Occupy Colleges Takes the Next Step
On March 1, thousands of students are expected to occupy their colleges to voice concerns over rising tuition costs and the diminishing quality of education. For so long students have found themselves helpless in the face of inaction by politicians and a culture which has chosen to ignore America’s education crisis. But re-energized by the birth of a new season and the Occupy movement, students will demand real change in America’s failing higher education system.
While grievances vary by campuses, they all include demands for a stay in tuition increases and transparency in accounting. Fifty-nine colleges and universities have registered for actions as of today. All registered institutions have at least 100 participants pledged to attend this call to action. Among the registered schools are Temple University with 700 participants, California State University, Long Beach with 500 participants, Ohio State University with 400, University of Massachusetts, Amherst with 200 and the notable participation of Occupy Colleges’ first international solidarity group at EWHA Womans University of Seoul, South Korea, with 500 pledged participants. Other participating schools include American University, Columbia University, George Washington University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, North Carolina State University and University of Las Vegas.
‘The Occupiers’: John Forrester’s film documents Occupy Boston rise and fall
From the first tent that went up in Dewey Square in late September to the last one dismantled by Boston police several months later, John Forrester captured the Occupy Boston movement on film.
On March 1, Forrester will debut “The Occupiers,” a documentary tracing the emergence of the group through the perspective of the occupation’s activists.
“There hasn’t been a lot of activism in our generation. We are known as this apathetic generation,” said Forrester. “We thought it was interesting that people were stepping up to do something in a major kind of way.”
http://tinyurl.com/7bs4pk3
Massachusetts activists push to end corporate political spending
A coalition of lawmakers, advocates and activists rallied at the Massachusetts Statehouse on Tuesday to support a resolution that calls on Congress to overturn the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
The People’s Rights Resolution was introduced to the Massachusetts legislature by state Sen. Jamie Eldridge (D) and state Rep. Cory Atkins (D). The resolution calls upon the U.S. Congress to “pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to restore the First Amendment and fair elections to the people.”
http://tinyurl.com/6me2l9o
Faraone: A List of 50 Sexist, Bigoted, and Homophobic Comments from CPAC 2012, as Promised to Andrew Breitbart
To clarify a few things: I stand by my allegation that Breitbart is a “disgusting animal;” I maintain the position that his CPAC posse should be hollered at; in some instances I should have said “bigoted” instead of “racist” (Gingrich is racist, while the things he says are bigoted); I’m still ROFLing at the suggestion that Occupiers were oppressing the power brokers inside of the conference. And to all the Breitbart fan boys who are fishing for a wink from their master by putting me on blast – I am indeed an angry liberal. That insult doesn’t penetrate. In fact I’m fucking outraged.
. . .
Which brings me to my final point on the matter for the time being (I’m sure we’ll get to more when I face off with Breitbart again, next Monday morning, on the same show). Admitting my unpreparedness – a move that I’m aware is foreign to conservatives – I promised to follow-up with a list of 50 examples from this year’s CPAC of racist, sexist, and homophobic speech (which is the primary criteria for most of these, though stupidity and classism are the real common denominators). It didn’t take long; my interns and I had 45 before we even reached Ann Coulter. Meanwhile, if anyone out there is interested in an intelligent conversation about my book, check the entire interview from Tom and Todd, or my long talk with Callie Crossley on WGBH from later in the afternoon.
http://tinyurl.com/72ma8a7
#F29: Occupy Wall Street back in action
Occupy Wall Street is leaping back into the spotlight with a new day of action scheduled for tomorrow, Feb. 29.
A coordinated effort across 70 cities, Occupy Wall Street will target corporations involved with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Occupiers say that mega-companies like ExxonMobil, Bank of America, BP, Monsanto, Pfizer, and Wal-Mart use ALEC to buy off legislators and craft legislation that puts corporate profit over the well-being of ordinary people.
