OCUPE A PIEDADE

Occupy Main Street Frustration about Wall Street greed boils over in Middle America BY JAY WALLJASPERSHARE Print Stars mark the spot of Occupation actions on Sept. 28. Now more than 1500 U. Now more than 1500 Occupy Meetups exist. (Credit: By David Shankbone, a photographer offering many vivid images from Occupy Wall Street under Creative Commons licenses at flickr.com) The entire Occupy movement unfolding around the world offers an inkling of how commons-based activism could evolve. It's a chilly day, but the "Occupy" protesters in jackets and scarves are warmed by each show of support from passersby. They chant "This is What Democracy Looks Like" and "We Are the 99 Percent" to the accompaniment of plastic water bottles thumping on trash can lids. The crowd resembles a random sample of all ages and backgrounds, from an 87-year-old lawyer in a Detroit Tigers ballcap (they lost the pennant that evening in the play-offs) to a grade schooler holding up a sign, "What About My American Dream?" This democratic ruckus can be heard a block away, but politeness prevails. No one-not those who look "square", or those who look "scruffy", or the police cruising past-are viewed as the enemy. Everyone who believes in economic fair play, environmental protection and citizen power is welcomed as an ally. To me, this is what a commons movement looks like. Hand-lettered signs on thin poster board or cardboard ripped from the side of a box express people's frustrations and as well as their hopes-"The Revolution Will Not Be Privatized", "Everyone Does Better When Everyone Does Better", "I Can't Afford to Hire a Lobbyist", and "Main Street, Not Wall Street". Actually, this rally takes place on Main Street-in Traverse City, Michigan, a town of 14,500 in northern Michigan. Throughout the late afternoon between 25 and 75 people gather at various points, heralding the call to "Occupy Traverse City" on the sidewalk in

The Occupy Movement is Too Big to Be Shut Down "The start of a new era in America", according to Jeffrey Sachs BY JAY WALLJASPERSHARE Print Occupy Iowa City before the snow came. (Credit: JSchueller2 under a Creative Commons license from flickr.com) Something is happening here that wind, cold, snow, tear gas and police batons cannot deter. Recent headlines chronicle police busting up Occupy encampments in New York, Los Angeles and Oakland. But the movement has spread so far and wide that it can't be shut down that easily. Two nights ago on a chilly night in Grand Rapids, with the wind howling off of nearby Lake Michigan, I sat down to talk with the young activists of Occupy Grand Rapids, camping out on the plaza of a downtown church. They were comfy with a big tent and piles of donated food with the brick walls of the church offering a great wind shelter. They weren't going anywhere-except to classes the next morning. But they would be back. The week before in Iowa City, I visited the encampment of 27 tents in College Green Park as the wind blew snow sideways to my face. Most of the occupiers were gone, off to college classes or their jobs, debunking right-wing claims that the movement is little more than modern-day bums. Occupy Iowa City is still going. Karen Kubby, who owns a store on Washington Avenue, Iowa City's Main Street, noted that College Green Park was once the site of Chautauqua festivities- a grand American tradition of the early 20th Century where people flocked to see lecturers and performers appearing in tents. Not so different from the Occupy actions, another idealistic public education movement taking place in tents. "Occupy Wall Street and its allied movements around the country are", in the words of Jeffrey D. Sachs (the economic strategist who introduced capitalism to Russia as shock therapy) "most likely the start of a new era in America." Something is happening here that wind, cold, snow, tear gas and police

