Even though I have never been to a rally, march or general assembly, I am part of the Occupy movement. Before you scoff that I’m just jumping on the bandwagon of the movement because anyone who is really involved does the things that Occupiers do, think about what your schema of “what Occupiers do” is. I say this not only to challenge attacks against me personally but also to challenge those who don’t think they can be part of the movement because they’re not doing “the things that Occupiers do.”
There are two problems with the schema of “what Occupiers do.” First, the media feeds us images of the iconic stuff and only the iconic stuff: The people who occupy literal physical spaces and are physically punished for it. Second, there is a historical misconception of how social movements work in this country. We learn about the leaders, speechmakers, lawyers and Supreme Court cases. We don’t learn about the envelope stuffers, cooks, journalists, academics, social workers, community center volunteers, public high school teachers or parents.
Any successful social movement achieves its goals not only in the courts or legislative houses and not even only in the streets at rallies, marches and speeches. If it is to succeed, Occupy needs to occupy everything and everywhere, including the social consciousness of the country.
http://tinyurl.com/7rsfsur
Twitter confirms it cooperated with Boston Police to provide details of a user
Twitter has revealed that it provided Boston police with data about one of its users that may have had a level of involvement in the Occupy Boston protests, following a lengthy court battle.
Authorities in Boston sought the information as part of an investigation following cyber attacks on the Boston Police force and a police union, according to a Boston Globe report. The @pOisAnON Twitter account is now suspended but information about user – known as ‘Guido Fawkes’ – was first requested in a letter sent to Twitter on December 14.
Cambridge rejects both proposals in MBTA fare hearing
Speakers, including one with a guide dog and several with walkers or canes, were unanimous in disapproving of the two scenarios the MBTA has put forward to fix its budget gap, which is almost 10 percent of its entire operating budget in 2011, according to the MBTA’s financial documents. A total of 125 people signed up to speak, but only 74 actually spoke, according to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
http://tinyurl.com/7a79sra
Postal Workers Need Support From the 99 Percent
In 2006 a lame-duck Republican-majority Congress passed a bill requiring the Postal Service to set aside more than $5 billion a year into a fund to guarantee health benefits for retirees up to 75 years from now. This money cannot be diverted to cover operating expenses.
But between 2007 and 2010, revenue taken in actually exceeded operating costs by $700 million, according to the USPS year-end 2010 report. It was the Congressional attack, not the Internet or other market forces, that caused the postal deficit.
Union efforts to get Congress to fix the problem have run into roadblocks. This battle takes place as public employees are blamed nationwide for government deficits. Plus, any legislation must go through a House committee chaired by the right-wing ideologue Darrell Issa of California.
http://tinyurl.com/73oyly9
SB 469 Would Make Civil Disobedience a Felony in Georgia
SB 469, an anti-union and anti-protest bill, would turn nonviolent civil disobedience into a felony punishable by imprisonment for one year and a fine of ten thousand dollars for organizations and one thousand dollars for individuals. It also has provisions intended to weaken unions.
The bill was introduced by State Reps. Don Balfour (R-Snellville), Bill Hamrick (R-Carrollton), Bill Cowsert (R-Athens), and Ross Tolleson (R-Perry). All four Senators are members of an organization called the American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC). ALEC bring corporations and lawmakers together to draft template legislation that is introduced in other states to change policy. ALEC claims to be nonpartisan but is funded by several right-wing thing tanks.
“In a state which lays credible claim to being the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement, State Senators Don Balfour, Ross Tolleson, Bill Hamrick, and Bill Cowsert have just demonstrated palpable disrespect for Georgia’s rich history of protest and activism. They are the sponsors of Senate Bill 469 which, had it been law in 1960, would have made Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery, John Lewis, Joe Beasley, Minnie Ruffin, and many other luminaries of the Civil Rights Movement into felons,” Sara Amis of Occupy Atlanta, wrote in a blog post.
http://tinyurl.com/7jjyhcn
How Institutional Philanthropy Can Support the Occupy Movement
Can institutional philanthropy-foundations established by the very wealthy and capitalized by investments in the stock market, hedge funds, and offshore investments-support a movement that challenges the very capitalist economic system that sustains it?