Beginning at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Occupiers will hold a teach-in at Bryant Park with Matt Taibbi, an award-winning journalist and author.
http://tinyurl.com/7xx3oyv
Oligarchy in the U.S.A. – The wealth defense industry protects the richest of the rich
How can a country make so much progress toward equality on other fronts – race, gender, sexual orientation and disability – but run the opposite way in its policy on taxing the rich?
In 2004, the American Political Science Association (APSA) tried to answer that very question. The explanation they came up with viewed the problem as a classic case of democratic participation: While the poor have overwhelming numbers, the wealthy have higher rates of political participation, more advanced skills and greater access to resources and information. In short, APSA said, the wealthy use their social capital to offset their minority status at the ballot box.
http://tinyurl.com/74tyu8j
Homeland Security Kept Tabs on Occupy Wall Street
As Occupy Wall Street spread across the nation last fall, sparking protests in more than 70 cities, the Department of Homeland Security began keeping tabs on the movement. An internal DHS report entitled “SPECIAL COVERAGE: Occupy Wall Street,” dated October of last year, opens with the observation that “mass gatherings associated with public protest movements can have disruptive effects on transportation, commercial, and government services, especially when staged in major metropolitan areas.” While acknowledging the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of OWS, the report notes darkly that “large scale demonstrations also carry the potential for violence, presenting a significant challenge for law enforcement.”
http://tinyurl.com/6mbu6up
To camp or not to camp? That is Occupy’s question
After a third wave of Occupy shutdowns (Lexington, Ky.; Charlotte, N.C.; Miami; Honolulu; Buffalo, N.Y.; Austin, Texas; D.C.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Portland, Maine; Houston; Asheville, N.C.; and Newark) that swept the country with little publicity in late January and early February, a couple of dozen encampments still remain across the country. A few are persisting on private property (Tampa Bay). Some survived by the grace of friendly relations with city administrations (Kansas City, Mo.; Little Rock, Ark.; Orange County, Calif.). Others are locked in legal battles that may have inadvertently prolonged their stays (Boise, Idaho; Nashville). Yet all are experiencing growing pains and an existential crisis or two. Organizers can sound like a new parent, worried one week and pleased the next. And as the public fatigues at the sight of the raggedy outposts – and as new forms of action populate the Occupy calendar this year – the question of the political relevance of the surviving encampments comes into sharp relief. As the scrappy survivors wear on, they are grappling with a new dilemma: Why continue to camp?
http://tinyurl.com/7rj765r
No Public Education, No Democracy!
The 1% is hoping that if America continues to blame teachers for everything then they will forget to tax the millionaires. But we here today can’t afford to forget the real scope of the problem. So as an English teacher, I decided to end my speech today with a nod to the parts of speech.
We can’t forget that Occupy was a verb before it became a noun. Whatever you believe about your political identity, your party affiliation, your status in America today, please don’t forget to occupy your conscience, your activism, and your humanity. We need to vote in California to fund public education and other essential human services, and I am giving my support to the Millionaires Tax Initiative supported by the California Federation of Teachers and the California Nurses Association. But we need to do more than rouse ourselves for intermittent election cycles. We need to occupy our hearts, our minds, and our capacity for critical thinking. We can’t go back to sleep.
People everywhere are waking up to the radical threat that corporations pose, to our global economy, to our planet and to our very existence as a species. And let’s not forget that corporations are a threat to our democracy, to the self-determination of people all over the world. Without public education, there can be no democracy.
http://tinyurl.com/87xy8uc
Opinion: Waitress Moms, College Snobs, and the Tug-of-War for Populist America
There’s a left-right fight for the populist soul of America.
Over the past three years, the right-wing Tea Party seized populist rhetoric to call for throwing the government elites off the backs of liberty-loving Americans. In the past six months, the anti-corporate Occupy energy occupied the rhetoric, challenging a system to work for the 99 percent, not only the 1 percent.