Occupy the Commons How the values of collaboration and sharing fuel the impact of Occupy protests BY JAY WALLJASPERSHARE Print Image from Kevin Hansen's video "Real Democracy and Youth Decisionmaking at Occupy Wall Street" Rather than an isolated band of protesters, the Occupy encampments depend on the continuing support of the broader community to keep going. The #Occupy movements that spread across the nation this fall are taking citizen activism in a new direction-toward the commons. The protests create actual commons, shared public spaces that have become both a symbol and an example of the more cooperative, hopeful future that 99 percent of Americans want to see. That's why these action have been able to shift the political debate by galvanizing public support for a more equitable economy. And rather than an isolated band of protesters, the Occupy encampments depend on the continuing support of the broader community to keep going. And as filmmaker Kevin Hansen shows in this new video, occupiers are also experimenting with new forms of collaborative, commons-based, genuinely democratic decisionmaking based on mutual consensus and inclusiveness. And rather than an isolated band of protesters, the POSTED NOVEMBER 8, 2011 COMMONS STRATEGIESCOMMONS-BASED SOLUTIONSCOMMUNITY LIFECONSENSUS DECISIONMAKINGECONOMY AND MARKETSKEVIN HANSENOCCUPY MOVEMENTSOCCUPY WALL STREETPOLITICS AND GOVERNMENT Disqus Like Dislike Login Add New Comment Post as … Showing 0 comments M Subscribe by email S RSS LEGACY COMMENTS Another process, very similar Submitted by burke00 on Sun, 2011-11-13 19:24. Another process, very similar to that described in the video, is sociocracy, or dynamic governance. Maybe the OWS folks are on to this process, or they've found some closely related consensus-based approach. Of course, being an open and new community, with a political agenda, Occupy groups are at risk of fraudulent and malicious trespassers infiltrating the process

Strengthening Occupy for the Future 6 ways to stop the movement from becoming institutional BY HARRIET BARLOWSHARE      Print Harriet Barlow, co-founder and Senior Fellow of the On the Commons, sends a warning that the creeping institutionalization of the Occupy movement- suggested by many well-meaning supporters as a way to strengthen its impact- will undermine what has made these protests so powerful and effective. Photo by Tom Giebel under a Creative Commons license. If we institutionalize Occupy, so that its spirit will succumb to the politics of the possible rather than continuing to create new possibilities, we will have missed an opportunity that history seldom offers. It's worth a long night's conversation over your beverage of choice to explore the history of how becoming institutionalized affected the course of the civil rights and women's movements, among others. Was the radical spirit of each distracted or stifled? Each of those movements came out of the gate with a powerful set of demands. Yet, once organizational dynamics took hold and divisions were confirmed by structure (think SCLC vis-à-vis SNCC, or NOW vis-à-vis NARAL) the chance of maintaining one strong voice committed to radical change diminished. Radicals became captive to a mindset dominated by the imperatives of competitive fundraising and institutions, rather than movement building. There were payrolls to be met, auditors to be satisfied, board members and donors to be placated. To be clear, there is a stage when that evolution is inevitable in order to make the shift from fostering outrage to changing policy. At their best, strong, transparent and accountable formal organizations are essential building blocks for social change. But is this the appropriate role for Occupy? My eloquent colleague, On the Commons Program Director, Alexa Bradley wrote: "The beauty of Occupy is that it is popular, wild, free. I don't mean that in a romantic sense, although

Boitempo e Carta Maior lançam "Occupy - movimentos de protesto que tomaram as ruas"  A memória coletiva marcará 2011 como o ano em que as pessoas tomaram as ruas de diversos países em uma onda de mobilizações e protestos sociais: um fenômeno que começou no norte da África, derrubando ditaduras na Tunísia, no Egito, na Líbia e no Iêmen; estendeu-se à Europa, com ocupações e greves na Espanha e Grécia e revolta nos subúrbios de Londres; eclodiu no Chile e ocupou Wall Street, nos EUA, alcançando no final do ano até mesmo a Rússia. Das praças ocupadas por acampamentos às marchas de protesto nas avenidas das principais metrópoles, emergiu uma consciência de solidariedade mútua que resultou em toda sorte de material multimídia sobre o movimento na internet, amplamente compartilhado nas redes sociais.  Inspirada por essa campanha colaborativa, a Boitempo lança, em parceria com a Carta Maior, a coletânea Occupy - movimentos de protesto que tomaram as ruas, a qual reúne artigos de pensadores críticos deste novo momento da política global em que a voz das ruas passa a ocupar o cenário. O livro será vendido a preço de custo, graças à colaboração dos autores e ilustradores, que cederam os direitos autorais para tornar a obra mais acessível e condizente com a proposta do movimento.  Imbuídos não só da lucidez da crítica, mas também da esperança e da paixão pelo engajamento, os textos apresentam alguns consensos, como a certeza do declínio geral do capitalismo; a percepção de uma nova solidariedade social; e a análise da ausência, até o momento, de uma definição estratégica dos movimentos de ocupação.  Apesar de Tariq Ali dizer que saber contra quem se luta é um importante começo, Slavoj Žižek é bem categórico ao afirmar que não basta saber o que não se quer, é preciso saber o que se quer. O povo, de acordo com ele, sempre tem a resposta, o problema é não saber a pergunta

