Excerpted from New Compass magazine: Why Did the Neighborhood Assembly Movement in Argentina Disappear? New social movements based on open assemblies is emerging in ever more places in Europe and North America as a response to bank bailouts, unemployment, austerity measures and growing economic inequalities. This is not the first time in history that assembly… Continue reading
Date archives "November 2011"
Changing power through incapacitation
HT to Kevin Carson. This was published by Dave Pollard in 2005, but still a very interesting overview of strategies for ”Changing Power”. Dave Pollard: “I thought it might be useful to take a step back and look practically, rather than idealistically, at what needs to be done to ‘save’ a world that shows increasing… Continue reading
Introducing the ‘odious debt’ principle: Three #ows policy proposals from Prof. William Black
Intro via the Naked Capitalism blog: “It is interesting to see how the popular desire for Occupy Wall Street to issue demands is leading various pundits and experts to boil down and update their views on what really needs to be done to fix the financial and political systems. (Note we are of the minority… Continue reading
McKenzie Wark on how #OccupyWallStreet re-introduces “The Political” where none existed before
Excerpted from McKenzie Wark: “The most interesting thing about Occupy Wall Street is its suggestion that the main thing that’s lacking is not demands, but process. What is lacking is politics itself. It may sound counter-intuitive, but there really is no politics in the United States. There is exploitation, oppression, inequality, violence, there are rumors… Continue reading
#OccupyWallStreet as the first mass movement of global consciousness
For the first time, people around the world are not identifying and organising themselves along national or religious lines, but rather in terms of a global consciousness and demands for a peaceful life, a sustainable future, economic justice and basic democracy. Excerpted from Naomi Wolf: “Most commentators have not fully grasped that a world war… Continue reading
How the privatization of the public sphere criminalizes/encloses the #OccupyWallStreet protest commons
David Bollier explains why we should read the article below: A fascinating blog post on how the police (acting on behalf of business) seeks to limit and privatize public spaces in order to stifle protest against enclosures. In other words, repression of protest is an act of enclosure itself — and literally occurs when the… Continue reading
Economics 101 for #OccupyWallStreet
Paul Mattick explains why Keynesianism won’t work this time around: Paul Mattick Jr: Keynesian Economics from brandon jourdan on Vimeo. Another video by Paul Mattick here.
Ralph Nader at Freedom Plaza: The Importance of the Public Commons
Ralph Nader talks about the commons (first five minutes of the video) at Occupy Washington D.C.: (Kevin Zeese’s summary: Ralph Nader spoke at OccupyWashingtonDC.org on November 3rd. He began by discussing the public commons and its importance. He went on to speak about the strengths of the Occupy Movement and how it can have an… Continue reading
Ambient Connectivity – How 19th century business policies keep us from communicating
Our communications are stuck in the 1800s – in the era of the telegraph – says Bob Frankston, whose writings can be found on http://frankston.com/public/ In Thinking outside the pipe (http://frankston.com/public/?n=ThinkingOutsideThePipe) Frankston argues that just like we provide roads for everyone to travel on, we should provide the pipes that our bits can travel on,… Continue reading
Noam Chomsky on the Need to #Occupy the Future
The most exciting aspect of the Occupy movement is the construction of the linkages that are taking place all over. If they can be sustained and expanded, Occupy can lead to dedicated efforts to set society on a more humane course. Excerpted from Noam Chomsky, speaking at the Occupy Boston encampment on Dewey Square “If… Continue reading
5 Values to Profess Beyond the #OccupyWallStreet Protest
Republished from Carol Schachet: “While some people are frustrated that the Occupiers haven’t issued detailed policy briefs, they managed to do something arguably more important: open a dialog on values that has been held captive by conservative forces for years . Occupy Wall Street and its solidarity tents are injecting a different set of questions… Continue reading
Managing Without Growth and the Economics of Flow
Peter Victor–eminent ecological economist, winner of the Canadian Council for the Arts’ prestigious Molson Award, and author of Managing Without Growth–challenges us to reframe our economic discussions to focus on managing material and energy flows rather than GDP growth. This important interview of Canadian ecological economist Peter Victor is conducted by the BrainTrust / Capital… Continue reading
Unitierra and the Indigenous revolt against schooling in Mexico
One of the most important conclusions of our conversation was the explicit recognition that we learn better when nobody is teaching us. We can observe this in every baby and in our own experience. Our vital competence comes from learning by doing, without any kind of teaching. Excerpted from Gustavo Esteva: “Years ago, we started… Continue reading
#OccupyWallStreet as a political commons
Excerpted from David Harvey: “Now, for the first time, there is an explicit movement to confront The Party of Wall Street and its unalloyed money power. The “street” in Wall Street is being occupied—oh horror upon horrors—by others! Spreading from city to city, the tactics of Occupy Wall Street are to take a central public… Continue reading
Local Foreclosure Blockade Movements in the U.S.
This video depicts a moving case of protests against eviction: Foreclosure Blockade from brandon jourdan on Vimeo.
Can we have post-peak oil thrivable societies?
Interesting interview by Chris Martenson, by Peakmoment.tv: “This turbulent, troubled global economy is precisely what Chris Martenson predicted in early 2010, “When Exponential Meets Reality” (episode 166). He asserts that we can no longer look at the economy without factoring in the terminal decline of its master resource — oil. The author of “The Crash… Continue reading