This tug-of-war will play out repeatedly through the presidential election, and the debate over college education was just the most recent example.
http://tinyurl.com/74jcxm2
The 1 percent speaks: Alum Tells Smith College to Quit Admitting Poors
“The people who are attending Smith these days are A) lesbians or B) international students who get financial aid or C) low-income women of color who are the first generation in their family to go to college and will go to any school that gives them enough money. Carol emphasizes that this is one of her goals, and so that’s why the school needs more money for scholarships or D) white heterosexual girls who can’t get into Ivy League schools.”
. . .
“I can tell you that the days of white, wealthy, upper-class students from prep schools in cashmere coats and pearls who marry Amherst men are over. This is unfortunate because it is this demographic that puts their name on buildings, donates great art and subsidizes scholarships.”
Karl Rove PAC ‘Americans for Prosperity’ organizes an ‘Occupy Jobs’ rally in New Hampshire to coincide with Obama visit
We The People and Americans for Prosperity New Hampshire will join forces to host a rally on March 1 to coincide with President Obama’s appearance in the state to discuss the economy.
The rally, “Occupy Jobs Now,” will take place at Norton’s Classic Restaurant, 233 Main Street in Nashua at 5:30 p.m.
http://tinyurl.com/7tfxxd2
How to Chill the Independent Journalist – Facing arrest without institutional backup
After her arrest last November, Alisen Redmond quit covering Occupy Atlanta. She felt that she had to. At the time, Redmond was the news editor of Kennesaw State University’s Sentinel, which had been covering the makeshift Occupy encampment in Woodruff Park, in downtown Atlanta, before it caught the attention of mainstream media. On the night of November 5th, Redmond was arrested while wearing a press pass with photo identification, charged with “obstruction of traffic,” and spent the next 14 hours in jail. At her arraignment, she says, the judge warned her that-journalist or not-a second arrest could keep her in jail until her March court date.
To some extent, Redmond concedes, “the arrest worked to chill my speech”-at first, because she shied away from reporting during the weeks it took her to find an attorney. But then, after the fall semester, when she stopped working for the weekly, she lost a support system. She would not have been covering street demonstrations as a student, with her university and groups like the Student Press Law Center behind her. She would have been a freelancer. “If something happened,” Redmond says, “I’d have no one to call.”
Occupy calls for end of Whitney Biennial
Calling it a “collusion with [a] system of injustice,” Occupy protesters called for the Whitney Museum to end its influential Biennial exhibition by 2014. In an open letter, Occupiers objected to the Biennial, which is considered a major tastemaker in the art world, because of its ties to institutions of the one percent, like Sothebys, which has been embroiled in a labor dispute. The 2012 Whitney Biennial opens March 1.
The Arts and Labor group of Occupy Wall Street wrote a letter, excerpted here:
We object to the biennial in its current form because it upholds a system that benefits collectors, trustees, and corporations at the expense of art workers. The biennial perpetuates the myth that art functions like other professional careers and that selection and participation in the exhibition, for which artists themselves are not compensated, will secure a sustainable vocation. This fallacy encourages many young artists to incur debt from which they will never be free and supports a culture industry and financial and cultural institutions that profit from their labors and financial servitude.
How Anonymous channels ‘the will of the people’ (Q&A)
This week, they’ve ratcheted things up even more by working with WikiLeaks to publish secret stolen e-mails that shine some light on what appear to be the inner workings of Stratfor, a global intelligence firm that seems to have paid informants to monitor, among other things, human rights and environmental activists on behalf of Dow Chemical after the Bhopal disaster, and that allegedly considered using the intelligence it gathers from insiders to grow a strategic investment fund. The company has declined to confirm or deny the contents of the e-mails released, except to suggest that some of them may be forged or altered while some may be authentic.
And Anonymous, which worked with the Occupy Wall Street movement to promote those protests last year and helped organize local offshoots in different cities, is teaming again with the political movement on “Occupy the Vote 2012,” encouraging people to vote out lawmakers who aren’t protecting their online and offline rights.
