Occupy Wall Street’s anarchist roots, By David Graeber

Don't agree with everything Graeber says here (or elsewhere) about anarchism generally nor how it relates to OWS specifically, but his essays on this topic have been superb. And this is no exception.

http://thetrialbyfire.org/2011/11/30/occupy-wall-streets-anarchist-roots/

New York Fed Brownshirt Jason Barker Urges Police to Crack Skulls of #OWS

Good piece.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/22811.html

Occupy Wall Street’s Next Steps – Part 1

But despite the real possibility that a list of demands could allow the occupations to be co-opted and pacified, a more basic point remains: real, tangible concessions from the 1% are important for protesters to strive for, not only to alleviate the everyday violence we are subjected to, but also as campaigns to empower us and attract new bodies to the occupations.

http://thetrialbyfire.org/2011/11/29/occupy-wall-streets-next-steps-part-1/

Congress Admits It Knew Stealth Bailout Was Going On Before TARP Was Approved

PS, Gregg now works for Goldman Sachs. What a coincidence, eh?

THEY OWN YOU!

http://dailybail.com/home/must-see-bernankes-stealth-bailout-for-wall-street-kept-secr.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyBail+%28The+Daily+Bail%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

The Unbearable Lightness Of TARP Reporting

A new academic paper by economists from MIT and the NY Fed proves that credit markets were NOT "frozen" during the crisis.

This was a scam from the beginning. The collapse of 2008 was a controlled demolition planned and effected by the gang-bankers at the Fed. When they started paying interest on "excess" reserves that gave banks every incentive to keep its money there rather than lend. That it was capital intended.

http://dailybail.com/home/the-unbearable-lightness-of-tarp-reporting.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyBail+%28The+Daily+Bail%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

Secret Fed Loans Helped Banks Net $13B

This is from Bloomberg no less.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html

How the Plummeting Price of Cocaine Fueled the Nationwide Drop in Violent Crime

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2011/11/cocaine-plummeting-price-nationwide-drop-violent-crime/474/

The Fascist Plot To Overthrow FDR

This documentary puts the best possible spin on The Ruling Class' attempt to create a dictatorship in the US. FDR was hardly a revolutionary but even his minor, insufficient reforms were too radical for them.





In the fact-checking department, J. P. Morgan was long dead by 1936. This was a very silly mistake.

For more info' read Jules Archer's The Plot To Seize The White House

Quote O' The Day, Nov. 27

What power has law where only money rules?

Petronius

Coordinated West Coast Port Shutdown 12/12

We present this call to you because we believe it is time the occupation movement begins to work together to carry through coordinated, pinpointed actions. We want to disrupt the profits of the 1% and show solidarity with those in the 99% who are under direct attack by corporate tyranny.

Occupations throughout the US have been evicted through nationally coordinated police raids. It is time for us to respond with our own coordinated actions. Our aim is to shutdown the West Coast ports:

On December 12, the occupy movements in different cities will stage mass mobilizations to march on the ports, create community pickets, and effectively shutdown the hubs of commerce, in the same fashion that Occupy Oakland shut down the Port of Oakland on November 2nd, the day of our general strike. The Oakland Port Shutdown was a historic and effective action, and the memory of that night on the port lives in the hearts of people across Oakland and around the country.
The message to you from Occupy Oakland in the face of police raids and continued disruptions of workers lives by the 1% is the following: The Occupy movement will strike back and rise again! We will blockade all of the West Coast Ports on December 12th in solidarity with longshoremen, port workers and truckers in their struggle against the 1%! Together we are unstoppable! Strike while the iron is hot!


http://occupyca.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/coordinated-west-coast-port-shutdown/

Mona Eltahawy Describes Her Assault in Egypt

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/mona-eltahawy-describes-her-assault-egypt

Still Unpopular, Mayor Villaraigosa Announces Eviction Deadline for #OccupyLA

In a closed press conference - on Black Friday - at the very end of the day (read: serious news dump) - Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa - a mayor who has presided over a May Day Melee, massive foreclosures and the arguably the worst homeless problem in the country declared Occupy LA a success for changing the national dialog.

He said in the press conference, "Occupy LA has brought needed attention to the growing disparities in our country and I look forward to its ongoing efforts to build an economy that works for everyone."

And then proceeded to tell the protesters that it's time for them to leave. More specifically, Monday morning at 12:01 am is time for them to leave. The park will be closed.

http://crooksandliars.com/tina-dupuy/still-unpopular-mayor-villaraigosa-anno

Austerity And Fascism In Greece – The Real 1% Doctrine

Which brings me back to the new Minister of Infrastructure, Makis Voridis. Before he was an ax-wielding law student, Voridis led another fascist youth group that supported the jailed leader of Greece’s 1967 military coup. Greece has been down this fascism route before, all under the guise of saving the nation and complaints about alleged parliamentary weakness. In 1967, the military overthrew democracy, imposed a fascist junta, jailed and tortured suspected leftist dissidents, and ran the country into the ground until the junta was overthrown by popular protest in 1974...That military junta—and the United States support for it (for which Clinton apologized in 1999)—is a raw and painful memory for Greeks. Most Greeks, anyway. As far as today’s Infrastructure Minister, Makis Voridis, was concerned, the only bad thing about the junta was that it was overthrown by democracy demonstrators. A fascist party was set up in the early 1980s in support of the jailed coup leader, and Voridis headed up that party’s youth wing. That’s when he earned the nickname “Hammer.” You can probably guess by now why Greece’s Infrastructure Minister was given the nickname “Hammer”: Voridis’s favorite sport was hunting down leftist youths and beating them with, yes, a hammer.

http://www.countercurrents.org/ames251111.htm

Occupy Seattle – Shopping For Handcuffs On Black Friday

http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/occupy-seattle-shopping-for-handcuffs-on-black-friday/

Blogger's Note, Nov 24

Happy Thanksgiving.

