Coming together for schools – Activists gather around the country on March 1st to resist attacks on education
A MARCH 1 day of action turned out thousands of Californians to walkouts, rallies, teach-ins and other protests to take a stand against brutal cuts to public education.
At every level, from K-12 classrooms to universities and city colleges, students, teachers and staff are feeling the budget ax. California was the epicenter of the protests, but there were also other cities, such as New York City and Chicago, where activists also used the opportunity to show their resistance to education cuts in their states.
. . .
At an event happening at the same time for Mass White Ribbon Day addressing domestic abuse, organizers welcomed March 1 protesters. Students joined and spoke out against violence against women along with issues regarding education.
“This action shows that there is a core group of students in Boston dedicated to stopping the privatization and corporatization of higher education,” said UMass Boston student Chris Morrill. “While this was the first action organized since the end of last semester, it was an important step in a long process of building a mass movement for education.”
http://tinyurl.com/7a57yu6
Occupy Birth Control
I just finished reading 99 Nights with the 99 Percent, by journalist Chris Faraone. For his book, subtitled Dispatches from the First Three Months of the Occupy Revolution, Faraone spend 99 nights (including days) in various cities across the country with Occupy protesters to examine who these individuals are, what they believe in, and what their daily grind consists of. Faraone’s narrative made me think about birth control. If you think that sounds like a wild leap, it’s not. Bear with me.
. . .
The vast majority of Americans want a just economic system, want banks held accountable for predatory lending and other immoral (and sometimes illegal) practices, and want the government held accountable for enabling these practices, the vast majority of women, and the men who care about them believe access to birth control is a right. The idea that women, 51 percent of the population, should have equitable health insurance coverage and the power to decide their own reproductive destinies is as much a no-brainer as the idea that in a democratic nation the rich should not be getting richer by neglecting and taking advantage of the poor.
So let’s occupy birth control. Women who use birth control and the men who support them need to speak up and speak out about this issue. Women, who have the unquestionable right to decide their own destinies, are the 99 percent. Imagine if we used Chris Faraone’s idea (I’m assuming he’ll forgive me for stealing it) and spent 99 Nights with the 99 percent of women all across America who use birth control. We would surely meet women of all walks of life, ages, races, professions and belief systems who are making a difference in their communities and families.
Obama Moves G-8 From Chicago to Camp David: “Occupy Camp David” Explodes on Twitter
In a move that some are saying is a response to fears over massive Occupy protests, Obama announced Monday that he would be moving May’s G-8 summit from downtown Chicago to the rural presidential fortress of Camp David. “They are running scared from the people,” tweeted @OccupyWallStreetNYC.
. . .
Twitter users have been having a fun time recommending a “lovely camping trip in May” and making jokes about camping and tents, but despite the posturing, the logistical nightmare of marshalling protesters anywhere close to Camp David will severely confine any kind of protest. Elite marine patrols wouldn’t help either.
Still, the area probably won’t escape protest-free: an Anonymous-affiliated account tweeted the location for another camp near Thurmond, MD: Cunningham Falls State Park, suggesting that protesters might want to make reservations. It’s not exactly in David itself, but since the media is going to have a much harder time getting credentialed at Camp David than they would have in Chicago, a nearby Occupy camp would likely be viewed as an acceptable alternative for coverage.
Protesters say march will go on at NATO summit
A leader of the Occupy Chicago movement says protesters will still take to city streets despite the White House’s abrupt announcement it would move one of two upcoming international summits out of Chicago.
Andy Thayer said Monday that protesters “definitely will be coming by the thousands to protest in Chicago” at a NATO summit in May. A second summit of G-8 leaders now will be held at the Camp David presidential retreat outside Washington.
Thayer and the head of another anti-war organization say the decision to move the G-8 summit is a victory for the protesters who put pressure on summit organizers.
“Occupy!” : A Look at the Movement that Shook the World
The global Occupy movement emerged at a time when economic crisis was taking centre stage in political discourse. Once easily dismissed, with the financial meltdown of 2008 and a subsequent series of devastating crises – from youth unemployment to Eurozone debt – now even the Financial Times has a special series devoted to “Capitalism in Crisis”. This is perhaps what has given the Occupy movement a particular significance, striking a chord with many people worried about their future.
http://tinyurl.com/7aczjs4
The revolution will not be patronized – Ben & Jerry’s (and others) get a cold shoulder when they try to donate to Occupy
In the past week, the offer of easy money came knocking. Ice cream moguls Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s, along with former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg, want to be Occupy benefactors – with an aim to raise $1.8 million for Occupy-related projects through a 501(c)(3) called the Movement Resource Group (MRG). As Jeff Smith, a member of the Occupy Wall Street press team, described the project in a post on the Daily Beast, “the 501(c)(3) is the latest incarnation of a group of wealthy donors who have been trying to plug into OWS for months.”