CNET interviewed an “Anon” to try to learn what the thinking is behind the movement and why someone would risk jail to break into the computer network or cripple the Web site of a company or government agency. Because of the legal risks involved with the activities, the person interviewed declined to be identified.
http://tinyurl.com/73qwyvu
Occupy the WBC: Air Guitarist Mormon Rockwell Leads Protest of Westboro Baptist Church’s Oscar Protest
This past Sunday, the Westboro Baptist Church gagged on a spoonful of its own medicine. During their annual demonstration against the Academy Awards show in Hollywood, the homophobic religious group, notorious for its zealous protesting of military funerals, was itself the target of picketing by the aptly named Occupy the WBC organization, at Sunset Blvd. and Highland Ave.
While the WBC brandished placards stating “God Hates Fags,” “God H8s Media,” and the more event-specific “Whitney in Hell,” their political analogs countered with signs of their own. Messages ranged from the positive (“God Loves Everyone,” “…And the Oscar Goes to Love”), to the confrontational (“F*** You Haters”), and even the facetious (“I Have a Sign Too”). The OWBC movement leader, who simply answers to the moniker AB, claims the WBC has earned their ire.
http://tinyurl.com/7eufdjw
Occupy-aligned teacher joins race for CA-7
Mario Galván teaches at New San Juan High School in Citrus Heights and has been described by reporters as an “Occupy” supporter. He announced last week that he is running for the seat of the new 7th Congressional District. Galván is unaffiliated with any political party.
[Dan] Lungren defeated [Ami] Bera in 2010, and the pair said recently they welcome the rematch this year. Galván said in a press release declaring his candidacy that he decided to run for office to solve problems in a political system that is not working.
“Those of us who participate are unsatisfied with the system for a number of reasons,” Galván noted. “Two of those reasons are the corrupting influence of money in politics, and the monopoly of the two major political parties on the process.”
http://tinyurl.com/7ufhyza
‘Occupy’ Protests Lead to Review of Austin’s Banking Policy
Austin City Council members Laura Morrison, Sheryl Cole, and Kathie Tovo have sponsored a resolution asking the City Manager to review Austin’s current banking policies. They are also asking for recommendations that would give preference to banks that support community reinvestment. Morrison says the Occupy movements played a part in bringing attention to the issue.
“You know there’s really been a lot of dialogue over the past six to ten months about the whole issue of banking and choices that we’re making personally and what we want to support and all that,” she said. “So, it has been raised as a question about where the city sits in all of this. So I think it’s entirely appropriate for the City to take a look at it.”
http://tinyurl.com/7u3j4md
Responsible Banking Ordinance In Los Angeles Approved By Budget & Finance Committee
A proposal that would require financial institutions doing business with the city of Los Angeles to report on their foreclosure and loan policies was approved today by the Budget and Finance Committee.
The Responsible Banking Ordinance is an idea Councilman Richard Alarcon first introduced in 2009. It picked up steam last year when it was embraced by members of the Occupy LA movement.
“Today the city of Los Angeles took a giant step forward toward holding banks accountable and making the city of Los Angeles a more informed consumer of financial services. Responsible banking is the fiscally responsible way for the city council to protect taxpayer dollars,” Alarcon said.
Occupy Well Street: Anti-fracking groups meet Occupiers
A new movement has emerged in Pennsylvania called “Occupy Well Street,” to protest hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the extraction of oil and gas by creating fissures in rocks and rock formations.
Occupy Well Street protester Alexander Lotorto told PennLive.com that the protesters may try to shut down drilling operations in the Marcellus Shale. Efforts might include a peaceful sit-in, discussions with the police, gas workers and the media, and, he said, even having money ready for bail.
“It’s unfortunate that any group has to resort to nonviolent direct action,” Lotorto told PennLive.com. “It’s unfortunate the gas industry mocks us. ._._. I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but I do want to show what we’re willing to risk.”