Convivial Research And Insurgent Learning Taller The Convivial Research and Insurgent Learning (CRIL) taller is a web infrastructure made possible through the collaboration of the Universidad de la Tierra's Center for Appropriated Technologies and the Center for Community Research and Autonomy. The CRIL is an insurgent learning space and convivial research tool designed to facilitate locally rooted participatory, action-oriented investigation rooted reflection and action spaces that regenerate community. As a system of information, CRIL emphasizes the critical intersection between grassroots horizontal investigative practices, analytical frameworks, facilitation strategies, and direct action casework for the purpose of generating open, reflexive system(s) of information. Thus, as a collective research tool it encourages tequios de investigación, or strategic, collectively determined research projects to address community struggles, reclaim commons, regenerate culture, facilitate intra/inter-cultural encounters, and promote direct democracy. As an open on-going space of encounter it intends to amplify a variety of community-based knowledges, especially those in opposition to militarization, criminalization, securitization, privatization, and neoliberal globalization. Each interconnected page presents a number of appropriated technologies, or cultural tools, that highlight convivial research and insurgent learning. We have gathered wide a variety of practical and theoretical resources that engage a wide array of collective practices, highlighting the necessary intersection of learning, research, analysis, facilitation, and direct action. Our effort linking convivial research and insurgent learning spaces, projects, strategies and practices is animated by a commitment to "go beyond solidarity," seek alternatives to hierarchical and elitist knowledge practices, and promote the intersection of insurgent learning, community safety, community wellness, food sovereign

This report has been updated with new information gleaned from the cache of documents. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) closely monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement, providing agency officials with threat assessments, regular updates about protests taking place throughout the country, responding to internal requests for intelligence on the group and mining Twitter and other social media for information about Occupy's activities, according to hundreds of pages of internal documents DHS released to Truthout in response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reques

osts Tagged 'Occupy London' Occupy comes to Bournemouth 12 March 2012 One thing I would have definitely not predicted about the likely evolution of the Occupy movement is that its next flashpoint would be my own town, the quiet seaside holiday resort of Bournemouth. But apparently after the protesters were evicted from the St Paul's camp in London a few weeks ago, they somehow figured out that the Chancellor (a largely ceremonial role) of Bournemouth University is Lord Nicholas Phillips, who also happens to be the President of the UK's Supreme Court. So last Friday they set up camp on the lawn at the rear entrance of Bournemouth University's Talbot Campus, with one of their demands being a meeting with Lord Phillips. This is happening literally on my doorstep, so on Sunday evening I grabbed my camera, got on my bike and paid a visit to the Occupy Bournemouth movement. There were two middle-aged guys busying themselves at the site, writing messages on the pavement with chalk, putting up posters, and setting up a tent, which one of them told me was going to be the "library," where people will be able to educate themselves about the movement and other political matters. Both men had their Guy Fawkes masks resting on the top of their heads, ready to deploy at a moment's notice. They were happy to put it on for me, and indeed whenever someone showed up with a camera, the masks came down. When I took a break from photographing and was chatting with one of the protesters, I saw from the corner of my eye that another protester also took a photo of me chatting to his comrade. I wouldn't be surprised if I've turned up in one of their social media streams already. The protester I was chatting to told me that today they found out that the piece of land they are occupying is owned by the local council, rather then Bournemouth University. He thought that was good news for them, as for some reason it would take longer for the council to evict them, than for