. . .
Many Occupy supporters are deeply perturbed by the project. It’s not an issue of accepting funds. Occupy has not ceded from its capitalist context: Projects, propaganda, support systems for occupiers with nothing, bail funds and so on still require money. How to procure and allocate money is, however, all important. MRG’s model – with a board elevating certain projects and plans above others using considerable sums of money – flies in the face of the movement’s horizontal and decentralized practices. An open letter to the Occupy Wall Street community from six Occupy supporters (who left the Occupy working group that spawned MRG) notes the reasons why Ben and Jerry and co.’s offer fails to cohere with the ethics of the movement:
MRG replicates the patronage model of funding rather than inviting community involvement in creating new ways to shape and support the movement. The MRG model perpetuates top down control and promotes actions and messages dictated by those who have money in our society, rather than by those who are disenfranchised by the wealthiest 1% … By anointing a paid few to speak for the 99% MRG subverts the spirit of the Occupy movement and thus may actually prevent an authentically national Occupy movement from synthesizing.
The letter closes: “We have only a few unbreakable laws within OWS, the most important of them being ‘don’t speak for us.'”
http://tinyurl.com/7yksuko
A Woman’s Message To Rush
I am calling for a new feminist movement and men, we really need your help.
Rush Limbaugh’s comments from last week still has people outraged. Though there are many men who despise him and his views on women, the fact that he is so forthright in the public eye suggests that many more of them are in agreement with his opinions. It is men like Rush who have given “feminists” a bad name and created the stereotype that feminists are angry “man-haters.” Though he would probably deny it, it is obvious by his loose usage of the term “feminazi” that he has helped to perpetuate this hateful and outrageous stereotype. As a feminist, I have never been a man-hater nor met any feminists who were. It has been made clear by the public’s reaction to Rush’s recent rhetoric that both men and women are fed up with these unfair gender stereotypes and shamefully ignorant accusations.
I used to wonder how the public’s perception of the word “feminist” became so skewed from its actual definition: “A person who advocates equal rights for women.” Instead of being viewed as courageous, people who dare to challenge the status quo in a country where women are still paid 20% less than what men earn in comparable positions, we are viewed with public disdain and branded man-hating rabble-rousers merely for daring to vocalize these glaring gender inequalities. Publicly, those with clout like Rush talk about and regard us with the same type of annoyance and irritation that they also reserve for the brave participants of the Occupy Movement.
http://tinyurl.com/7eaager
Independent Voices: Alternative Press Coverage of the Occupy Movement
The Occupy movement-at first ignored by the mainstream press-went on to capture the nation’s attention, reigniting the discussion of inequality and injecting the “99 percent” into the popular lexicon.
Although the corporate press can no longer dismiss Occupy, its coverage has often been limited in scope, pigeonholing the movement’s message and sterotyping the Occupiers. But independent press from around the globe has been there from the beginning, offering in-depth analysis of the movement and its relationship to other ongoing struggles.
This month, we bring you fresh commentary on the Occupy movement from little-known authors and journals. Web links are provided where available.
http://tinyurl.com/76zqx72
Occupy Philadelphia Thinks Fox 29 ‘Ass Spanking’ Video Part of Larger Trend
About ten protesters affiliated with the Occupy Philadelphia movement showed up between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. today to vent their rage against Fox 29 for what they believe to be anti-journalistic deference in the face of the mayor’s office and other political and economic interests.
“It’s come to light recently that Fox 29 bowed to political pressure regarding a potentially embarrassing video for Mayor Nutter,” said OP member Dustin Slaughter, who organized the event at Fox 29 studios on Market Street. He says Fox 29 news director Steve Schwaid needs to “make a public apology to the people of Philadelphia.” The protest is scheduled to go on until 6 p.m. tonight.