As of March 1, 2012, 62 people, largely from progressive funding organizations and foundations, have signed a letter on behalf of the nascent Occupy Philanthropy movement calling on institutional funders to provide financial support to the Occupy movement. The letter stated, in part, “We in the philanthropic community cannot let this moment pass. We have for so long wanted this kind of mass mobilization for justice. We have held conferences, gatherings, phone meetings, and spent countless sums in an effort to support the creation of a movement that is broad based in scope and calling for systemic change. Occupy presents a unique opportunity for the philanthropic community to creatively respond to these efforts and to the long standing and prior work of community organizations and leaders to promote economic equality for the 99%.” The letter’s signees include some respected private foundations long associated with social justice funding, including the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation in New York City, the Quixote Foundation in Seattle, and the Rasmussen Foundation of Alaska. Progressive public foundations that raise money to make grants also signed the letter, such as the Funding Exchange and the Third Wave Foundation. And some philanthropic luminaries, notably Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, also signed.
However, the cumulative resources of the signers, largely from small foundations, don’t add up to much compared to the somewhere close to a trillion dollars of tax exempt assets in foundation endowments. The trustees and executives of the large foundations in control of those assets look a lot more like the boards of Fortune 500 corporations in terms of their social and economic status than they do the protesters who once resided in New York City’s Zuccotti Park or Washington, D.C.’s McPherson Park.
Occupy AIPAC: Saying No to K Street Control of Congress and War on Iran
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has contributed to a disastrous American course in the Middle East and will be back at it this week in Washington, D.C. Self-described as a “pro-Israel lobby” whose goal is to “enact public policy that enhances the U.S.-Israel relationship,” the organization has enhanced this relationship while simultaneously making the region far more dangerous. More than ever in this election year with Republicans calling for the bombing of Iran and candidate Newt Gingrich claiming Palestinians are an “invented” people, AIPAC has the US Congress and presidential candidates in its thrall.
Yet this year’s AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C. is more controversial than ever as Occupy activists seek to highlight the role of big-money lobbyists in elections while standing in solidarity with the global 99% opposed to Israel’s violations of human rights and international law.
California college students protest education cuts
Students, educators and Occupy Wall Street activists held demonstrations Thursday across California to protest state budget cuts to education, partially shutting down at least one college campus.
Hundreds of students blocked entrances to the University of California, Santa Cruz, and prevented cars and buses from entering the coastal campus, school officials said.
“The campus has been effectively closed to vehicles,” said campus spokesman Jim Burns. “Clearly it’s had an access impact for many students, staff and faculty.”
http://tinyurl.com/6ny3v4u
Student Protests Seek to Breathe New Life Into Occupy
In the past three years, California has slashed funding for public education by $20 billion and laid off 40,000 teachers. Once known for its stellar public school system, the state now has the lowest staff-to-student ratio in the country. Even its crown jewel, the University of California, is losing luster. Tuition has gone up by 300 percent since 2000. Other states’ public and university systems are in similarly dire straits.
Nobody understands the importance of reinvesting in education better than the students who now depend on it for their futures. As tuitions skyrocket, some of them are being priced out of a college education. Others are entering an uncertain job market saddled with mountains of student debt, which now totals more than a trillion dollars nationally.
Car plows through Occupy demonstrators at UC Santa Cruz campus
About a hundred students blocked entrance to the UC Santa Cruz campus Thursday morning, not allowing vehicles to enter as part of an Occupy Education rally.
Just after 8:30 a.m. a man driving a Ford Mustang drove up High Street and tried to make a right turn onto campus. He revved his engine, but the crowd briefly stopped him from entering. The driver then revved his engine again and drove through the crowd of demonstrators at the High Street entrance, striking several people and a bike.
No one was seriously injured. UCSC Police Chief Nader Oweis, who was the only officer on scene when the incident happened, ordered the driver to back up the car, out of the crowded intersection. The crowd chanted “arrest him, arrest him.” The driver and his female passenger were detained and removed from the area, which was quickly swarming with police.
Occupy Democracy-Pasadena wrestles with accepting large donations
Occupy Democracy – Pasadena protesters continued their crusade to curb the influence of corporate money on politics Wednesday, even as members of the movement begin to deal with the question of whether corporate money has a place in the Occupy movement.
Roughly 35 demonstrators set up outside AT&T’s office at Colorado Boulevard and Marengo Avenue Wednesday afternoon, calling for greater regulation of corporate political contributions. One sign stated “AT&T is writing our laws,” while others criticized the American Legislative Exchange Council, a Washington, D.C., free-market advocacy group whose members include corporations and conservative members of Congress.
. . .
Liberal corporate figures including Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream have raised $300,000 for the Occupy movement and are interested in contributing as much as $1.8 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. Briggs said he is wary of such efforts.