What Is Killing the Labor Movement?

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12320/what_is_killing_the_labor_movement/

Egypt’s second revolution confronts the counter-revolution

http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/international/15203-egypts-second-revolution-confronts-the-counter-revolution-tahrir-cairo?utm_source=Counterfire+Bulletin&utm_campaign=7ca287770d-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

Poem O' The Day, Nov 22

The law locks up the hapless felon
who steals the goose from off the common,
but lets the greater felon loose
who steals the common from the goose.

Anonymous, England, 1821

Photo O' The Day, Nov. 23: The Past Is Prologue

Labor Must Choose Between Occupy and the Democrats

http://thetrialbyfire.org/2011/11/22/labor-must-choose-between-occupy-and-the-democrats/

Palace Historian Ian Kershaw: Still Irrelevant After All These Years

'Hitler's Influence Was Fatal'

Can you believe that! This guy has won a number of awards and has been called the "dean of British historians" for coining empty phrases just like this.

Kershaw's books are utter trash. He is a distorian, a propagandist of the empire whose main contribution is to cast recent European history, particularly the WW2 era, in a light favorable to the British ruling class. His works are full of corrupt analyses employing pop psychology and credulously based on sources and testimony of dubious merit, which result in endless pages full of meaningless, anodyne prattle like the above.

Some career low-lights: He claims that the German people were "vaguely aware" of the Holocaust but were too worried about the outcome of the war to concern themselves with it. He is the author of the phrase "The road to Auschwitz was paved with indifference." To this day nobody has ever uncovered a single Nazi document ordering or even discussing the possibility of murdering ten million people, yet everybody was aware (albeit only vaguely) and didn't care.

In his survey of the historiography on the subject, The Nazi Dictatorship, he criticizes Marxist historians for seeing the Third Reich as capitalist. (Yes!) In so doing he buys into the Party's absurd claim that they represented the German working class in its opposition to plutocracy. This is a matter of no small delicacy, care must be taken when attacking a regime whose basic economic policies differ only slightly from those of Kershaw's patrons.

He also critiques Ernst Nolte's The Three Faces of Fascism. This book is quite controversial and, at the end of the day, I too disagree with its central theses, but it is groundbreaking, seminal, extremely well researched, amazingly so, and a unique perspective on the subject; on the whole a valuable contribution. Kershaw dismisses it as "apologist," which it patently isn't.

I could go on but why bother. Kershaw is a fraud. Hitler was a fatal influence eh? Brilliant, just brilliant. And there is talk he is to be knighted.

In the interview linked below Kershaw is asked when the Nazis should have realized they couldn't win the war. He says mid '44 with the landing at Normandy. One would be hard pressed to find another historian who would respond with anything but the defeat and capture of von Paulus' forces at Stalingrad. Germany lost most of its entire fighting force in that battle. Some of Hitler's military advisers urged him to sue for peace after the devastating loss. But Kershaw, ever the loyal servant, says it is when British forces arrived in Europe. Still irrelevant after all these years.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,798377,00.html

Video Of Africans Living In Italy On The Arab Spring

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/11/12/italytunisia-migrants-opinions-of-the-arab-spring/

Unreported Horrors – Male Rape in DR Congo

http://www.ips.org/africa/2011/11/unreported-horrors-male-rape-in-dr-congo/

Great Photos And Videos Of Egyptian Revolution

http://www.arabawy.org/blog/

Pregnant Seattle Protester Says She Miscarried After Being Kicked And Pepper Sprayed By Police

Pregnant Seattle Protester Says She Miscarried After Being Kicked And Pepper Sprayed By Police

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pregnant-woman-may-have-miscarried-after-getting-pepper-sprayed-occupy-wall-seattle-2011-11#ixzz1eUaADweL

Newt Gingrich, Sociopath

Video of Gingrich denouncing child labor laws.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/11/20/372918/gingrich-calls-child-labor-laws-stupid-wants-to-replace-janitors-with-poor-kids/

U.S. & French air strikes raise human toll in Somalia

Gee I'd almost forgotten about that war, hard to keep track of them all.

http://www.workers.org/2011/world/somalia_1124/

Capital Looses Its Media Dogs On Ron Paul

I am no fan of Ron Paul, but it is clear from this video that the usually avuncular Bob Schiefer, Granpa Fluff, has been directed to undermine Paul's candidacy. Every question was designed to entrap and provide sound bites for his presidential rivals.

Watch the video here

Video O' The Day, Nov. 22: Socialism Or Barbarism?

It's your choice.