On February 27, Philadelphia Daily News gossip columnist Dan Gross reported that the Nutter Administration had talked Fox 29 out of airing a video showing the mayor casually spanking the butt of a female with whom he was bowling and drinking at North Bowl in Northern Liberties. Neither Fox nor the mayor’s office has spoken publicly of the incident or cell phone video in question since the initial report, other than to cast it off as gossip. The story provoked public debate through other media outlets, and especially on talk radio, but neither new information nor the video in question has come to light.
http://tinyurl.com/6ovfaby
UC committee delays release of pepper-spray report
A University of California task force on Monday delayed the release of a report on the pepper-spraying of student demonstrators by police officers during an Occupy protest at UC Davis last fall.
Task force chairman Cruz Reynoso made the decision after learning the officers’ union plans to seek a court order to halt the report’s public disclosure, university officials said.
The UC Davis task force was scheduled to publish the report online Tuesday before discussing its findings and recommendations at a public meeting on campus.
http://tinyurl.com/89gjj8j
Hearing of woman pepper sprayed in Occupy Portland protest delayed
A 21-year-old woman who was pepper sprayed in an Occupy Portland protest last year appeared in Multnomah County Circuit Court today along with two Portland police officers involved in her case.
They didn’t get to testify.
Judge Cheryl Albrecht, negotiating a stack of Occupy Portland cases, postponed the hearing for a month.
Liz Nichols was pepper sprayed Nov. 17 by Portland police Sgt. Jeff McDaniel. The protest scene with riot police – and shot of pepper spray – was captured by The Oregonian’s Randy L. Rasmussen in a photo that went viral, becoming an iconic image of the Occupy Portland movement.
Student loan delinquency reached $85 billion in third quarter
About $85 billion in U.S. student loan debt, or 10 percent of the outstanding balance, was delinquent in the third quarter of 2011.
Of the 37 million borrowers who have student-loan balances, 14 percent, or about 5.4 million people, have at least one past due student-loan account, according to a report posted Monday on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s website.
“Some special accounting used for student loans, not applicable to other types of consumer debt, makes it likely that the delinquency rates for student loans are understated,” wrote the economists, Meta Brown, Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Maricar Mabutas and Wilbert van der Klaauw.
Thousands of College Students Converge on California Capitol – Hundreds Occupy Inside
Thousands of students and activists marched through Sacramento’s streets and rallied outside the state Capitol on Monday to protest cuts to California’s colleges and universities.
“They say cut back, we say fight back!” the students chanted while waving signs saying “fund education, not war” and “cuts in education never heal.”
The plaza on the west side of the Capitol was teeming with protesters during the rally, which was billed as a chance to “occupy the Capitol.” Outside the building, student leaders and top Democrats who voted to slash higher education budgets last year addressed the crowd.
http://tinyurl.com/7kceggd
Troopers order protesters to leave Calif. Capitol
California Highway Patrol officers have shut down the state Capitol and are threatening to arrest about 100 protesters who remain inside.
The protesters opted to stay inside the building after it closed at 6 p.m. on Monday after a day of protests over cuts to higher education funding.
Several hundred protesters, many of them with the Occupy movement, had gathered in the rotunda area.
http://tinyurl.com/7chs3xv
Students, Occupiers arrested protesting NY budget
Protesters say 33 students and Occupy Albany activists have been released following their arrests at the Capitol in Albany.
Michael Kink of the Stronger Economy for All Coalition says the demonstrators and state police handled the violations without incident or injury.
Nearly 400 students from the State University of New York and the City University of New York arrived in cars and buses Monday to seek restored funding for public universities.
http://tinyurl.com/6n9hke9
Occupy Cleveland disrupts sheriff’s sale of foreclosed properties
Five members of Occupy Cleveland were arrested Monday after they protested property foreclosures by interrupting a sheriff’s sale.
The sale, to auction off foreclosed homes, began about 8:30 a.m. Monday at the Justice Center. The protesters quickly stood up, and one began to shout:
“We are calling on the judicial system to institute an immediate moratorium on all foreclosures until a fair system of home loans is put into place,” said Peter Schanz of Cleveland, an organizer of the group’s foreclosure committee.