“If any money should be allowed, it should be from small donors,” he said. “We don’t want to end up like the tea party, where its candidates began receiving corporate donations.”
http://tinyurl.com/779yo3f
Sonoma State University Joins National Protest Day
At Sonoma State, students will hold a”Reclaim the People’s University” event at noon today in Stevenson Quad.
The event is partculary important at SSU, where a shrinking budget hasspurred a activist spirit on campus. Tuition at the school has almost doubled since 2000, and budget cuts have forced enrollment restrictions, which some students say will prohibit their ability to graduate on time.
The event will last throughout the day, starting with teach-ins, discussion circles and performances discussing cuts to departments, campus programs and the availability of student jobs.
http://tinyurl.com/7xxty4p
Occupy Phoenix Recaptures Magic
Occupy Phoenix recaptured some of the magic that was exhibited last fall as more than 200 people took part in a day-long set of events to protest the actions of the American Legislative Exchange Council. The Phoenix action was one of nearly 100 American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, protest-events held across the country yesterday.
http://tinyurl.com/78llbjb
Occupy Peoria: Display of fallen soldiers’ boots brings Iraq War into perspective
Titled “Eyes Wide Open: The Cost of War to Illinois,” the outdoor memorial opened Wednesday and is part of larger effort by the American Friends Service Committee. Back in 2004, the Quaker social justice organization, known for its commitment to peace, sponsored a memorial consisting of 500 pairs of boots in Chicago’s Federal Plaza, according to local “Eyes Wide Open” organizer Robert Paton in an email.
The last time the Iraq War death toll was represented in one location was over the 2007 Memorial Day weekend, with more than 3,400 pairs of boots. Since then, Paton said, the memorial has been divided into smaller state displays and travels nationwide.
Black boots stand for a soldier who died in the line of duty; white boots symbolize a soldier who died after returning home because of war-related causes. Civilian shoes – one representing a child as young as 3 – also accompany the military boots. None of the shoes or boots belonged to the actual people; they are purely representational. But they remain mute testimony of the human cost of U.S. military interventions abroad.
http://tinyurl.com/7sjl8kr
Occupy Las Vegas Occupies Walmart
Occupy Las Vegas joined other Occupy chapters around the nation Wednesday in a campaign against an organization few Americans have heard of. Members of the Las Vegas group entered a WalMart store to attach flyers to a long list of products whose manufacturers are members of ALEC-The American Legislative Exchange Council. After about ten minutes, Walmart personnel asked the Occupy members to stop.
Occupy’s flyers warned Walmart customers that the products are detrimental for political reasons. The target list includes favorites like Budweiser, Doritos, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and DuraCell batteries. ALEC is an association that provides legislators with business research. Occupy members claim it engages in lobbying and crafting legislation at the request of corporations.
http://tinyurl.com/7ecj7v8
March down Broad Street calls attention to Pa. education funding
In a multi-school effort for state higher education funding, student groups marched south on Broad Street today, March 1, to Gov. Tom Corbett’s office. Participating groups included Occupy Temple, Temple Community Against Mountaintop Removal and Temple Democratic Socialists.
Area students, as part of a March 1 coalition, protested in favor of improved state funding for universities, student debt forgiveness and in solidarity with the National Day of Action for Education.
“This is student power. This is solidarity. This is the revolution,” Brianne Murphy, a leader of TCAMR and Occupy Temple member, said to the crowd.
http://tinyurl.com/6vakzuf
Ohio State students march to ‘reclaim education’
Ohio State students gathered on the Oval to join college students around the country in raising awareness to recent tuition hikes. March 1 is the National Day of Action for Education, and students took action against the state of education.
“Tuition has doubled since the year 2000. It was frozen there a few years under Strickland, it’s going up again now,” said Thomas Lee, a recent OSU graduate. “What’s even more disturbing is we aren’t getting more for what we’re paying, I mean it is the same education that you got before.”
http://tinyurl.com/6pgaajc
Over 67 classes cut at City College of SF; protesters at Civic Center rally against higher-ed cuts
Over 500 protesters assembled in front of San Francisco’s City Hall and the California State Building on March 1 to protest cuts to higher education, and many will continue marching 99 miles to Sacramento for a larger protest on Monday.
The assembly known as March in March kicked off at 3 p.m. at the State Building at 455 Golden Gate Avenue then proceeded to Civic Center. The event was organized by groups such as Occupy CCSF, Associated Students of City College, the Northern California Occupy Education Coalition and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 2121.
http://tinyurl.com/79czsh7
Occupy Ed Protestors March Across Brooklyn Bridge
Students from universities and colleges across the city, including CUNY, New York University and Columbia University, gathered Thursday afternoon to rally for the right to education.