Photo O' The Day, Nov. 22

Egyptians reclaim Tahrir as revolution flares up anew

Great piece with great (but sometimes disturbing) videos. Worth a look.

http://roarmag.org/2011/11/egyptian-revolution-military-junta-tahrir/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29

Propaganda Alert: The American Behind India’s 9/11—And How U.S. Botched Chances to Stop Him

Here's the money shot:

An investigation by ProPublica and FRONTLINE during the past year did not find proof that Headley was working as a U.S. agent at the time of the attacks. But it did reveal new contradictions between the official version of events, Headley’s sworn testimony and detailed accounts of officials and others involved in the case. The reporting also turned up previously undisclosed opportunities for U.S. agencies to identify Headley as a terrorist threat, and new details about already-reported warnings.

Splat!

Trying to stop him? Perhaps they should have stopped paying him. They were not trying to stop him.

Note that they say they didn't find "proof". At what points evidence rises to that level is a subjective thing, but certainly there is plenty of evidence that he was US intelligent asset at the time of his involvement in the Mumbai terror attack. In fact, outside of Frontline and ProPublica it is hard to find anyone who denies it. The question is whether he was acting on orders from his handlers or on his own.

And the answer of course is the former. Otherwise one would have to believe he thought he could participate in one of the largest terror attacks in history without being exposed by the subsequent investigation. Moreover, if it were LeT who executed the attack, and assuming they are not a Western intelligence front, what need would they have for Headley? If they had a mole this far up the food chain, would they imperil him for the low-level function in the Mumbai Massacre of which he is accused? Not a chance.

ProPropagandica has been spinning this story on the government's behalf for some time now. It's classic journaganda: They pretend to be exposing government lies while reinforcing the ones that matter. The first job of government is perception management, and ProPublica is doing its part.

http://www.propublica.org/article/david-headley-homegrown-terrorist

The bankers take over in Italy

THE SLEAZY crook who dominated Italian politics for nearly two decades is gone--only to be replaced by an unelected "eurocrat" installed by bankers to make working people pay for Europe's relentless financial crisis.

http://socialistworker.org/2011/11/15/bankers-take-over-in-italy

NPR: National Propaganda Radio: Op-Ed: 'Sympathy' For Pepper-Spraying Policeman

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=142601182&m=142601175

People's U at Washington Square Park Nov. 18: Arundhati Roy

Text here http://www.countercurrents.org/roy201111.htm

Corporate America Shows It’s True Colors

Great photos video and text: http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/corporate-america-shows-its-true-colors/

Pepper-spraying cop looks like he's watering his lawn.

No Cops, No Bosses

Nice piece.

http://occupyca.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/no-cops-no-bosses/

OccupySeattle Update, Nov. 20

The pepper-spraying of octogenarian Dorli Rainey went global and caused a good deal of embarrassment for capital. The mayor was forced to issue a humiliating public apology in order to save what's left of his two faces.

But a counterattack is underway. The media wardogs have launched a new defamation campaign with KOMO leading the way. Watch video here.

Dinh says most of the students she spoke to were not happy about OS being at SCCC. She had to search long and hard as just about every student I've spoken to has been very supportive. The student union has endorsed OS.

The final push to crush OS is beginning. Winter is coming, last night the GA was so small due to the cold that we dispensed with the people's mic. As the temperature continues to drop, the campaign to oust OS will intensify. The chances are good that the movement won't survive the season, at least not here in Seattle, but by the same token the one percent know that if it does they will have a full scale crisis on their hands.

Well-Behaved Movements Seldom Make History

Nice piece.

http://www.bilerico.com/2011/11/well-behaved_movements_seldom_make_history.php#.Tsj7r9VnJTs.twitter

ALL BANKS SHOULD BE LIKE THE Bank of North Dakota

California Faculty Union goes on Strike

Thursday, Nov 17, thousands of faculty members made history by participating in the first-ever strike of the California State University system.

The message to the Chancellor was loud and clear from six in the morning until dark: “If you don’t start making decisions based on what is right for the 99% this system serves – instead of the 1% of executives and upper managers running the system — these actions will continue.”

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/california-faculty-union-goes-on-strike/

Race And The Occupy- Movement

In response to this article I wrote this:

Ah the eternal racial divide, will it ever be breached? While this piece is full of valid criticism, it wreaks of ugly ethnocentrism. You know, that thing which is called racism and condemned when expressed by whites, but all to often lauded when directed at whites.

While I celebrate the fact that most of the black left, including Elaine Brown and Erica Huggins and other former members of the Black Panther Party, do not share JR's contemptuous views, it is important that racially divisive statements be countered, particularly when they are as ridiculous as those above.

JR says that OccupyOakland is responsible for making downtown Oakland unsafe. (Someday, with luck, I will be able to stop laughing about this.) Yet this is belied by the fact that he took his seven-year-old there. Does he often take his daughter to places he regards as unsafe? Or was the charge specious?

JR blames OO, which he identifies as largely "white" (note that he doesn't capitalize this race-identifier), for a lack of security which resulted in the murder of a black by another black. Wow, just wow!

JR says that the whites, whom he condescendingly refers to as "kids", are to blame for the low participation of "Black and Brown" people (please note the use of capitals in the case of these race-identifiers). He adds that many of these "kids" never witnessed before "they, in Christopher Columbus fashion, decided to 'occupy' the area," how hardscrabble life was for the black unemployed who live there. He then adds wistfully that "They can’t even relate to these people, and in most cases these [white] activists have stopped trying."

