Occupy Portland: #F29 Call to Action Against Corporations
(video)
Occupy Portland calls for a national day of non-violent direct action to reclaim our voices and challenge our society’s obsession with profit and greed by shutting down the corporations. We are rejecting a society that does not allow us control of our future. We will reclaim our ability to shape our world in a democratic, cooperative, just and sustainable direction. Already 30+ cities are planning actions. Get involved and find out more at www.shutdownthecorporations.org.
American Spring
Americans who lift their heads above the miasma of mediated unreality, commercial glitz, celebrity glamor, reality television, bloody police dramas, and war propaganda, a massive disinformation campaign designed to distract and pacify, gaze out upon an America with a crumbling infrastructure. They behold an economic landscape devastated by wholesale financial fraud and political corruption that has caused millions of American families to be evicted from their homes and many millions more robbed of their savings, a nation in which the super-rich get richer still at the expense of everyone else, a nation with a very uncertain future.
The most hopeful response to the financial elite’s controlled demolition of the American dream has come from those with the most to gain and little to lose, idealistic and technically savvy young people.
Chicago Parents, Students Occupy Piccolo Elementary, School Targeted For ‘Turnaround’
A group of Chicago parents, students and activists have staged a sit-in inside, as well as an encampment outside, a West Side elementary school that Chicago Public Schools has targeted for “turnaround.”
The protesters arrived at Brian Piccolo Elementary School early Friday evening to speak out against the school’s closure. Late last year, Piccolo was flagged as one of ten schools that would be “turned around,” meaning that its principal and the majority of its staff will be replaced and, in this case, the school’s management would be taken over by the well-connected charter program Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL).
Parents end ‘occupation’ of school after promised meeting with CPS leaders
Angry parents and protestors have called off their occupation of an underperforming elementary school on Chicago’s Northwest Side after they were promised a meeting with education officials before a vote on the future of the school next week.
The protesters had spent Friday night and Saturday camped out at Brian Piccolo Elementary Specialty School, where teaching staff could learn this week whether they’ll be shown the door.
But Saturday afternoon, a member of the Board of Education met with them inside the school and agreed to grant the protesters a meeting with the entire board, said Rachel Perrotta of Occupy Chicago, a group demonstrating with the parents.
http://tinyurl.com/88as6n9
Dogmatic Embrace of Failed Austerity Dogma in a Column Denouncing Dogma
Daniel Indiviglio, a columnist for Reuters, wrote a column (“Dogma show”) denouncing the agreement to extend the payroll tax reduction. He was distressed by what he considered faux fiscal restraint. Indiviglio, writing at the same time that the Eurozone fell back into recession because of its austerity program, denounces both parties for being in the grip of dogmas that cause them to fail to impose greater austerity.
Why does Indiviglio want the U.S. to follow the worst possible response to a severe recession – austerity? Because he is driven by a failed economic dogma, he has neither the capability nor any felt need to explain why he believes we should copy the Eurozone’s failed policies and join them in falling back into recession. He is so trapped by his dogma that he knows that austerity is the only rational economic policy and cannot conceive that his views are ideological because they are so self-evidently true. He has unintentionally proved his point about how destructive discredited economic dogma is.
Single-payer advocates backs occupy movement
The way to make universal health care a reality in the United States is to end corporate control of the U.S. government, a pair of political activists told a Corvallis audience on Friday.
To that end, said Dr. Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, the organizers and participants in the nation’s various “occupy” movements are on the right track.
Flowers, a Maryland pediatrician who has become a full-time advocate for single-payer, serves on the steering committee of Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care and is active in Physicians for a National Health Program. Her partner, Zeese, is a lawyer and longtime activist for a variety of causes including drug policy reform, election reform and peace.
Occupy Koch Town protesters march through downtown Wichita
More than 150 Occupy Koch Town protesters marched through downtown Wichita Saturday.
Activists are against the proposed Keystone Pipeline that would carry crude oil extracted from tar sands from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
http://tinyurl.com/834cx5s
Westboro tweets fake protest pic from Whitney Houston funeral
A picture tweeted by Margie Phelps on Twitter depicting what appears to be Westboro Baptist Church protest signs outside the Whitney Houston funeral has created a stir on the Internet after it was declared fake by several news media outlets.