Close to 300 protesters convened in front of the Department of Education headquarters on Chambers Street in lower Manhattan as part of a national day of student-led rallies organized by Occupy Ed, an offshoot of the national Occupy Wall Street movement.
http://tinyurl.com/7txmfbe
Demonstrators Removed From SF’s California State Office Building
A small group of protesters taking part in today’s day of action are being escorted out of the California State Office Building in San Francisco’s Civic Center.
San Francisco protesters gathered at the State Building earlier this afternoon to hold a teach-in and occupation as part of the “National Day of Action to Defend the Right to Education,” organized by students and members of the Occupy movement.
Occupy’s U.S.-BP Gulf murder victim funeral: Rage, hopelessness, fear
Approximately 80 people gathered Wednesday afternoon to mourn at BP headquarters in downtown New Orleans before participating in the murdered Gulf funeral procession organized by Occupy New Orleans to draw attention to the ongoing Gulf region human rights abuses since April 20, 2010 when the BP-U.S. military operation began.
“We’re living in two realities here on the Gulf,” said Elizabeth Cook, a New Orleans key human rights defender.
“There’s the ‘Safe Gulf’ myth and there’s reality that thousands of people are ill and dying; oil continues to flow; and dolphins and fish wash up on Gulf beaches every day,” she said.
Occupy Redwood City Occupies Chase to Save Woman’s Home
After holding a press conference at 4 PM for Redwood City foreclosure victim Gloria Takla, Occupy Redwood City (ORWC) will march with Gloria to the Redwood City Chase branch with the intention of Occupying it until her request for a loan modification and principal reduction is met. ORWC will be joined by Occupy San Jose (OSJ), the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), members of other local Occupy groups, and members of the Mid-Peninsula American Dream Council in Occupying and protesting inside and outside the bank.
http://tinyurl.com/84fy3u5
Occupy invades “America’s storage shed” – Faced with protest, Walmart unilaterally shuts down three warehouses in Southern California
Spilling out below the snow-dusted San Bernardino Mountains, California’s Inland Empire in Southern California is America’s storage shed. Its economy is a key link in the global supply chain. Goods from Asia funnel through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports that handle more than one-quarter of all the imports pouring into the United States every year, and much of it is warehoused here before finding its way into homes and businesses across the nation. If all the storage space was gathered under one roof, more than 700 million square feet, it would make a warehouse larger than Manhattan.
With manufacturing scant in the Inland Empire, an estimated 118,000 workers are employed hustling through cavernous warehouses to stack and fetch goods or hauling them in rigs. The area is infested with banal exurbs that clump in towns such as Mira Loma, which has been tagged the “diesel death zone” for the lung-searing truck pollution that envelops it. It was in Mira Loma that a few hundred members of various Southern California Occupy movements converged at sunrise on Feb. 29 with the goal of shutting down a Walmart distribution center.
http://tinyurl.com/7sws3lb
Tracing the Great Recession to a Memo 40 Years Ago
To say that the ideas in “Heist,” which locates the source of our current troubles in a famous 1971 memorandum, belongs to the paranoid conspiracy school of history is not to suggest that its point of view isn’t fairly persuasive. Conspiracies exist.
The seeds of the financial crisis, the film maintains, were sown by Lewis F. Powell Jr., a Virginia lawyer and representative of the tobacco industry who later became an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. In a confidential memo to the United States Chamber of Commerce, “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System,” he urged American corporations to take a much stronger role in influencing politics and law.
The memorandum helped spur the formation of advocacy research organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute and paved the way for lobbyists to descend on Washington. In 1978, while on the Supreme Court, Powell successfully argued for the right of corporations to make political contributions.
http://tinyurl.com/7a3v2tg
Artists of all kinds carry the torch for the Occupy movement
From composer Philip Glass to punk’s Joe Keithley, musicians have been on-side with Occupy, as have actors (Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon), filmmakers (Michael Moore, Paul Haggis) and other artists. But if Occupy feels so 2011, guess again: Creative types are among those keeping the spirit of the protest alive – including calls to action starting Friday.
http://tinyurl.com/7dhsqep
Occupy SOS (Save our Students) organizes to tackle school bullying in Georgia and South Carolina
“S.O.S. had been doing awesome!” exclaimed Annetta Mills, the group’s founder. Mills founded the group S.O.S., or Save Our Students, after her nephew was shot and killed in the Belair Conference Center shooting last year.