Oh where to begin? Columbus was on a mission for international capital, the "white kids" at OO are at the very least trying to limit the power of the elite, and in many cases seeking to overthrow them entirely. The analogy just couldn't be more stupid and dishonest, and JR just makes a fool of himself by stooping to make it.

The idea that white elements in the Occupiers are to blame for the fact that the movement has been almost completely abandoned by non-whites, and, in the case of OO, literally attacked upon orders of an non-white mayor, is almost as funny as OO making Oakland unsafe, and just as tendentious. If non-whites cannot see that a movement of the 99 percent against the one, a movement which has steadfastly endorsed directly democracy, isn't in their best interests and something worthy of support, then whose fault is that?

The assertion that these white Occupiers cannot relate to poverty, or are indifferent to the plight of non-white peoples, and that a majority have given up trying, is an ugly, vicious, racist lie. And JR ought to be ashamed of himself for telling it. White occupiers have bent over backwards trying to induce and preserve non-white involvement, and provide, as best we can, for the homeless and unemployed of all races (for which JR schizophenically criticized us). We have elicited tactical advice from the People of Color Caucuses and have been exceedingly attentive to their recommendations. JR's tired, enervating claim simply couldn't be more wrong.

Again, in the interests of fairness, it must be pointed out that many on the black left, including the aforementioned, Cornel West, and many, many more, have endorsed the Occupy Movement enthusiastically. And I have no doubt that it is this faction which will triumph over the reactionary elements within the black community. Indeed the Occupy Movement can trace its lineage in style and content in part back to the sublime examples of the Panthers and SNCC (as well as anarchist and radical feminist traditions). But, judging from what I read from the Minister of Disinformation, it's going to take some time.

Down with capitalism! Down with racism in all its ugly variants! Long live the Oakland Commune!

Your Ignorance is Agribusiness' Right, says WTO

As we noted earlier today, the agency issued a landmark ruling against U.S. efforts to reduce consumer confusion about the origin of the foods they eat. This followed two decisions from September against U.S. measures to reduce teen smoking and dolphin deaths. If the decisions are upheld on appeal, the United States will have to water down or eliminate its country-of-origin labels (COOL) for meats, dolphin-safe tuna labels, and ban on flavored cigarettes directed at kids.

http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2011/11/consumers-and-the-environment-are-at-risk-following-a-series-of-world-trade-organization-wto-rulings-against-popular-us-p.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eyesontrade+%28Eyes+on+Trade%29

Talk - Ellen Brown - Public Banks and Why We Need Them

The benefits of public enterprise.



More here http://wapublicbankproject.org/

Surprise, Homeland Security Coordinates #OWS Crackdowns

http://wonkette.com/456282/surprise-homeland-security-coordinates-ows-crackdowns-nationwide

Federal Bureau of Intimidation

Please read this.

socialistworker.org/2010/10/04/federal-bureau-of-intimidation

Solidarity From South Of The Border

To the Peoples of the World
To the Occupy Movement
To the Oakland Commune
To Our Sisters and Brothers in Struggle on the Other Side of the Border

We don’t need to remind you of the deep connections between Wall Street, Gringo Capitalism and our Mexican misery. From Imperialist wars to the initial experiments in agrobiotechnology, Mexico has been the principal landscape for offensives by northern capital. We have participated and continue to, in the uprising of the Zapatistas against the neoliberal attack of NAFTA. The uprising which set the spark for the movement against neoliberalism. We met each other at the summits of Seattle, Prague, Genoa, Miami and Cancun. We met each other through a great global conversation.

It’s been a long time since we fought together in the movement against neoliberalism and the world has changed since those times. Today the narco war is devastating our society. As two sides of the same coin, on one side we have the narco and on the other the militarization of the country. These two faces are crushing us from both sides. Although it seems like they fight, they are both at the service of capital and in the modern world local capital is connected in a strong fashion to global capital. In the last few months we have learned these connections between Wall Street and narco money. According to one analysis, narco money was the liquid capital necessary to rescue the banking sector from the initial hits of the financial crisis in 2008 [1]. Further, the huge quantity of drug profits needs a laundromat just as large. Although we don’t have a detailed balance, we know that Wall Street facilitates this laundering. For example according to the US justice department, one bank, Wachovia, laundered $378 billion narco dollars from Mexico between only 2004 and 2007. This bank fell and ironically was acquired by Wells Fargo, the same bank which still has the salaries of our fathers and grandfathers who worked in the bracero program. The same bank which funds detention centers for immigrants where our brothers and sisters die only trying to provide for their families.

But in Mexico there isn’t only the cultivation of misery. Here we drew one of the first lines of struggle against global capitalism in our laboratory of resistance. With humility in front of you, our comrades, we would like to tell of our experience. Encampments and occupations are common in Mexico and comrades joke about the lack of space to put up more encampments. But this isn’t by chance and was won through struggle. One recent example: in 2006, in the state of Oaxaca, the local teachers union setup an encampment in the center of Oaxaca City during their annual collective bargaining. One morning, on the 14th of june, the state police tried to take down the camp of the teachers and the city rose up, they not only retook the plaza but kicked the police out of the city. The Commune of Oaxaca was born on this day and the following 6 months transformed Oaxaca and the participants in the uprising. Like you, they also had problems of repression and representation. Against the repression they put up thousands of barricades each night to protect the population from the murderous paramilitaries of Governor Ulises Ruiz, who they struggled to kick out. Against the lying representation of the media, they took over their television and radio studios, collectivized the resources and began to have conversations that had never been had by those means.

