All-day teach-in at Brandeis will focus on the Occupy Movement

Members of the Brandeis faculty, student body and staff have organized an all-day teach-in from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday on the Great Lawn outside the Shapiro Student Center to consider various aspects of the Occupy Movement.

Among the subjects of the sessions are “Media and Occupy,” “May Day and Occupy,” “Israel and Occupy,” “Occupy and Democracy” and many others. Provost Steve Goldstein will welcome participants, President Fred Lawrence will lead discussion of “Occupy as National Teaching Moment” and Environmental Studies Program chair Laura Goldin will hold a session on “Whose Earth Anyway? Environmental Justice for the 99%.” Numerous students and other faculty will participate, as will activists from around greater Boston.

http://tinyurl.com/7ugvnd2

UN to investigate plight of US Native Americans for first time

Many of the country’s estimated 2.7 million Native Americans live in federally recognised tribal areas which are plagued with unemployment, alcoholism, high suicide rates, incest and other social problems.

The UN mission is potentially contentious, with some US conservatives likely to object to international interference in domestic matters. Since being appointed as rapporteur in 2008, Anaya has focused on natives of Central and South America.

A UN statement said: “This will be the first mission to the US by an independent expert designated by the UN human rights council to report on the rights of the indigenous peoples.”

http://tinyurl.com/7kqta7n

Protesters occupy Berkeley-owned farm tract in Albany

Occupy the Farm, a coalition of local residents, farmers, students, researchers, and activists are planting over 15,000 seedlings at the Gill Tract, the last remaining 10 acres of Class I agricultural soil in the urbanized East Bay area. The Gill Tract is public land administered by the University of California, which plans to sell it to private developers.

For decades the UC has thwarted attempts by community members to transform the site for urban sustainable agriculture and hands-on education. With deliberate disregard for public interest, the University administrators plan to pave over this prime agricultural soil for commercial retail space, a Whole Foods, and a parking lot.

“For ten years people in Albany have tried to turn the Gill Tract into an Urban Farm and a more open space for the community. The people in the Bay Area deserve to use this treasure of land for an urban farm to help secure the future of our children,” explains Jackie Hermes-Fletcher, an Albany resident and public school teacher for 38 years.

http://tinyurl.com/7722guq

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 4/23/12” »

May Day Directory: Occupy General Strike In Over 115 Cities

While American corporate media has focused on yet another stale election between Wall Street-financed candidates, Occupy has been organizing something extraordinary: the first truly nationwide General Strike in U.S. history. Building on the international celebration of May Day, past General Strikes in U.S. cities like Seattle and Oakland, the recent May 1st Day Without An Immigrant demonstrations, the national general strikes in Spain this year, and the on-going student strike in Quebec, the Occupy Movement has called for A Day Without the 99% on May 1st, 2012. This in and of itself is a tremendous victory. For the first time, workers, students, immigrants, and the unemployed from over 115 U.S. cities will stand together for economic justice.

http://tinyurl.com/bt6ly5h

Latest campaign report: Elite embezzler who sacked MF Global ‘bundles’ $500,000 for Obama campaign

Barack Obama’s reelection campaign has released the most recent list of names of fundraising bundlers. On that list is Jon Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey and embattled money man, the former head of MF Global.

Corzine, according to the Obama campaign, has once again helped raise more than $500,000.

“MF Global and its brokerage sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a $6.3 billion bet on the bonds of some of Europe’s most indebted nations prompted regulator concerns and a credit rating downgrade. Corzine quit MF Global Nov. 4,” Bloomberg reported.

http://tinyurl.com/bnq6qn7

MF Global: The Untold Story of the Biggest Wall Street Collapse Since Lehman

Only on Wall Street can you bankrupt a company; misplace $1.6 billion of customers’ money; lose 75 percent of shareholders’ money in two weeks; speed dial a high priced criminal attorney and get a court to authorize the payment of your multi-million dollar legal tab from the failed company’s insurance policies; have regulators waive your requirements to take licensing exams required to work in the securities and commodities industry; have your Board of Directors waive your loyalty to the firm; run a bucket shop out of the UK; and still have the word “Honorable” affixed to your name in a Congressional investigations hearing.

http://tinyurl.com/7ykja5s

American class war – Murder, suicide and financial ruin

(video)

“There are murders and suicides – or murder-suicides – in foreclosed homes, people burning their homes down with themselves inside, or shooting policemen or locksmiths who come to evict them from their foreclosed-on homes. Behind all this is crime, is predatory banking fraud and crime to fleece people who don’t know they’re being fleeced, who trust in the system still too much, and who are not as sophisticated as these fraudsters.”

http://tinyurl.com/7suzsjo

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 4/22/12” »

Rally to protest Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ effort to break its guard union

[Message] “The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is seriously considering OUTSOURCING our guard union. Some have been working there for 10-20-30 years. We would lose our status as museum employees and would be forced to apply for our jobs to an outside contractor with a bad reputation. (IF WE GET RE-HIRED) The museum would have non-union workers doing our union jobs! Let’s give the top 1% our 100% effort in stopping these attacks!”

