflict between my emotional identification with the kids that have rallied in this small park/public space on Liberty Street to exercise some liberty, with a despairing analysis that wishes this enterprise well but harbors deep doubts about its staying power and impact.

This privately owned park -- devastated by debris on 9/11 and then rebuilt by a real estate magnate who named it after himself -- is also a place that is under 24 hour surveillance from a hostile New York City police Department which has put up a fence on one side of the park, brought down a spy tower from Times Square to track the participants from on high, and sprinkled infiltrators into the crowd.

By the time I left, late on Saturday afternoon, the police arrested 70 people who had joined a march that went from Wall Street to Union Square, New York’s traditional gathering place for political rallies for nearly l00 years. (You can watch it all on a live stream: http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution)

In many ways this is a 2011 style protest modeled after Tahrir Square in Cairo. It is non-violent, organized around what’s called a “General Assembly” where the community meets daily to debate its political direction and discuss how it sees itself. There are no formal leaders or spokespeople, no written down political agenda and no shared demands.

They focus on using social media. Twitter is their megaphone.

They have no sound system. When participants want to make an announcement, they yell “Mike Check,” which is repeated by the whole crowd. They also repeat the announcement, a few words at a time, so everyone can hear it.

This bottom-up anarchist sensibility and ideology conflicts with the mass mobilizations of old where an organization issues a call and a coalition of groups carries it out.

I ran into one of yesterday’s movement leaders, Leslie Cagan, who ran United for Peace and Justice and organized the massive anti-Iraq war protests and marches in New York and Washington before and after. She was as intrigued as I was about this gathering of the committed. She found the focus a bit vague but seemed willing to give it a chance to grow and learn by making its own mistakes.

Other 60’s activists like Aron Kay, known as the “pie man” for all the famous and infamous people he pied in the face to protest their crimes and misdemeanors—including Andy Warhol for dining with the Shah of Iran—was also showing his solidarity by turning up and squatting in the park.

Lower Manhattan on a Saturday is usually a Mosque less Mecca for tourists visiting Ground Zero, a crime scene if there ever was one. It is a symbol of a national failure to defend this country as well.

It’s also the place where the 911 Truth Movement shares its findings weekly about what “really happened” with visitors.

Just a few blocks away is another crime scene: Wall Street, which symbolizes an ongoing economic failure. In this past week, access has been limited and in this free country of ours protestors could not parade in front of the NY Stock Exchange, another privately run financial institution. That led Yves Smith of the Naked Capitalism blog to opine, “I’m beginning to wonder whether the right to assemble is effectively dead in the US.”

Many banks like Chase doubled their security forces and put up fences to protect themselves from the people the NY media has labeled “kids and ageing hippies.”

The panic in the exchange is mirrored in the insecurity in the streets where surveillance cameras, private police forces and NY cops defend the bastions of privilege.

The police went on the offensive Saturday with mass arrests of activists. Scott Galindez filed this report on Reader Supported News: “While the live feeds were up I witnessed a very powerful arrest of a law student whose parents were recently evicted from their home. He dropped to his knees and gave an impassioned plea for the American people to wake up! There are reports of police kettling protesters with a big orange net, at least five maced, and police using tasers.”

There were also reports of the use of mace, tear gas and pepper spray which hit two older women. We are so used to these storm trooper tactics that most expect them. There had been fewer arrests last week, although the police seem to now have identified key organizers and are singling them out.

On Saturday, police gave out a notice saying that it is now illegal to sleep in the park. They then put up a sign on a park wall. I watched a member of the police command, a “white shirt” named Timoney, march into the park and gruffly ordere the communications team that spends most of its time tweeting out the latest news, to take down some large umbrellas the activists were using to protect their computers from rain.

The police consider these “structures” and prohibit them. Earlier in the week, they arrested people for using tarps to protect their gear. (They don’t see the irony in that term given the way the TARP law bailed out the banksters.)