Occupy comes to Bournemouth By PE One thing I would have definitely not predicted about the likely evolution of the Occupy movement is that its next flashpoint would be my own town, the quiet seaside holiday resort of Bournemouth. But apparently after the protesters were evicted from the St Paul's camp in London a few weeks ago, they somehow figured out that the Chancellor (a largely ceremonial role) of Bournemouth University is Lord Nicholas Phillips, who also happens to be the President of the UK's Supreme Court. So last Friday they set up camp on the lawn at the rear entrance of Bournemouth University's Talbot Campus, with one of their demands being a meeting with Lord Phillips. This is happening literally on my doorstep, so on Sunday evening I grabbed my camera, got on my bike and paid a visit to the Occupy Bournemouth movement. There were two middle-aged guys busying themselves at the site, writing messages on the pavement with chalk, putting up posters, and setting up a tent, which one of them told me was going to be the "library," where people will be able to educate themselves about the movement and other political matters. Both men had their Guy Fawkes masks resting on the top of their heads, ready to deploy at a moment's notice. They were happy to put it on for me, and indeed whenever someone showed up with a camera, the masks came down. When I took a break from photographing and was chatting with one of the protesters, I saw from the corner of my eye that another protester also took a photo of me chatting to his comrade. I wouldn't be surprised if I've turned up in one of their social media streams already. The protester I was chatting to told me that today they found out that the piece of land they are occupying is owned by the local council, rather then Bournemouth University. He thought that was good news for them, as for some reason it would take longer for the council to evict them, than for the university. He also told me he came

lexander C. T. Geppert.  Fleeting Cities: Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siecle Europe.  New York  Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.  424 pp. $95.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-230-22164-2. Reviewed by Jill Steward (School of Historical Studies, Newcastle University) Published on H-Urban (March, 2012) Commissioned by Alexander Vari Laboratories for Scrutinizing Modernity: Imperial Exhibitions The great world and imperial exhibitions of the second half of the nineteenth century, sometimes described as one of the era's most distinctive products, were made possible by innovative technologies in transport, building, and communication and given the oxygen of publicity by the world's media industries. An urban phenomenon, they were visible signs of the transnational mobility of people, goods, and information made possible by technical innovation, industrial development, and commercial enterprise. Supported by the press, they contributed to the dissemination of knowledge and information across national boundaries and encouraged economic and cultural transfers. They made an enormous contribution to the growth of urban tourism and the spread of new and distinctively modern forms of visual culture and mass entertainment. It is not surprising therefore, that exhibitions could be seen not only as indications of modernity, but also its catalysts and agents. As we contemplate the intense media excitement aroused by the mega-events of our own time, notably the Olympic Games (which were merely sideshows at the 1900 Exhibition Universelle in Paris and the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition), we can understand the impact made by their nineteenth-century predecessors on the public imagination by the "fleeting cities" of the title of Alexander Geppert's study of imperial exhibitions, an allusion to Baudelaire's characterization of modernity as a set of representational practices embracing "the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent," which involved the temporary occupation of acres of

Just a quick point of clarification/elaboration, and I apologize if I've missed it in earlier posts. Michael wrote: > Dmytri Kleiner, who calls himself a "venture communist", has proposed a > clever new "peer production" license, which would open up the commons to > ethical companies and other commoners - but not to for-profits, who would > need to pay. I'm just curious as to who would be handling the payments from for-profits in your formulation.  If we are practicing "prefigurative economics," what sort of organizational structure will support the receipt of payments.  Furthermore, where does this money go?  Is it to be diverted to more commons-based peer-production projects?  If so, how? It seems to me like this is the tension that lies at the heart of "building a new world in the shell of the old." Ben Birkinbine On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Brian Holmes wrote: > 'Occupy' as a business model: The emerging open-source civilisation > > Michel Bauwens > > http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/2012361233474499.html > > Last week I discussed the value crisis of contemporary capitalism: the > broken feedback loop between the productive publics who create exponentially > increasing use value, and those who capture this value through social media > - but do not return these income streams to the value "produsers". > > In other words, the current so-called "knowledge economy" is a sham and a > pipe dream - because abundant goods do not fare well in a market economy. > For the sake of the world's workers, who live in an increasingly precarious > situation, is there a way out of this conundrum? Can we restore the broken > feedback loop?   - Ocultar texto das mensagens anteriores -

