Jean Quan is the mayor of Oakland, but she doesn't call all the shots.
That was the message the city's chief executive delivered in the wake of Tuesday's violent police eviction of the Occupy Oakland encampment in front of City Hall, in which an Iraq War veteran was severely injured by a police projectile.
"I don't know everything," she told reporters, after completing a flip-flop on the city's stance towards the Occupy protesters, who will now be allowed to stay.
Not that the protesters needed a mayoral invitation. Prior to Quan's pronouncement, protesters had returned in force less than 24 hours after their eviction, tearing down a cyclone fence that was erected to block off Frank Ogawa Plaza, and setting up tents and laying down sleeping bags.
The protesters say they will assemble peacefully, and have called for a citywide strike on Nov. 2. By Thursday afternoon tents were back up in Frank Ogawa Plaza and even a makeshift shrine to the injured soldier was built.
Meanwhile, doctors said the condition of Scott Olsen, the Marine veteran who suffered a fractured skull, was improving but still serious.
NBC
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating
"I hear [Occupy Wall Street] has a CFO," he said. "I think that's funny."
"Okay, I'll bite," I said. "Why is that funny?"
"Well, I heard they're trying to decide what bank to put their money in," he said, munching on hors d'oeuvres. "It's just kind of ironic."
Oh, Christ, I thought. He’s saying the protesters are hypocrites because they’re using banks. I sighed.
"Listen," I said, "where else are you going to put three hundred thousand dollars? A shopping bag?"
"Well," he said, "it's just, they're protests are all about... You know..."
"Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street."
"Whatever," he said, shrugging.
These nutty criticisms of the protests are spreading like cancer.
Rolling Stone
We are all Scott Olsen
Late last night, Scott Olsen, a former Marine, two-time Iraq war veteran, and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, sustained a skull fracture after being shot in the head with a police projectile while peacefully participating in an Occupy Oakland march. He remains unconscious in critical condition at Oakland's Highland Hospital.
Olsen was hit at close range. After demonstrators rush to Olsen's aid, an Oakland cop waits a few beats before lobbing a second tear-gas canister at the crowd. They are attending to Olsen when the canister explodes, sending smoke everywhere.
OWS
Olsen was hit at close range. After demonstrators rush to Olsen's aid, an Oakland cop waits a few beats before lobbing a second tear-gas canister at the crowd. They are attending to Olsen when the canister explodes, sending smoke everywhere.
OWS
Solidarity with Oakland | Exposing Police Lies
Tuesday evening, and throughout the night, the city of Oakland and its police department continued their crusade against free assembly. Protesters who went to reoccupy the space at the Oakland Library were met with heavily armed riot police, with tear gas, with rubber bullets and with flashbang grenades.
OWS
OWS
Solidarity Statement From Cairo
To all those in the United States currently occupying parks, squares and other spaces, your comrades in Cairo are watching you in solidarity. Having received so much advice from you about transitioning to democracy, we thought it's our turn to pass on some advice.
Indeed, we are now in many ways involved in the same struggle. What most pundits call “The Arab Spring” has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world, its foundations lie in years-long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the unchecked ravages of global capitalism (yes, we said it, capitalism): a System that has made a world that is dangerous and cruel to its inhabitants. As the interests of government increasingly cater to the interests and comforts of private, transnational capital, our cities and homes have become progressively more abstract and violent places, subject to the casual ravages of the next economic development or urban renewal scheme.
An entire generation across the globe has grown up realizing, rationally and emotionally, that we have no future in the current order of things. Living under structural adjustment policies and the supposed expertise of international organizations like the World Bank and IMF, we watched as our resources, industries and public services were sold off and dismantled as the “free market” pushed an addiction to foreign goods, to foreign food even. The profits and benefits of those freed markets went elsewhere, while Egypt and other countries in the South found their immiseration reinforced by a massive increase in police repression and torture.
The current crisis in America and Western Europe has begun to bring this reality home to you as well: that as things stand we will all work ourselves raw, our backs broken by personal debt and public austerity. Not content with carving out the remnants of the public sphere and the welfare state, capitalism and the austerity-state now even attack the private realm and people's right to decent dwelling as thousands of foreclosed-upon homeowners find themselves both homeless and indebted to the banks who have forced them on to the streets.
So we stand with you not just in your attempts to bring down the old but to experiment with the new. We are not protesting. Who is there to protest to? What could we ask them for that they could grant? We are occupying. We are reclaiming those same spaces of public practice that have been commodified, privatized and locked into the hands of faceless bureaucracy , real estate portfolios, and police ‘protection’. Hold on to these spaces, nurture them, and let the boundaries of your occupations grow. After all, who built these parks, these plazas, these buildings? Whose labor made them real and livable? Why should it seem so natural that they should be withheld from us, policed and disciplined? Reclaiming these spaces and managing them justly and collectively is proof enough of our legitimacy.