We are following closely everything that is happening in Oakland. The police kill youth like Oscar Grant [2] and gravely injure anti-war veterans such as Scott Olsen [3]. The media lies about the popular participation in the movement and they propagate superficial divisions. The self-defense and sefl-representation of our movements are essential to our collective struggle. We invite you to learn from our experiences and we hope to learn from yours. Together and in concert we are toppling this miserable system.

In our stories you will see your story.

We Walk by Asking, We Reclaim by Occupying.

From Mexico with total support for Occupy Oakland.

SIGNED:
jóvenes en resistencia alternativa
Universidad de la Tierra en Oaxaca, A.C.
Colectivo Radio Zapatista
Regeneración Radio
Colectivo Cordyceps
Colectivo Noticias de la Rebelion
Amig@s de Mumia de Mexico
Furia de las Calles
El Centro Cultural La Piramide
Marea Creciente México (Capítulo del red internacional por justícia climática Rising Tide)
Konvergencia Gráfica
Sublevarte Collective
Hacklab Autónomo
El Enemigo Común
Centro Social Okupado “Casa Naranja”

Gustavo Esteva, Oaxaca, México
Bocafloja, DF, México
Patricia Westendarp, Querétaro, México
Alejandro Reyes Arias, Chiapas, México
José Rabasa, México
Cristian Guerrero, México

Para Esanyol mira aqui

Who Pays for Metro?

Nice piece.

http://saveourmetro.org/2011/10/21/who-pays-for-metro/#comment-176

Seattle Police Pepper-Spray Pastor

I Don't imagine there are too many clerics who visit this blog, but if you are you need to read this. If you want to be a moral force in the lives of your congregations, then you need to act like one.

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/11/16/police-hit-seattle-pastor-with-pepper-spray/

Bloomberg Personifies What The Occupation Opposes

Good piece.

http://www.countercurrents.org/ford171111.htm

This Is What Revolution Looks Like By Chris Hedges

Great piece.

http://www.countercurrents.org/hedges171111.htm

Photo O' The Day, Nov. 17

[Discovered at http://live.nydailynews.com/Event/Showdown_at_Zuccotti_Park_The_NYPDs_raid_on_Occupy_Wall_Street_NYC/18883878

Poem O' The Day, Nov. 17: Song of the wretched, by Mphutlane wa Bofelo

We have no stereos
Droning love ballads
To lull us from our reality
The only music we
Know is the wordless symphony
Of the buzzing stars
The bright eye of the night
Candles our hope
We don’t know
Various shades
Of lamps and globes but
We know the colour
Of the moon
The only show
Our eyes can
Afford us is
The flaunt
Of the rising sun &
The display
Of the falling night

read more http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/77992

Nov.17. Find a bridge near you to occupy

Like say Montlake and Pacific at 3:30pm

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/nov-17-find-a-bridge-near-you-to-occupy/

Interview with Octogenarian activist Dorli Rainey on being pepper-sprayed by Seattle police, importance of activism

http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/occupy-seattle-octogenarian-activist-dorli-rainey-on-being-pepper-sprayed-by-seattle-police-importance-of-activism

37,000 Target Employees Sign Petition To Protest Working Long Hours On Thanksgiving

http://thetrialbyfire.org/2011/11/16/37000-target-employees-sign-petition-to-protest-working-long-hours-on-thanksgiving/

Russia's High Stakes Energy Geopolitics

If you want to understand what global politics are really about then read this.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27653

Elderly woman, priest, pregnant woman and a blind person pepper-sprayed during OccupySeattle protest

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/133932563.html

Poster O' The Millenium (So Far)

The Great Putsch: welcome to post-democratic Europe

From Frankfurt School to Frankfurt Group, the working class is dead.

http://roarmag.org/2011/11/crisis-europe-democracy-italy-greece-frankfurt-group/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail

Class War Alert: The End Of The Postal Service?

This is the first step towards privatization. Here's what proponents say:

# Normalizes Pay & Benefits: mandates that postal workers pay at least the same health and life insurance premiums federal workers do, and clarifies that compensation parity with the private sector is maintained.
# Establishes a Restructuring Authority to Turnaround Postal Defaults: when the Postal Service fails to pay its bills for more than 30 days, a receivership-style authority takes over for USPS management with an explicit mandate to cut costs while maintaining universal service. Management is replaced if they cannot successfully restructure Postal Service finances. Restructuring will be financed with an up to $10 billion line of credit that must be fully collaterialized by postal facilities. The restructuring authority will have the ability to make policy changes to cut costs as well- for instance- by moving from expensive door delivery to curb or cluster boxes in neighborhoods, the Postal Service will save $3.5 billion annually, while maintaining to the greatest extent possible door service in poor, densely populated, and historic neighborhoods. The solvency authority will also have the ability to remove postal workers from the expensive federal workers compensation system to be placed in their own.
# Enables Postal Service to Pursue New Revenue: even though the Postal Service is supposed to act like a private business, it can't make money from selling advertisements. The Issa-Ross Postal Reform Act allows USPS to sell advertising space on vehicles and facilities, as long as the ads respect the Postal Service's integrity.
# Offers an Affordable Payment Plan for Retiree Health Care Benefits: Allows the Postal Service to make the retiree health care funding payment they can make this year, roughly $1 billion, and pay the balance in equal installments in Fiscal Year 2015 and Fiscal Year 2016.
# Surpluses in Pension Accounts to Facilitate Workforce Rightsizing: Provides for consideration of using a net surplus in all Postal Service pension accounts to fund the cost of reducing the size of the postal workforce. This provision protects taxpayers by ensuring that surplus funds are only accessible if there is an actual net surplus in all accounts...