Occupy Our Food Supply a Big Success
A global action known as “Occupy Our Food Supply” took place yesterday and was deemed a huge success, as Rainforest Action Network notes: “The day included more than 100 events across the globe, united an unprecedented alliance of more than 60 Occupy groups and 30 environmental, food and corporate accountability organizations, and featured prominent voices including Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, music legend Willie Nelson, actor Woody Harrelson, authors Raj Patel, Anna Lappe, Gary Paul Nabhan, author Michael Ableman and Marion Nestle, among others.”
http://tinyurl.com/7225hna
1% Tip Revealed To Be A Hoax, Somehow Occupy Wall Street’s Fault
As if one falsehood wasn’t bad enough, the incident is now being somehow linked to the entire Occupy Wall Street movement. Verum Serum called the receipt an “Occu-lie,” while Ed Morrissey at Hot Air asked, “Without a lot of flat-out lies, where would the Occupy movement be?” Good point! They totally invented that whole income disparity stuff. Of course, both bloggers fabricated any connection to the Occupy movement. Whether you like those rowdy kids or not, there’s nothing to indicate their involvement in receipt-tampering aside from the use of the phrase “one percent,” which ain’t exactly copyrighted.
Occupy Portland takes aim at Oregon Republican legislator
Occupy Portland is planning a series of demonstrations on Wednesday that will in part hold up Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, as a poster child for bad government.
The loose-knit group of protesters that grew out of the weeks-long encampment in downtown Portland this fall is taking aim at the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that circulates “model legislation” on a variety of issues that it hopes state legislatures will adopt.
ALEC has been under fire since last July when the Center for Media and Democracy published an expose charging that the group was essentially a conduit for corporate interests to write legislation it hoped would be written into law at the state level.
http://tinyurl.com/82hq6bs
Occupy Denver, In Solidarity With More Than 70 Other Cities, Will Hold Anti-ALEC Rally, Tour Of Denver
Occupy Denver has announced that on Wednesday, Feb. 29, they will be holding a rally and guided tour/march against ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. The rally is being held in solidarity and in conjunction with a national day of action against ALEC that more than 70 other cities are also participating in, according to the Shut Down the Corporations website.
Occupy Little Rock to protest at City Hall
Occupy Little Rock will protest in front of the steps of City Hall Tuesday evening in protest of derogatory comments made against their downtown encampment.
Last week one of the city’s Board of Directors, Erma Hendrix, referred to local Occupy protesters as “garbage,” which sparked outrage within the campsite made up of individuals who continue to speak out against corporate greed among other issues.
http://tinyurl.com/6luop3l
Unoccupied: Life after the camp
It was the protest camp that sprung up in the heart of the City, shamed the established church over its apparent cosiness with the financial élite and forced a debate on corporate greed and inequality within modern Britain.
But after four months of permanent protest and a lengthy battle in the courts, the bailiffs finally came to clear Occupy London Stock Exchange. The largely peaceful eviction – which began with the arrival of riot police in the small hours of yesterday morning – came as little surprise to the protesters, who last week lost their court battle against the City of London Corporation to keep their permanent demonstration going.
But there was considerable shock and anger directed towards St Paul’s Cathedral following accusations that the church had allowed police to clear the building’s steps of demonstrators, some of whom were praying as they were dragged away.
First-ever Goldman Sachs union organized in Japan to thwart layoffs
At Goldman Sachs Japan, things became so unusual that some of its staff even took the remarkable step of unionizing after the firm’s attempts to force workers to voluntarily resign – and thus sidestep the notoriously tough restrictions on layoffs under Japanese labor law – apparently backfired. Instead of quitting, the company’s actions spurred some employees to heed the call for workers of the world to unite, and they formed what’s believed to be Goldman Sachs’ first-ever employee union.
http://tinyurl.com/6v72g3y
One Response to “The OB Media Rundown for 2/29/12”
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