Many of the people in park believe the end may be coming with the police eager to end what they see as a Woodstock on Wall Street complete with topless teens and long haired militants. This assemblage clearly affects their macho identity as upholders of law and order, as they define it.  They probably agree with the right wing Red State website that calls the protesters a “menagerie.”

I wouldn’t rule out mass arrests once a provocation, theirs or the protesters, provides the pretext.

Will the Occupy Wall Street collectives be able to continue to occupy a zone that has been occupied for years by the greedsters of the finance world?

More importantly, will the issues they are trying to draw attention to, however symbolically, be taken up by others?

Will it take more cracked heads or even a police killing to move New Yorkers to support a campaign to rein in Wall Street?

Where are the unions and New York’s progressive democrats and organizations?  Why aren’t they in the streets?

Why don’t they realize that economic justice issues are essential to transforming this oligarch driven country?

I having been calling for years for more protests on Wall Street to put the issues of Wall Street crime on the agenda, But with media barely covering this “occupation,” with the activists being denigrated for their youth and inexperience, will this one have the impact I was hoping for?

It seems unlikely.

News Dissector Danny Schechter directed Plunder The Crime of Our Time, and wrote a companion book about the financial crisis as a crime story (Plunderthecrimeofourtime.com). Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org. 

From:
Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL:

Friday, September 30, 2011

First Step on the Need for Negative Thinking. More to come.


22 September, 2011

"Occupy Wall Street" - 11 Things You Can Do to Help the 'Occupy Wall Street' Movement

These patriot occupiers are fighting for 99 percent of us. Those who are unemployed, uninsured, underemployed and totally insecure in the face of ever increasing social and financial inequities.

They are standing up for those who cannot be there right now.
Here's the good news -- you can help, right now today -- no matter where you are.
1) Spread the word -- there's something going on. People have started a movement -- they're occupying Wall Street. Hundreds of people have been camped out in lower Manhattan for four days!
2) If you're in New York and can only spare a little time or money: bring American flags, cardboard, markers, water, etc. down to Liberty Park.
3) If you're in the New York area and have a day, a morning, an afternoon, go down there. The weather appears to be holding. Take the day off and just go. I know it sounds hard to believe but you will be heard. This is an open general assembly effort and you will get your say and be a real participant.
4) If you are a little ways from NYC, organize foursomes to go to NYC for the day. It will cost you the train/bus/car fare. Take nothing but some food and water and your body.  
5) Too far to get to NYC? Sign this petition and I will read your name and comments in Liberty Park this week, I promise. Break Up Goldman Sachs Now!
6) Be subversive against the big money interests wherever you are and encourage others to do the same. Don't give the banksters 4 percent of every purchase you make with a credit or debit card -- use cash. See: UseCashMovement
7) Be subversive: max out your credit card on large ticket items and return them the next day. (This one is right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.)
8) Move your money from a big bank to a credit union.
9) Picket a local branch of a bank. When the press asks you what the heck you think you're doing, tell them it's in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.
10) Send food to the protesters in Liberty Park through a New York friend or go to the live stream chat for information on local eats that will take your order. (Yes, you'll have to use your credit card, big spender!)
11) Do you know anybody who knows anybody who knows a writer, a celebrity, etc. who will show their face at the protest? Get to them now.
Bonus Support Idea 12) Spread the word again, and repeat!
Chaz Valenza is a writer and small business owner in New Jersey.

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET started last Saturday, when 5,000 Americans descended on to the financial district of Lower Manhattan, held a people's assembly and set up an encampment in Zuccotti Park on Liberty Street, a stone's throw from Wall Street and a block from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Three hundred spent the night, several hundred reinforcements arrived the next day and dug in for a long-term stay. Call in sick, invite your friends, hop on a bus or plane to New York City … join us! We're now in DAY 6.

Our Mission

On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.

Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece, Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the use of nonviolence to achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants.

Who is Occupy Wall Street?

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.