Before protesters could finish a prepared statement, sheriff’s deputies carted them away and charged them with disorderly conduct, a minor misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $100 fine.
http://tinyurl.com/8ycxnz4
Occupy Oakland activists dispute hate-crime charges
Attorneys for three Occupy Oakland protesters charged with hate crimes for allegedly using a gay slur during a skirmish with a counter-protester said Monday that police were smearing the activists to try to discredit their movement.
http://tinyurl.com/6u8b6t8
Occupy Llittle Rock activists submit language for ballot initiative that would impose some of the strictest campaign finance laws in the country
A group associated with Occupy Little Rock wants to take a key provision of the movement to Arkansas voters.
The group Regnat Populus has submitted a campaign finance reform ballot initiative.
If the language is approved by the Attorney General, the group can start to collect the thousands of Arkansas signatures required to get the measure on the November ballot.
http://tinyurl.com/72h2non
Wichita school board votes to close five schools
The Wichita school board voted unanimously tonight to close five schools, a decision one board member described as “heartbreaking.” Lanora Nolan said she and her colleagues had no choice but to close the schools – four elementaries and Northeast Magnet High School – because of reductions in state per-pupil funding over the past four years.
Following the last of 17 speakers who addressed the board during a public hearing, several people stood up and shouted in unison:
“We the people stand united in solidarity against closing our schools, and to demand the Kansas budget surplus be used to fund education.” The protesters, many of them members of the Occupy Wichita movement, echoed each other.
80-year-old Perry County activist arrested in York County
State police arrested an 80-year-old Occupy Harrisburg activist two weeks ago for refusing to leave a York County home during an eviction.
Barbara Witt VanHorn, of 41 Petersburg Lane in Duncannon, Perry County, is free on $1,000 bail, charged with criminal trespass. The offense is a third-degree misdemeanor.
According to charging documents, VanHorn was one of 10 to 15 people inside the former home of Stephen Conklin at 100 Spangler Road in Warrington Township about 9:30 a.m. Feb. 22, during Conklin’s civil eviction.
All others left when directed to do so, police said, but VanHorn refused.
Skit mocks OWS; Cuomo nominee says ‘no offense’
William Mulrow, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s nominee to head up two of the state’s agencies that finance affordable housing, reportedly mocked Occupy Wall Street protesters in a skit performed at a dinner for financial big wigs. Mulrow, a senior managing director at the Blackstone Group and one-time candidate for state comptroller, wore “raggedy clothes” to play the part of a protester at a January dinner for Wall Street fraternity Kappa Beta Phi, according to a New York Times report.
Mulrow said in a statement the Times report was “inaccurate and no offense was meant.”
In the skit, the Times reported, a banker called Mulrow’s character a pathetic liberal who needed to bathe and Mulrow responded, “You callow, insensitive Republican! … Don’t you know we need to create jobs?”
http://tinyurl.com/72wpksg
Video: Occupy Denver collecting material for possible documentary
Visitors to Occupy Denver’s website will notice that the local chapter of the national movement has increased its online persona in recent months. Accompanying its newly redesigned site is a push for more extensive coverage of the group’s events that includes more frequent actions and educational opportunities, as well as the eventual creation of an Occupy Denver documentary.
Featuring contributions by Occupy Denver’s Film and Video Committee, the website now houses extensive video footage of weekly teach-ins scheduled to address topics of change.
In the most recent of these, DU professor and Occupy Denver committee member Chad Kautzer addresses the country’s class system in part three of a series devoted to economics. Most of the discussions target issues central to the Occupy movement in the hope of amping up discussion and awareness for those who represent them.
http://tinyurl.com/73dyayv
(Re)Occupy Greece
While the Occupy Wall Street movement set its sights on occupying a financial center, Germany has accomplished the vastly more impressive feat of occupying an entire nation: Greece. Germany has experience at occupying Greece, having done so during World War II.
The art of occupying another nation is to recruit a local puppet to do the dirty work required to repress the citizens. Germany used several puppets, most notoriously the murderous Ioannis Rallis, to (nominally) rule Greece and terrify the Greek people during World War II (after Germany’s defeat, Rallis was executed for his treason).
This time around, Germany has been far more successful in recruiting and using a puppet to (nominally) rule Greece and terrify the Greek people before the German occupation. It was able to put its puppet Lucas Papademosin place and have him “request” that Germany reoccupy Greece.
One Response to “The OB Media Rundown for 3/6/12”
on March 6th, 2012 at 8:46 am #
[…] from: The OB Media Rundown for 3/6/12 This entry was posted in Boston, Chicago, Comments, New York City, News, Philadelphia and […]