Occupy Our Food Supply on February 27, 2012 will be a major decentralized global day of food action and solidarity. Act locally to affect massive change globally-from hosting a sustainable potluck to planning a community garden to organizing a Tour of Shame featuring corporate food polluters in your area. CREATE/RESIST with your community! Register your event to stand up and be counted in the movement to Occupy Our Food Supply, or click the map to find an event near you and email the organizer to get involved! Due to technical reasons, we are only able to post events on the map for the land currently known as the U.S. For international actions click here. Search by:  Zip Code: OR State: Dados cartográficos ©2012 Google, INEGI - Termos de Uso Upcoming Events Ashevillains Whole Foods Boycott February 06 Asheville, NC Ashevillains Whole Foods Boycott, Oaklandish Whole Foods Boycott, (Your Town Here) Whole Foods Boycott Being that my body is a temple, the right not to eat GMO's (and to know what I am ingesting) actually does constitute freedom of religion. Join us on Facebook, represent with us in solidarity, create a chapter in your city! We are kicking them where it counts--the wall... California Mandatory GMO/GE Labeling Initiative February 20  to April 06 Sacramento, CA *Support * Volunteer * Share* California is circulating a Mandatory GMO/GE Labeling Petition until April 21st. This initiative covers any GE animal or seed for human consumption MUST BE LABELED. We are every where look for us and sign for a Ballot Measure Nov. 2012. True Food Shopper's Guide: How to Avoid Foods Made with GMO's February 27  to April 02 Washington DC, DC RESOURCE: HOW TO ID GMO'S http://truefoodnow.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/cfs-shoppers-guide.pdf The True Food Network is CFS's grassroots action network where concerned citizens can voice their opinions about critical food safety issues, and advocate for a socially just, democratic and sustainable food sy

How Oversocialization and Feelings of Inferiority Cripple Bay Area Occupations Occupy Reality by MARC SALOMON The Bay Area has always been the outlier in American politics, often for the better and occasionally for the worse.  In the case of Occupy, the Bay Area's unique situation highlights the challenges facing the movement from both its relative "left" and "right" flanks.  The downside of this Bay Area specialness has been exposed like our earthquake fault lines after two actions, one in San Francisco on January 20th (J20) and another in Oakland on January 28 (J28). San Andreas fault on the right are the institutional actors, nonprofit corporation centered advocacy groups and organized labor with varying degrees of connection to the state, the Democrat Party and its corporate sponsors.   The Hayward fault on the left includes the dwindling ranks of sectarian leftists and the more predominant militant blacque bloque anarchoids, which exist outside of the constellation of power affiliated with the Democrat Party.  The attributes of labor and the nonprofit corporations are clear, but this anarchist would hesitate to ascribe the term 'anarchists' to the militants in Oakland. Despite of decades of activism and nominal public support for goals, professional activists have failed connect with and mobilize sufficient numbers of people to create critical mass and raise political power, although those years were not entirely fruitless in building some base capacity from which Occupy benefits now.   Power, for its part, succeeded in coopting activists into the nonprofit corporate sector beginning in earnest during the early years of Clintonia. Organized labor, long an ugly stepchild of the Democrat coalition, has been in slow free fall for the past three decades but less so in the Bay Area public sector.  Since labor abandoned unorganized workers, it has forfeited its relevance to most of the 99% and is paying the political price now.  The

