Like the Occupy protests last year, this gathering did not focus on what government might do for the American people. That is considered a lost cause for now, or at least, a secondary focal point. It is clear that the market/state duopoly is so entrenched and collusive that “working within the system” will yield only… Continue reading
Searched for "#OccupyWallStreet"
Discussing OWS: The Black Block is the cancer of the #OccupyWallStreet movement, argues Chris Hedges
Excerpted from Chris Hedges, who minces no words in this harsh critique of the Black Block: “Black Bloc anarchists are an example of what Theodore Roszak in “The Making of a Counter Culture” called the “progressive adolescentization” of the American left. In Zerzan’s now defunct magazine Green Anarchy (which survives as a website) he published… Continue reading
Discussing OWS (7): The state of #OccupyWallStreet and its lack of reliable allies
An assessment of the state of the movement, excerpted from Michael Greenberg: “Lately, the contest has entered a new phase, with police pushing reporters aside, and sometimes arresting them before a crackdown, in order to avoid a repetition of the kind of scenes of brutality that propelled the movement’s rise when they appeared on YouTube…. Continue reading
Discussing OWS (5): Slavoj Zizek on interpreting #OccupyWallStreet as a Movement of the Salaried Bourgeoisie
Michel Bauwens: I very often appreciate Zizek’s radical thought and insights, including in the excerpts reproduced below. However, notions like workers and bourgeoisie, used here below in the context of a ‘salaried bourgeoisie’, in a non-structural way, strikes me as particularly unproductive. Equating precarious knowledge workers with the notion of being part of the ruling… Continue reading
Making Worlds: the convergence of #OccupyWallStreet and the Commons
* Making Worlds: An OWS Forum on the Commons, to be organized February 16-18, 2012. organized by members of the Empowerment & Education Committee of OWS “The Occupy movement is entering a new phase, one in which many of us feel the need of combining a renewed engagement with direct actions and mobilizations with a… Continue reading
Discussing OWS (4): From the Ideology-Led Organizing of the left to the Behavioural-Led Organizing of #OccupyWallStreet
Excerpted from a reflection on the logic behind the organizing of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, from Jake Stanning: “The splitting tendency within the left is partly down to what we might call ideology-led organising. Politically-minded people have often been suspicious of those with different ideologies, even suspecting that somehow those with different beliefs will… Continue reading
Discussing OWS (3): #OccupyWallStreet as a Culture Change Movement
Excerpted from William Gamson: “The single most important thing to understand about the Occupy movement[deleted plural ending] is that it is primarily a movement about cultural change, not institutional and policy change. Cultural change means changing the nature of political discourse and the various spheres in which it is carried on, especially mass media. Changing… Continue reading
Discussing OWS (2): #OccupyWallStreet and the Decline of the Professional Managerial Class
Excerpted from a discussion by BARBARA EHRENREICH AND JOHN EHRENREICH: (apologies, we lost the source indication) ““Liberal elite” was always a political category masquerading as a sociological one. What gave the idea of a liberal elite some traction, though, at least for a while, was that the great majority of us have never knowingly encountered… Continue reading
Discussing OWS (1): How the #OccupyWallStreet Movement is Evolving from Networked Individualism to Empowered Communities
Excerpted from Michael Gurstein: “Certainly politics in the Information Society seems to have taken the shape prescribed for it by the marketplace—fragmented, concerned with short-term individualized interest maximization, personality-obsessed media saturation and so on. These changes in turn have been propelled by the forces of technology and the breakdown of established employment structures, education patterns,… Continue reading
P2P Video of the Day: Militarizing the police in preparation of #OccupyWallStreet 2012
Max Blumenthal of the Nation Institute explains the further militarization:
P2P Video of the Day: Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film (an #OccupyWallStreet video update)
“99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film is just that – a feature film created by a stunning mass of over 75 independent filmmakers, photographers, videographers and editors across the country. The project was conceived of by filmmakers Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites in the early weeks of the first encampment in Zuccotti Park,… Continue reading
P2P Movement of the Day: A Model Community Bill of Rights Template for #OccupyWallStreet Communities
This proposal first appeared in the Future of Occupy blog. See the commentary and recommendation by Tom Atlee below the text. Introduction by Jeff Reifman, Envision Seattle and Thomas Linzey, Esq.L What is this document? “We’re offering the model Community Bill of Rights template below for Occupy communities that wish to begin mobilized initiative campaigns… Continue reading
How to stop SOPA? Occupy Hollywood. Here’s a plan. (#OccupyWallStreet update)
The 2012 Academy Awards are at the Kodak Theater on February 26, 2012. Most likely, SOPA/PIPA will not yet be law. This is a huge opportunity — and it doesn’t require a lot of people. In fact, a handful of buses (realizing it’s a long drive) from SF would do it. Do what, exactly? Occupy… Continue reading
Framing the #OccupyWallStreet and other 2011 protest movements in the context of anti-power and counter-power
This essay is not a blanket criticism against anti-power activism. Indeed, in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia, the old political class must be removed in order to create spaces for new forms of accountability and participation to blossom. Too often, however, anti-power mobilizations lose their strength and unity once the old political class is… Continue reading
A short story of occupations as a political tactic (#OccupyWallStreet update)
Excerpted from Shareable, By Willie Osterweil: “There have been many resistance movements throughout history which have made use of the occupation tactic. In the United States, the unemployed Coxey’s Army, which marched across the country decrying injustice and unemployment in 1894, camped out throughout the summer as they converged upon Washington. In the summer of… Continue reading
Flurry of local #OccupyWallStreet actions and successes show strength and staying power of movement
Excerpted via Rose Aguilar: ” the movement is far from dead. Here in California, the movement is exploding. In a recent study called “Diffusion of the Occupy Movement in California,” UC Riverside researchers surveyed 482 incorporated towns and cities in California and found that 143 – nearly 30 percent – had Occupy sites on Facebook… Continue reading