Phelps’ attention-seeking tweets from today were directed to media groups and Occupy Newark protesters. Members of the Occupy Newark organization had called on supporters to gather at the Houston funeral to become a buffer to shield the Westboro Baptist Church group from the view of the mourning family.
The Star-Ledger confirmed that members of the Occupy group were present for the funeral with a sign that read “Occupy prays for another soul our community could not save,” but say they never saw any representatives from Westboro Baptist Church. The lack of any confirmed sightings of members of the Phelps family at the funeral has fueled the controversy around the validity of the highly questionable picture tweeted by Margie Phelps.
http://tinyurl.com/6wp2kw7
Occupy Rockford Speaks Out About Money’s Role in Political Campaigns
Program cuts and a weak economy are just some of the things the group Occupy Rockford is against. They’re also speaking out about money controlling political campaigns.
The group held a forum in Rockford today, called “Democracy is Not for Sale.” Organizers say political figures have become too dependent on campaign cash and they end up representing the funders instead of voters. Occupy members say it’s the top one percent of America that’s dominating and the current presidential candidates aren’t doing anything to change that.
http://tinyurl.com/749golb
Charges Dropped for Many #OWS Protesters Arrested on Bridge
New York City prosecutors have been dropping criminal charges against many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge last October in a demonstration that helped bring national attention to the movement.
Police hit 686 people with criminal charges after halting the march on the landmark span.
Street closure, no parking zones announced for San Quentin Occupy protest
San Quentin Village’s Main Street will be closed to traffic on Monday and parts of East Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and East Franciso Boulevard will be temporary no parking zones due to an “Occupy 4 Prisoners” demonstration planned at San Quentin State Prison.
The Occupy gathering, part of a “National Day of Solidarity” with prison hunger strikers, is scheduled for noon to 3 p.m. Monday outside San Quentin’s East Gate.
http://tinyurl.com/7lopkgb
Activists protest condition of former Read’s drug store
Activists rallied outside a ramshackle West Baltimore storefront Saturday afternoon, demanding city officials take steps to quickly stabilize the building, which was the site of a historic civil rights protest.
“The roof needs to be put back on,” said C.D. Witherspoon, standing in front of the former location of Read’s drugstore, where Morgan State University students held a 1955 sit-in that led to the desegregation of the chain. “We think that’s the best way to celebrate Black History Month.”
http://tinyurl.com/7o6mdwk
Occupy Flint camp survives winter and arrests to become the last standing Occupy camp in Michigan
After surviving the cold of winter and some recent scrutiny from police, Occupy Flint activists claim they have the last standing Occupy campsite in the state.
And they don’t plan on going anywhere soon.
The group remains entrenched in their outdoor command center just north of downtown.
http://tinyurl.com/7f2gk2u
All the People of the World Become Greeks on February 18th
“We are all Greeks” day on Saturday, February 18, was a world-wide day of protest in support of the Greek people, who are going through harsh times at the moment.
The protest took place at 14:00 outside the Greek embassies and consulates in various cities of Europe and Australia, while a similar protest will be held Saturday night in NY by the Occupy New York movement.
http://tinyurl.com/6vub5kl
Reflections on Bloody Sunday and Occupation
The noble enterprise that began as a campaign for civil rights within Northern Ireland but got derailed by history, deprivation, and state repression into an armed struggle to break the link with Britain, failed. We’re still governed by London. And more importantly, still enmeshed in a web of economic interests emanating, not just from there but from other nodes of economic power across the globe.
It is this system that continues to contribute to Derry’s impoverishment, shaping and extracting profit from our way of life as its factories and consumer outlets arrive and go, and its economic development plans continue to sell us its illusions of peace and freedom.
In ’68 we drew strength and inspiration from the black civil rights campaign in north America. Today I suggest we draw it from the Occupy Movement, whose methodology is democratic non-violence and whose slogan is, ‘We are the 99%’. It’s a manifestation of us waking up to the fact that ‘representative democracy’ has been corrupted into ‘management of the people for the corporations by the corporations’. There are thousands of occupations across the United States and elsewhere, including London, Dublin and recently Belfast, as economic policies that protected the 1% see decent people loose their homes and jobs.
http://tinyurl.com/6o2nza9