In our own occupations of Tahrir, we encountered people entering the Square every day in tears because it was the first time they had walked through those streets and spaces without being harassed by police; it is not just the ideas that are important, these spaces are fundamental to the possibility of a new world. These are public spaces. Spaces forgathering, leisure, meeting, and interacting – these spaces should be the reason we live in cities. Where the state and the interests of owners have made them inaccessible, exclusive or dangerous, it is up to us to make sure that they are safe, inclusive and just. We have and must continue to open them to anyone that wants to build a better world, particularly for the marginalized, excluded and for those groups who have suffered the worst .
What you do in these spaces is neither as grandiose and abstract nor as quotidian as “real democracy”; the nascent forms of praxis and social engagement being made in the occupations avoid the empty ideals and stale parliamentarianism that the term democracy has come to represent. And so the occupations must continue, because there is no one left to ask for reform. They must continue because we are creating what we can no longer wait for.
But the ideologies of property and propriety will manifest themselves again. Whether through the overt opposition of property owners or municipalities to your encampments or the more subtle attempts to control space through traffic regulations, anti-camping laws or health and safety rules. There is a direct conflict between what we seek to make of our cities and our spaces and what the law and the systems of policing standing behind it would have us do.
We faced such direct and indirect violence , and continue to face it . Those who said that the Egyptian revolution was peaceful did not see the horrors that police visited upon us, nor did they see the resistance and even force that revolutionaries used against the police to defend their tentative occupations and spaces: by the government's own admission; 99 police stations were put to the torch, thousands of police cars were destroyed, and all of the ruling party's offices around Egypt were burned down. Barricades were erected, officers were beaten back and pelted with rocks even as they fired tear gas and live ammunition on us. But at the end of the day on the 28 th of January they retreated, and we had won our cities.
It is not our desire to participate in violence, but it is even less our desire to lose. If we do not resist, actively, when they come to take what we have won back, then we will surely lose. Do not confuse the tactics that we used when we shouted “peaceful” with fetishizing nonviolence; if the state had given up immediately we would have been overjoyed, but as they sought to abuse us, beat us, kill us, we knew that there was no other option than to fight back. Had we laid down and allowed ourselves to be arrested, tortured, and martyred to “make a point”, we would be no less bloodied, beaten and dead. Be prepared to defend these things you have occupied, that you are building, because, after everything else has been taken from us, these reclaimed spaces are so very precious.
By way of concluding then, our only real advice to you is to continue, keep going and do not stop. Occupy more, find each other, build larger and larger networks and keep discovering new ways to experiment with social life, consensus, and democracy. Discover new ways to use these spaces, discover new ways to hold on to them and never givethem up again. Resist fiercely when you are under attack, but otherwise take pleasure in what you are doing, let it be easy, fun even. We are all watching one another now, and from Cairo we want to say that we are in solidarity with you, and we love you all for what you are doing.
Comrades from Cairo.
24th of October, 2011
OWS
Indeed, we are now in many ways involved in the same struggle. What most pundits call “The Arab Spring” has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world, its foundations lie in years-long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the unchecked ravages of global capitalism (yes, we said it, capitalism): a System that has made a world that is dangerous and cruel to its inhabitants. As the interests of government increasingly cater to the interests and comforts of private, transnational capital, our cities and homes have become progressively more abstract and violent places, subject to the casual ravages of the next economic development or urban renewal scheme.
An entire generation across the globe has grown up realizing, rationally and emotionally, that we have no future in the current order of things. Living under structural adjustment policies and the supposed expertise of international organizations like the World Bank and IMF, we watched as our resources, industries and public services were sold off and dismantled as the “free market” pushed an addiction to foreign goods, to foreign food even. The profits and benefits of those freed markets went elsewhere, while Egypt and other countries in the South found their immiseration reinforced by a massive increase in police repression and torture.
The current crisis in America and Western Europe has begun to bring this reality home to you as well: that as things stand we will all work ourselves raw, our backs broken by personal debt and public austerity. Not content with carving out the remnants of the public sphere and the welfare state, capitalism and the austerity-state now even attack the private realm and people's right to decent dwelling as thousands of foreclosed-upon homeowners find themselves both homeless and indebted to the banks who have forced them on to the streets.