http://postal.oversight.house.gov/OurPlan.html



And opponents:

http://www.nalc.org/depart/legpol/pdf/2011/hr_2309_fact_sheet.pdf



How much longer are you going to put up with this? What percentage of the American people would vote for this bill? Yet Congress will pass it. They don't work for you, they work for Wall Street. How much longer? Get off your knees, before it's too late.

Banks Jacking Up Fees to Retail Customers

Consumers should brace themselves for a brave new world of lots of bank fees. Bank of America is no doubt hoping that it will be a price leader and the other major banks will copy its move. Now that banks can borrow at pretty close to zero, cheap sources of funding, like interest-free checking accounts and float aren’t as valuable as they once were. When I lived in Australia, it was pretty much impossible to have a relationship with a bank and pay less than $25 a month for it. The US banks are moving in that direction.

Apparently the recent looting wasn't enough. Once again I yield the floor to the late great George Carlin:

THEY OWN YOU!

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/banks-jacking-up-fees-to-retail-customers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

Audio: Arundhati Roy On The Naxalite Resistance In India

http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/496/id/461219/mon-11-14-11-arundhati-roy-naxals-ows

Oakland Commune Raided Again

All this flaunting of sources within the police department gives me pause

http://occupyca.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/oakland-commune-raided-again/

Riot Police Supress Occupy Portland Protestors With Brutal Force

OccupySeattle Photos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/13/1035823/-Occupy-Seattle-is-at-Seattle-Central-Community-College-but-campus-admin-want-us-gone-w-Photos?via=siderecent

Oakland’s Third Attempt at a General Strike

On November 2, 2011, Occupy Oakland — coming out of the international Occupy Movement — called for a General Strike. It was the third time a General Strike was attempted in Oakland. This first-hand account analyzes the event and situates it within the rich history of class struggle in California's Bay Area.

Nice piece.

http://libcom.org/news/oakland%E2%80%99s-third-attempt-general-strike-13112011

THIS BUILDING IS OURS Update

Chapel Hill Occupation Raided by Police with Guns

http://occupyca.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/chapel-hill-occupation-raided-by-police-with-guns/

THIS BUILDING IS OURS! Chapel Hill Anarchists Occupy Downtown Building

There is much debate within anarchist circles as to whether such actions as these are worthwhile. I confess to ambivalence, but do admire the elan.

But glad I don't have to listen to the blaring dance music...

http://trianarchy.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/this-building-is-ours-chapel-hill-anarchists-occupy-downtown-building/

Researchers occupy uni during lecture by EU President

Collettivo Prezzemolo means Parsley Collective.

It's interesting how the Institute was ready to drown them out.

http://roarmag.org/2011/11/researchers-occupy-uni-during-lecture-by-eu-president/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29

Quote O' The Day, 11 Nov.

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. We must arrive at a concept of history which corresponds to this. Then it will become clear that the task before us is the introduction of a real state of emergency; and our position in the struggle against Fascism will thereby improve. Not the least reason that the latter has a chance is that its opponents, in the name of progress, greet it as a historical norm. – The astonishment that the things we are experiencing in the 20th century are “still” possible is by no means philosophical. It is not the beginning of knowledge, unless it would be the knowledge that the conception of history on which it rests is untenable.

Walter Benjamin

[Discovered at occupiedlondon.org

OccupyMN protesters occupy foreclosed Minneapolis home

http://thetrialbyfire.org/2011/11/10/occupymn-protesters-occupy-foreclosed-minneapolis-home/

Greece: Junta for ever!

Nice Piece.

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2011/11/10/junta-for-ever/#comments

CHART OF THE DAY - The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever

http://dailybail.com/home/chart-of-the-day-the-scariest-jobs-chart-ever.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyBail+%28The+Daily+Bail%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail

IMF representative “very likely” to become Greek prime minister

It sounds like a sitcom joke, or maybe a strange feeling that perhaps those at the echelon of power might have a sense of humour after all, even if it’s a twisted one — but it’s true: Greece’s representative at the IMF (called Panagiotis Roumeliotis, in case you want to know) now appears “very likely” to become the next prime minister, according to corporate media reports and ‘leaks’.

What arrogance! What contempt! Capitalism cannot be reformed. It has to go.

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2011/11/08/imf-representative-very-likely-to-become-greek-prime-minister/

Ohio Voters Overturn Governor's Anti-Collective Bargaining Legislation

And the usual dirty tricks didn't work this time.