The original call for this occupation was published by Adbusters in July; since then, many individuals across the country have stepped up to organize this event, such as the people of the NYC General Assembly and US Day of Rage. There'll also be similar occupations in the near future such as October2011 in Freedom Plaza, Washington D.C.

Friday, September 23, 2011

As Promised: The Land of the Morons


THE REPUBLICAN BASE

Illustration: Keith Tucker at www.whatnowtoons.com nicely illustrates Rick Perry.

            To us, this is a subject that is not at all interesting and one that should be disposed of with one flush of the mind.  We are addressing it because about half of our readership is international in any given year, and because some of you have asked questions such as “what?” when hearing about some of the candidates; in fact, any of the candidates.  It is a fact that the largest advantage the President has in his re-election campaign is the quality and behavior of the Republican opposition.

            The first thing to mention is that there is a difference between the ownership of this base and the members of the base.  On the whole, the ownership is wealthy with attitudes much like those of Rupert Murdoch and the base is comprised of those duped into voting against their own self-interest.  We are concentrating on the base.

            Next, matters become much more clear if we simply accept the proposition that fact, verifiable fact, and scientific fact, are totally irrelevant in the campaign and the debates.  Political fact and truth are also irrelevant.  Assertion is all that counts with this base and the assertions must comport with the fantastic beliefs of this moronic group.

            So, for example, there is no evolution of any sort.  The universe is 6,000 years old and that is all there is to it.  Have you ever met anyone older that 6,000 years old?  No, and if you do, then we can talk.  The easiest way for us to explain this to you is simply to refer you to the movie, INHERIT THE WIND.  There are at least three versions of this.  Pay attention of the examination by the actor playing Darrow of the actor playing Bryant (opposing and prosecuting counsel).  It has something to do with the number assigned to a generation and then counting the number of begettings that went on thus producing generations. 

            One may ask whether the candidates actually believe the nonsense they often espouse, and the answer is that it does not matter.  However, I did ask that question of some of our American readers and post at the end the “Hughman Perspective”.  As to foreign policy issues as related to some of the religious assertions, I post below the “Wright Perspective”.  This at least should serve to show that not all “Americans” are idiots. 

            Finally, the fact that two concepts or principles, or assertions, are completely incompatible does not preclude the fact that they must be believed simultaneously.  This is an important corollary to the governing principle that fact is completely irrelevant – only assertion is needed or encouraged.

            Having said all this, we can offer a few observations on some of the candidates in question.

            Rick Perry seems to be the most popular amongst this group.  He was governor of Texas and proposed to secede from the Union, a proposal warmly received in Texas (and elsewhere, by the way), but not seriously considered since the days of Abraham Lincoln and the Confederacy and the Civil War.  He led a prayer and fasting ritual for an entire day in Texas to pray for rain as Texas was literally on fire.  The fasting was greatly enjoyed as many refreshments were served all the time.  Texas is still on fire, as best as we can determine.  During a question at a debate, it was stated by the questioner that about 250 people were executed in Texas last year.  He was unable to answer the rest of the question immediately as the audience broke out into wild applause in appreciation for his bloodlust.   Obviously, the entire crowd is “pro-life”.  (Remember the irrelevance of logical consistency.)

            Surprisingly, when compared to Obama, with the entire voting population (not just the Republican base), Sarah Palin does best, loosing by only 5 percentage points whereas Perry looses by as many as 16.  Enough has been said about her and the new book about her (has the word “rogue” in it), which no one has read but many have reviewed, mentioning things such as her having sex with a black basketball star in Michigan (one of the five or six colleges and universities she attended before obtaining her B.A.) to other absurd behaviors.  We have deliberately forgotten about them simply for the sake of mental stability (ours).  However, during this campaign, she has said absolutely nothing on any of the issues and has not (apparently) mentioned the President, and this has given her the support the survey showed.  In other words, she kept her mouth shut and thus made more sense than other candidates.