Universidad Nomada Info]http://centrodeestudios15m.blogspot.com/2011/12/jornada-procomun-e-instituciones.html JORNADA: Procomún e instituciones monstruo: nuevos modos de pensar y producir autonomíaSaludos! os invitamos el próximo martes 13 de diciembre a las jornadas que organiza el Centro deEstudios 15M junto a la Asociación de Estudiantes de Filosofía (ASEFI), en colaboración con elAula-Debate de Cultura de la Universidad de Murcia. Martes 13 de diciembre de 17:00 a 21:00 horas, Salón de Grados de la Facultad de Derecho, Campusde la Merced, Murcia: 17:00 h.  Conferencia "¿Qué es eso del procomún?", Antonio Lafuente (Instituto de Ciencias Humanas ySociales del CSIC)   18:00 h.  Conferencia "La autoformación y la experiencia de las universidades anómalas en la era de lacrisis", Tomás Herreros (Universidad Nómada).   19:00 h.  Mesa redonda "Gestionar lo común":Modera:  Tomás Saorín, presidente de Anabad-Murcia y profesor en la Facultad de ComunicaciónIntervienen:  Antonio Lafuente, Tomás Herreros, Gabriel Navarro (miembro del Foro Ciudadano y miembro delgrupo promotor del Pacto por la Transparencia y el Buen Gobierno de la Región de Murcia yJavier Fuentes (Director del  CENDEAC) Coordinan: Antonio Hidalgo y Tomás Saorín-Transmisión: http://tv.um.es/directo -hagstag #procomun en Twitter

A Framing Memo for Occupy Wall Street by GEORGE LAKOFF on OCTOBER 19, 2011 in COMMUNICATION, NEWS, POLITICAL MIND I was asked weeks ago by some in the Occupy Wall Street movement to make suggestions for how to frame the movement. I have hesitated so far, because I think the movement should be framing itself. It's a general principle: Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you - the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends. I have so far hesitated to offer suggestions. But the movement appears to maturing and entering a critical time when small framing errors could have large negative consequences. So I thought it might be helpful to accept the invitation and start a discussion of how the movement might think about framing itself. About framing: It's normal. Everybody engages in it all the time. Frames are just structures of thought that we use every day. All words in all languages are defined in terms of frame-circuits in the brain. But, ultimately, framing is about ideas, about how we see the world, which determines how we act. In politics, frames are part of competing moral systems that are used in political discourse and in charting political action. In short, framing is a moral enterprise: it says what the character of a movement is. All politics is moral. Political figures and movements always make policy recommendations claiming they are the right things to do. No political figure ever says, do what I say because it's wrong! Or because it doesn't matter! Some moral principles or other lie behind every political policy agenda. Two Moral Framing Systems in Politics Conservatives have figured out their moral basis and you see it on Wall Street: It includes: The primacy of self-interest. Individual responsibility, but not social responsibility. Hierarchical authority based on wealth or other forms of power. A moral hierarchy of who is "deserving," defined by success. And the highest principle is the primacy of this

Underlying Ideology of the 99 Filed under: American Revolution, Land Recourse, Neo-feudalism, Reformism Can't Work - Tags: occupy wall street - Russ @ 2:53 am > Rortybomb had this interesting analysis of the "Ideology of the We Are 99% Tumblr." Konczal ran the HTML text which accompanies many of the images through a program to assemble data on age and keywords. He found two age clusters, around 20 and 27.   The 25 most common "words of interest" all involve the necessities of a decent life (except that several like "jobs" and "debt", the two most common, are endemic to capitalism and other economic hierarchies). One important finding is that none of the key words are characteristically "consumerist". This plus the overall impression of the images is that, contrary to the fears or scoffing of detractors, the 99ers are not thinking primarily in terms of being gipped consumers who just want to go back to the 1990s. They're not thinking in terms of a more inclusive neoliberalism whose crimes would continue but merely trickle more of the loot to them, the way previous more fortunate consumers allegedly benefited. So we can take this as a piece of evidence which is promising in light of the previous discussion on this blog of consumerism as a movement.    Instead, they're thinking in terms of survival amid permanent dispossession. Their first concern is to be free of the oppression of unemployment and debt, which are the only modes of exploitation the decrepit system has left. So although they don't know it yet, anything they say about jobs and debt is already tantamount to the call to abolish Wall Street and debt as such.   Indeed, Konczal himself acknowledges but only dimly envisions the radicality of the implicit ideology here.   With all due respect to DeBoer, the demands I found aren't the ones of the go-go 90s-00s, but instead far more ancient cry, one of premodernity and antiquity. Let's bring up a favorite quote around