For example in October, Cincinnati great grandmother Marlene Quinn—whose family was saved by firefighters—was featured in We Are Ohio television ad urging a “No” Vote on Issue 2. But shortly after, one of the right-wing groups backing Issue 2 pirated footage for their own ad and doctored Quinn’s words to make it seem as if she was endorsing Issue 2.

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/ohio-voters-to-kasich-%E2%80%9Cno-no-no%E2%80%9D/

Goldman Sachs 'escapes paying £10million bill in sweetheart deal with the taxman'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058557/Goldman-Sachs-escapes-paying-10m-sweetheart-deal-taxman.html

Pre-emptive Police Intimidation In The UK

On the morning of Wednesday 8th November, letters from the Metropolitan Police landed in the hallways of scores of people, effectively warning them not to attend the student demonstration due to take place in London on the following day. The letters were sent to 450 people who had been arrested at any demonstration in the previous 12 months, even if the charges had subsequently been dropped. The letter warns people not to “involve yourself in any type of criminal behaviour”, and that those who do so will be arrested. With a message akin to a recorded voice reminding you to “breathe in, breathe out” every few seconds, many see the letters as more of a threat than helpful advice.

http://jodymcintyre.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/from-baton-strikes-to-baton-rounds/

Critiques Of The Consensus Process

For those who are interested in building mass, democratic movements with the goal of effecting radical change, this is an important topic. You would be well served to take the time to read these.

From a Marxist perspective:

1, http://en-gb.connect.facebook.com/notes/uottawa-marxist-students-association/anti-consensus-pro-democracy/231962333532584

2, http://fritztucker.blogspot.com/2011/10/american-autumn.html

3, http://kasamaproject.org/2011/10/28/and-what-about-consensus/


From an anarchist perspective:

4, http://www.geocities.com/collectivebook/bookchin.html

5, http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/bookchin/sp000515.txt

6, http://libcom.org/organise/general/articles/decision-making-and-organisational-form.php

Al Jazeera’s Failures on Libya—and What They Tell Us About the Network

Important information.

http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/10/28/al-jazeera%E2%80%99s-failures-on-libya%E2%80%94and-what-they-tell-us-about-the-network/

Most of the unemployed no longer receive benefits

http://thetrialbyfire.org/2011/11/06/most-of-the-unemployed-no-longer-receive-benefits/

UK: Severe sentences for student protesters

Demi Wilson Smith, 19, was given 10 months for shouting at police and waving a stick towards them.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26614

Treason At OWS Update, Nov. 6: Here It Comes

In response to Fritz Tucker's article about the attempted coup by the Spokes Council at OWS, we are seeing the first trickle of damage control coming from those hoping to stop the movement. In this case the anonymous reactionary is offering extremely bad advice disguised as solidarity:

Stay United! - A Letter To OWS Movement
In NYC From A Supporter

Hence the real task in front of OWS in NYC is to construct a fair, truthful, honest compromise between General Assembly and Spokes Council in order to increase the efficiency of the OWS movement in the context of its direct democracy. That would be really something!

This is dubious! I don't know who the author is--and he doesn't want to tell us--but this cannot be taken seriously. He's advocating power sharing between the GA which represents everybody, and one of its subordinate working groups. Is this a joke? The concept is subversive and its advocacy Orwellian. If the GA isn't in charge, then the whole Occupy- movement consensus-building structure is a sham. OWS has capital scared, and the latter will advance on every front to undermine the movement. There's going to be lots of bullshit like this in the coming months. We will be offered many different ropes with which to hang ourselves.

What we cannot do is surrender the sovereignty of the GA to anyone. Ever. Responsibility can always be delegated--subject, of course, the the approval of the assembly--to working of affinity to groups with the understanding that the authority which accompanies that responsibility can be withdrawn at any time, and/or the individual people replaced. The Spokes Council works for and is subordinate to the GA. Anyone suggesting that the distribution/allocation of funds should be left to a special autonomous, independent, unaccountable group (such as exists on Wall Street and the Fed currently), is no friend to OWS, democracy, equality or humanity.

http://www.countercurrents.org/drc061111.htm

Washington state Gov. Gregoire: Prisoners needed to pick apples

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/11/02/129064/washington-state-gov-prisoners.html

Some Great Photos Of Oakland Strike

http://roarmag.org/2011/11/historic-strike-brings-oakland-to-a-standstill-in-pictures/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29

Video O' The Day, Nov. 4: Oakland's March To The Port

[discovered at http://roarmag.org/2011/11/historic-strike-brings-oakland-to-a-standstill-in-pictures/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29]

Watching Scotty Glow: Wisconsin Governor Scotty McNuggets In For A Surprise

Some Great Photos Of The Protests Worldwide

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-spreads-worldwide/100171/

Photo O' The Day, Nov. 4

Treason at OWS: A Chill Descends On Occupy Wall Street

Please read and distribute this.

http://www.countercurrents.org/tucker041111.htm

Criminal Journalism: CNN Reaches Into Its Bag O' Tricks

CNN Conveniently Has Technical Difficulties During Cornel West Occupy Wall Street Interview

CNN's Report on "Occupy Wall Street" is an Insult

You say “national unity”, we say “loot”! Robin hoodies strike again in Athens

Today, 3d of November, comrades looted a supermarket chain in the Athenian suburb of Zografou and distributed the looted goods in a nearby open air popular market (laiki).