Saturday, April 21 from noon to 2 pm at the Huntington Ave. sidewalk in front of MFA. Weather Partly Sunny, Low 70’s.

http://tinyurl.com/d7emoxa

Faith-identified Occupiers prepare to support May First strike

Episcopalians and other people of faith have supported the movement from the beginning. Harvard doctoral candidate Marisa Egerstrom organized a group called Protest Chaplains that participated in the launch at Zuccotti Park and has supported Occupy Boston. In New York, Episcopal clergy, including Diocese of Long Island Bishop Lawrence Provenzano and those arrested Dec. 17, spent time with occupiers at Zuccotti Park and have been involved with Occupy Faith NYC.

In late March, Occupy Faith members from across the country – including Merz, Sniffen and Egerstrom – attended a national planning meeting in Oakland, California, where members of various religious groups had maintained an “Interfaith Tent” at Occupy Oakland and 14 were arrested in November after refusing to evacuate that encampment.

The Oakland meeting included discussion about national coordination and actions, including what will happen May 1 and a push for a commission on debt and debt culture – “something along the lines of a truth commission around wealth and debt” – Merz said. But it also showed the challenges of a national strategy for a diverse movement.

http://tinyurl.com/c5h4waa

‘Extrajudicial punishment’: FBI Seizes Server from May First Internet service provider

In an attack on our infrastructure, our movement and the democratic Internet, the FBI seized a server yesterday from one of our cabinets in a colocation facility.

The server is owned by our sister organization, Riseup, and is managed by ECN, a progressive technology provider in Italy.

While the seizure of any equipment is pernicious and damaging, the pointlessness of this seizure suggests an inclination toward extrajudicial punishment and an attempted crackdown on the very possibility of anonymous speech online.

http://tinyurl.com/c58w2m9

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 4/21/12” »

Yet Another Obama Big Lie: Mortgage Fraud Investigation Not Even Staffed

The Administration has managed the impressive task of operating in a more cynical fashion than even its worst critics predicted.

We had assumed that the Administration would engage in a Potemkin version of an investigation, bringing a few cases close to the election to generate deceptive and useful “tough on crime” headlines. But having succeeded in protecting the banks, it looks like they can’t even be bothered to go through the motions:

http://tinyurl.com/bnwe7le

Making our arrests count

From occupying Liberty Square and marching in the streets without permits, to carrying out targeted acts of direct action against the banks that crashed the economy or the courts that auction off people’s homes, winding up in places like this has been an integral part of the Occupy Wall Street’s life since its birth. Yet we’re only at the very beginning of understanding our civil disobedience – the ways in which it grows but also shrinks the movement, the positive and negative impacts it has on the movement’s internal culture, and the challenging but ultimately vital role it plays in the struggle for liberation.

http://tinyurl.com/d832cc8

The American Left, Liberalism, and Equality

While some historians dismiss the very notion of an American left, Eli Zaretsky argues that it has made a profound impact on American political life. He examines three historical “lefts”: the abolitionists, the left that coalesced around the New Deal, and the New Left of the ’60s and ’70s. In each case, the left addressed an issue already being debated-slavery, economic depression, civil rights-but transformed equality into the core goal of each movement. In this sense, each left resulted in a “refounding” of America, “a transformation of its identity and of its conception of legitimate order, one that placed equality at its center.”

http://tinyurl.com/c8m6puj

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 4/20/12” »

Massive Tax Day Rally Envelops Financial District

A Massive group of protesters took to the streets of Boston’s Financial District late yesterday afternoon to demand major corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans pay their fare share of federal and state income taxes.

Organized primarily by the MassUniting Coalition and the Right to the City Alliance, the extremely lively and vocal tax day protest was aimed at the Commonwealth’s “most egregious tax-dodgers,” according to a press release announcing the rally and subsequent march, which snaked its way through the heart of the Financial District, and caused police to shut down both Summer and Franklin Streets for periods of time.

Assembling at Dewey Square, quickly becoming the spiritual home of Boston activism, at around 5:30 p.m., the crowd was comprised of more than 30 local labor and peace groups, including City Life/Vida Urbana out of Jamaica Plain, MoveOn.org, Occupy Boston and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. (South End Patch)

http://tinyurl.com/7pth4cs

Occupy Tax Dodgers, 99% Spring, or Whatever The Fuck You Want To Call It, Protesters Sure Were Wicked Pissed Today

While tax evaders were the direct object of today’s aggression, the real message on the block was that protest season – despite never fully ceasing through the somewhat cold months – is back in full swing. From Occupy Boston’s recent Camp Charlie stand-off and current “sleepful protest” just blocks from Dewey Square, to City Life’s ongoing hostility toward a range of top offenders, it’s sure to be an electric Spring. (Boston Phoenix)

http://tinyurl.com/7fydw3j

Choked Occupy Protester: Cop Didn’t Hurt Him

An Occupy Boston protester who was photographed in a confrontation with a Boston Police officer who appeared to have a choke hold on him is now saying the picture doesn’t tell the whole story.

The protester, who wished only to be identified as “Allie” was demonstrating on Boston Common over the weekend and the photograph quickly went viral.

“I’ve seen a lot of people spreading rumors about exactly what happened, some people saying that I was near passing out and stuff like that. That’s not the case. It only lasted for about 2 seconds, it was a very quick altercation. It was violent, and it was — I feel — extremely inappropriate and outside the realm of what a police officer should be doing, but I don’t want there to be any illusions that he harmed me significantly,” Allie said. (WCVT)

http://tinyurl.com/dx8gahq

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 4/19/12” »