“We have been going around to schools and churches. We’re doing Occupy S.O.S. weeks at all of the schools in Richmond County. We have started an outreach program,” she said.
. . .
Now, after a News 12 special assignment about an alleged bullying problem at an Aiken County Middle School, S.O.S. is looking to diversify. “We have come to a summit with everyone in Aiken, trying to put together and stop the violence and bullying over here in Aiken County,” she told News 12. Her group plans to meet with the Aiken County School Board soon to get the ball rolling.
http://tinyurl.com/6nj9akb
Homeless will join Occupy Coos Bay [OR] for march
The area’s homeless population is joining in the Occupy Wall Street movement with an event planned March 10. Occupy Coos Bay and the Homeless Revolution demonstration will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the southeast corner of Mingus Park.
The homeless and occupy protesters have a lot in common, said James Chastain, who is organizing the event. “A lot of those people with the Occupy movement don’t want to become homeless,” Chastain said.
Occupy Madison houses the homeless
Occupy Madison started as a protest in solidarity with other Occupy movements around the country, drawing attention to economic inequality and demanding more for ordinary Americans.
The protest shantytown located on East Washington Avenue ended up providing a response to one of the issues it was drawing attention to: homelessness.
Located at the former Don Miller auto dealership, the tent community has become home to roughly 40 homeless people, organizers say, though some nights 80 people have slept here.
Cooperating to Replace Capitalism
SolidarityNYC is a New York City-based group which works to create links between social movements and the “solidarity economy.” The latter consists of cooperatives, small businesses, non-profits and other economic activities which “reinforce values of justice, ecological sustainability, cooperation, and democracy.” The group aims to promote the solidarity economy as an alternative to the “competition and hierarchy which characterize corporate capitalism.”
Much of SolidarityNYC’s recent work has centred around Occupy Wall Street, where many of its members have been active. Through their “Occupy Workplace Democracy” event and other activities, SolidarityNYC has worked to “challenge the social justice movement to take up grassroots economic community development” as a way of building solidarity and concrete alternatives to capitalism.
Your First Look at Archie Comics’ ‘Occupy Riverdale’ Issue
And this Occupy issue is, I think, a smart, news-relevant move that also works well with the core Archie mythology. Archie’s struggle to choose between Betty and Veronica has always been a conversation about being happy in the middle class or deciding to make the bid for the big time, even if the people you know there are irritable and self-absorbed.
http://tinyurl.com/86nz9ke
100 Years Later, Titanic Tragedy Still Relevant
What does the Titanic have to do with the Occupy movement?
Howe says:
“One of the reasons we’re still so obsessed with the Titanic is because of the ridiculous concentration of wealth that it carried. Details would include Mrs. Eleanor Widener’s million dollar pearls, John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man in the world in 1912 who died on Titanic, and the fact that a first class cabin ticket cost the equivalent of $90,000 in contemporary dollars – more akin to a ticket on Virgin Galactic than on Air France. There is a lot to be said about the relatively low mortality for first class passengers, versus the high mortality for third class, and the very, very high mortality for the crew. The Titanic was a potent symbol even before it went down.
Occupiers march to Castlewood Country Club
Between 300 and 350 people turned out for last weekend’s Occupy Pleasanton event to protest the lockout of workers from Castlewood Country Club, now in its second year.
While no one camped out, a group calling itself “Save the 1 percent” pitched tents near the golf course during the protest as a satirical gesture. That group, which carried signs like “The rich make the world work (for us),” and “Golfing is a human right,” dressed in suits, ties and evening gowns and was featured this week in Mother Jones, a liberal magazine based in San Francisco.
3 Responses to “The OB Media Rundown for 3/2/12”
an armchair activist says what now?
get out and get your hands dirty, it’s fun and rewarding, and you get some sunlight. I’m about the most antisocial, hermit type you can imagine…
But if it’s worth doing it’s worth sacrificing time and effort to get out and show solidarity. You don’t have to camp, hell, you don’t even have to help, but boots on the ground and a crowd for the cameras is the LEAST you can do.
There’s lots of us acting as information hubs, that’s simply baseline human activity at this point. If you weren’t doing occupy stuff, you’d still be on the computer, right?
@mods please delete both comments. bursting people balloons isn’t constructive unless they’re the opposition.
They also serve who sit and blog.
on March 2nd, 2012 at 6:05 am #
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