A translation of the text distributed during the action follows:
Let’s not kid ourselves. Behind the easily digestible rhetoric about the scammers and the golden boys, the bad Germans and the -generally and abstractly- merciless markets, hides our timeless exploitation and looting of the produced wealth by the clique of the bosses. And it is crystal-clear that for as long as they dominate their lives, they will continue devaluing us and they will extinguish us in order to maintain their profits. And the consecutive blows we are receiving, no matter how disparate they present them to be, all serve their own, unified class interests. At the same time, they spread fear to preserve their authority: increased policing, chasing of migrants, lifting of the asylum, fomenting of racism and patriotism.

No more idleness. Let’s take our lives into our own hands.

The prospect of the class of the repressed is neither the struggle for survival, nor the squeezing into a position of surrender and impoverishment. This prospect is compiled here and now, in the small and big moments of denial and of our struggles. In everyday confrontations with bosses and in general strikes; in demonstrations, popular assemblies and structures of mutual aid; in occupations of public buildings, schools and universities; in the rage against the cops and the solidarity against repression; in aggressive acts against capitalists-state targets; in the movements refusing payment, from electricity bills to road tolls; in collective looting of goods from supermarkets, and their public redistribution.

Let’s grasp our collective strength.

Let’s weave the plan for social and individual emancipation.

War to the bosses’ war.

Everyone to the General Strikes!

[Discovered at http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2011/11/03/you-say-national-unity-we-say-loot-robin-hoodies-strike-again-in-athens/]

Photo O' The Day, Nov. 3: Oakland General Strike, March To Close Down The Port Of Oakland

Photo O' The Day, Nov. 2

The Greek referendum as a pacifier

Right on!

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2011/11/01/the-referendum-as-a-pacifier/

Demetri Kofinas On The Greek Referendum

http://www.coveringdelta.com/2011/11/02/greeks-can-look-forward-to-a-disorderly-default-after-this-farce-of-a-referendum/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CoveringDelta+%28Covering+Delta%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

The size, scope, and most importantly, the complexity of the problems facing western economies and their political systems has long surpassed the capacity of politicians and policymakers to solve them. Now, it appears that they are losing even their ability to hide them.

http://www.coveringdelta.com/2011/11/02/calls-for-a-greek-referendum/#comment-1382

From Cairo to New York, Which Side Are Police On?

Good piece.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12205/from_cairo_to_new_york_which_side_are_the_police_on/

Saudi Arabia beheads Sudanese 'sorcerer'

http://english.ahram.org.eg/~/NewsContent/2/8/21715/World/Region/Saudi-Arabia-beheads-Sudanese-sorcerer.aspx

C(ee)N(o)N(ews) up to its old tricks

Occupy strike shuts Oakland merchants

Or at least this is what the link in the menu. When you actually link through, which most wont do, you find the article entitled:

Demonstrators carry out Oakland strike as protests continue

And it's full of all the tired tropes we've been hearing since Wall Street's media condescended to acknowledge that the occupation existed: they don't know what they want etc. I especially loved this part:

The General Assembly of Occupy Oakland, a loosely defined governing body of the protesters -- voted 1,484 to 46 last week to call the general strike, though it was unclear what the group's demands were.

Loosely defined? Governing body?

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/02/us/occupy-demonstrators/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

How You Can Participate In The Oakland General Strike

http://www.occupyoakland.org/2011/11/how-you-can-participate-in-the-general-strike/

Quote O' The Day, 1 Nov.

I’d say the biggest misconception [about my ideas], though, is that people think I’m talking about race alone, that everything in America is determined by race alone, and that’s not really what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that race in America has been used as an identifier for capitalism to form and control classes, that race is not just a metaphor for class, but an identifier of class in real terms. Everything is upside-down — things that are racial are really about class. Like Affirmative Action. The real Affirmative Action is the enormous built-in advantages that white middle-class people, particularly from the suburban school systems have, that get them into universities, and getting corporate jobs and networking. Everybody knows this. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a fact, right? So that’s the actual Affirmative Action. These other programs are really to compensate for that, and are just the warped forms that the civil rights victories of the 1960s forced upon the society. I mean, I don’t personally view them as significant. The fight over them is, in a funny way, within settler society, within imperialism itself, over how it’s going to manage itself.

J Sakai

Rioting Across America - The Great Depression

AS you can see media coverage of strikes hasn't changed much.

‘Eye of The Panther: Black History Through the Lens of Robert Hillary King’

Nice piece.

http://jodymcintyre.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/eye-of-the-panther-black-history-through-the-lens-of-robert-hillary-king/

Audio Tariq Ali On Arab Spring, Gaddafi, Obama, And OWs

http://wearemany.org/a/revolution-in-air-tariq-ali-on-arab-spring-and-world-in-motion

Middle East Propaganda 101

NYT up to its old tricks.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29578.htm

Humor: Racism at McCain Palin rallies: Why whitey can't vote

COMBAT LIBERALISM, by Mao Tse Tung

To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.

To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type.

To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame.
This is a third type...

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm

[Discoverd at http://allpowertothepositive.blogspot.com/]

Occupy Seattle: The Future

[Discovered at http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/occupy-seattle-the-future/]

Occupy Oakland votes for general strike mov