            Often finishing in second place with this crowd is Ron Paul, a Congressman from Texas.  He is never discussed.  A major reason for this is that he is logically consistant – government should do basically nothing.  Hence, he opposes all foreign aid, wars, occupations, and military bases.  The military should be used only for defense.  All victimless crimes should be abolished and thus drugs and prostitution would be legal.  This makes him popular with more intelligent, younger, voters as it also eliminates conscription, but the crowd is sharply divided when he makes the point.  However, the crowd is unanimous in approving his assertion that the government should not care about the welfare of its citizens by providing healthcare, retirement, and so on.  (Current recipients do retain their Social Security because “a Deal’s a Deal.”)   Since he is logically consistent, he will never be nominated.  Thus, he was widely booed when stating we should not use our military abroad and wildly cheered when he said that we should let sick people die.

            Mitt Romney is at a disadvantage because at one time he supported a woman’s right to choose and instituted a healthcare system as Governor of Massachusetts.   He is able to attack Perry for attacking Social Security as a “Ponzi Scheme.”  He also seems relatively sane, but then this simply means that he seems to be the least insane of the candidates.

            Michelle Bachman is interesting in her ability to alternate between a semblance of sanity and pure idiocy.  So, her husband runs a clinic to “cure” homosexuals through prayer and government aid.  She believes a woman should “submit” to her husband in accordance with the crowd’s understanding of the Bible, but when asked about it says that “submit” means “mutual respect”.  She was proud of the fact that she went to Law School (Oral Robert’s?) and worked for the IRS, but when questioned said that she was working against the enemy from within. 

            There are others, of course, but these serve to illustrate the pack.  All that remains to be said is that the only entity that seems more disgusting than any candidate is the base itself.

             Now the other comments:



KeithOlbermann Keith Olbermann
Sweet Jesus, Cheney is showing how his Heart Pump works AGAIN, on CNN. Once more and I'll be able to build one out of popsicle sticks



THE HUGHMAN PERSPECTIVE


Of course they are part charlatan as most any publicly announced
"Christian" is.  That's probably where they get their first lessons in
duplicity- growing up and hearing  people avow one thing and practice
another. They see how easy it is and it becomes such a habit, it is
part of their nature. Espouse whatever is necessary to achieve the
real goals. Money and power. Their true creed is Greed, so deny global
warming; regulation is bad for business; don't tax the rich- they
create jobs (ha ha).  Of course Greed has no pity on the lower level-
do away with Social Security and Medicare; They should be self-
reliant and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. No bootstraps? let
them eat Twinkies!

I heard on the news- the guy said Obama looks more and more like a one
term President, and that makes it hard for Romney to say choose him
because Perry is unelectable, but now it looks like any Repub can win.
I said that myself last year- that there will be a hell of a scramble
for the Repub nomination, because whoever gets it is the next
president. But if that's the case, why stop at Perry? How about
Bachmann and Palin for a ticket? Set al kinds of records- first women
execs, first dingbat execs- first to watch the country sink below the
horizon maybe?


My friend then sent the following after apologizing for not taking into consideration the fact that I use a PC, not a MAC:


The survey of 1,714 U.S. adults, conducted by Gallup in fall 2010, was
funded by Baylor, the National Science Foundation and the John
Templeton Foundation. The margin of error is plus or minus 4
percentage points.
Gallup  questioned 1714 adults in fall 2010 . Named the Baylor
Religion Survey ( Baylor is in Wacko Texas ) they must have been chief
funder or perhaps the only party interested in the results. It seems
an awfully small sampling but it found 1 in 5 (20%) 342.8 people
surveyed were conservative believers in an anthropomorphic god ( big
“G” with them) who concerns himself with the daily workings of the
world ( just one of several worlds  he personally runs) and especially
with the way the economy is handled. These people also oppose
government regulation and champion the free market as a matter of
faith! They say the economy works because god wants it to work. Now if
the economy doesn’t work, does that mean god doesn’t want it to work?
This a question I would have wanted asked in the survey.  Is the
economy working right now? Well, some days it’s up and some days it’s
down. Maybe god is a Bipolar manic/depressive?? Or maybe he just
enjoys roller coaster rides. It makes little difference to him- he
doesn’t need the cash- he buys on credit. I am joking of course- he
doesn’t buy - he has everything already. These people say the
invisible hand of the free market is really god at work- according to
Paul Froese, co author of the Baylor Religion Survey. According to
him, most conservatives- 81% or 277.668 of people surveyed, believe
there is an ultimate truth in the world. I wish they’d synthesize that
truth into one logical sentence, but alas, you must ask god I guess.
However the vague answer is god is running the economy and don’t
bother him, Politicians now see a new economic idealism which prompts
them to say such things as; god blesses us; god helps us, god watches
us ( it sounds like a line from Prizzi’s Honor), to much applause as
these conservatives get the coded message. Good for them because I
don’t see any message there. And Government (big “G”’ for emphasis) is
a villain to be booed- or even ( shudder) the Devil to be despised!.
Government works against god who just wants everything to run without
interference. According to the survey  73%-  or 277.668 of these folks
say- “I know God has a plan for me.” I am suspicious of so many random
people phrasing a statement in the exact same wording. It sounds like
there was coaching behind the scenes. 49% - the survey says.... ( they
should put this on Family Feud) 49% say “the government in Washington
is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and
private businesses. Again so many using the exact same words is
suspicious, don’t you think? 79% say able-bodied people who are out of
work shouldn’t receive unemployment checks if they are passing up jobs
they can do ( like licking conservative asses clean after they take a
shit).

Now the good news for the rest of the world is this is a distinctly
American cultural finding and specific to the moment. It was different
in the past, it might be different in the future ( let's hope so-
hey!?) and it's different now in Western Europe, according to Froese .
The teabagger’s motto seems to be “ No taxation AND no
representation.” Or “Let god do it.”


And on Israel:


THE WRIGHT PERSPECTIVE
Dear Warren,
 
  Forgive me in advance if you will for taking issue with some of the things you wrote in your
  very good essay.   To my understanding, Hamas is not unwilling to recognize israel if Israel
  will say what its eastern border is.  It’s hard to ‘recognize’ an un-bordered state.  It’s been crystal
  clear for decades that the political regimes controlling Israel push tirelessly for more
  land in the West Bank, and make life for Palestinians ( modern ‘Philistines’) practically unbearable.
 
  I’m a Christian, and for that reason do not think Israel should be cut any more slack politically because
  of its sacred Biblical name, any more than someone named ‘Jesus’ deserves special treatment legally.
 
  We the United States are profoundly culpable for the current injustice we find between Israel and Palestine.
  This situation would have long ago been solved justly and fairly if we had stopped kow-towing to Israel’s
  demands and lobbying pressure.  Congressional fear of the charge of ‘anti-Semitism’ is disgustingly obvious
  to anyone with any discernment whatsoever.  Vetoing all and every UN resolution against Israel’s bad behavior has made us an international pariah ourselves in some sense. I am reticent to use the phrase ‘what would Jesus do’ but I doubt the kind of hypocrisy we have been dishing out for decades would meet with his approval.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Michael Parenti Blog: The Iraq War Is a Smashing Success by Michael Pare...

Michael Parenti Blog: The Iraq War Is a Smashing Success by Michael Pare...: A reader recently reported on my Facebook wall that President George Bush had admitted to singer Tony Bennett that the Iraq war had been a ...

Live coverage of execution

If you click on the word "Blogger" at the bottom, you will be taken to this main site where Democracy Now's coverage of the execution will be covered live.  Seems a bit gruesome to me, but Georgia is doing it.  (Figures).

It is obvious that he is being denied due process.

George Carlin had a better idea: Wait until the Super Bowl and have all the executions televised during half-time as crucifixtions.  Good live stuff.