So we stand with you not just in your attempts to bring down the old but to experiment with the new. We are not protesting. Who is there to protest to? What could we ask them for that they could grant? We are occupying. We are reclaiming those same spaces of public practice that have been commodified, privatized and locked into the hands of faceless bureaucracy , real estate portfolios, and police ‘protection’. Hold on to these spaces, nurture them, and let the boundaries of your occupations grow. After all, who built these parks, these plazas, these buildings? Whose labor made them real and livable? Why should it seem so natural that they should be withheld from us, policed and disciplined? Reclaiming these spaces and managing them justly and collectively is proof enough of our legitimacy.
In our own occupations of Tahrir, we encountered people entering the Square every day in tears because it was the first time they had walked through those streets and spaces without being harassed by police; it is not just the ideas that are important, these spaces are fundamental to the possibility of a new world. These are public spaces. Spaces forgathering, leisure, meeting, and interacting – these spaces should be the reason we live in cities. Where the state and the interests of owners have made them inaccessible, exclusive or dangerous, it is up to us to make sure that they are safe, inclusive and just. We have and must continue to open them to anyone that wants to build a better world, particularly for the marginalized, excluded and for those groups who have suffered the worst .
What you do in these spaces is neither as grandiose and abstract nor as quotidian as “real democracy”; the nascent forms of praxis and social engagement being made in the occupations avoid the empty ideals and stale parliamentarianism that the term democracy has come to represent. And so the occupations must continue, because there is no one left to ask for reform. They must continue because we are creating what we can no longer wait for.
But the ideologies of property and propriety will manifest themselves again. Whether through the overt opposition of property owners or municipalities to your encampments or the more subtle attempts to control space through traffic regulations, anti-camping laws or health and safety rules. There is a direct conflict between what we seek to make of our cities and our spaces and what the law and the systems of policing standing behind it would have us do.
We faced such direct and indirect violence , and continue to face it . Those who said that the Egyptian revolution was peaceful did not see the horrors that police visited upon us, nor did they see the resistance and even force that revolutionaries used against the police to defend their tentative occupations and spaces: by the government's own admission; 99 police stations were put to the torch, thousands of police cars were destroyed, and all of the ruling party's offices around Egypt were burned down. Barricades were erected, officers were beaten back and pelted with rocks even as they fired tear gas and live ammunition on us. But at the end of the day on the 28 th of January they retreated, and we had won our cities.
It is not our desire to participate in violence, but it is even less our desire to lose. If we do not resist, actively, when they come to take what we have won back, then we will surely lose. Do not confuse the tactics that we used when we shouted “peaceful” with fetishizing nonviolence; if the state had given up immediately we would have been overjoyed, but as they sought to abuse us, beat us, kill us, we knew that there was no other option than to fight back. Had we laid down and allowed ourselves to be arrested, tortured, and martyred to “make a point”, we would be no less bloodied, beaten and dead. Be prepared to defend these things you have occupied, that you are building, because, after everything else has been taken from us, these reclaimed spaces are so very precious.
By way of concluding then, our only real advice to you is to continue, keep going and do not stop. Occupy more, find each other, build larger and larger networks and keep discovering new ways to experiment with social life, consensus, and democracy. Discover new ways to use these spaces, discover new ways to hold on to them and never givethem up again. Resist fiercely when you are under attack, but otherwise take pleasure in what you are doing, let it be easy, fun even. We are all watching one another now, and from Cairo we want to say that we are in solidarity with you, and we love you all for what you are doing.
Comrades from Cairo.
24th of October, 2011
OWS
Drumming and the Occupation
The occupation of Liberty Square is a symbol of the growing international movement fighting against neoliberal economic practices, the crimes of Wall Street and the resulting income inequality, unemployment, and oppression of people at the front lines of the economic crisis. More than a week ago we successfully rallied to defend our occupation from eviction. Knowing that the neighborhood we built was important to our movement, occupiers reorganized the space and prepared for eviction defense, community board and local elects pressured Brookfield Properties, and local organizations and unions mobilized their members in defense of Liberty Square. Brookfield and Bloomberg backed down in the face of this joint effort. #ows has international support, and is part of a global movement for economic and social justice that is only just starting to take form. It is within this context that we must drill down, look inward and converse with each other about our actions in this space.
For weeks, occupiers, working groups, individuals from the community board, and neighbors have approached the drummers on the west side of Liberty Square in an effort to involve them in conversations revolving around their constant presence. The drummers have been asked to stop drumming during quiet hours, to not drum during GA, and to allow other music to enter the square. The drummers, who feel that they are bringing rhythm to the revolution and have a voice that must be heard have felt disrespected and disparaged. The situation has been heated. A division grew within the square as well as with our neighbors. On Oct 13th, the General Assembly of Liberty Square passed a resolution to limit drumming times to 2 hours a day, between the hours of 11 and 5 as part of a good neighbor policy. Many drummers rejected this. A group of mediators began to work with the drummers and reached an agreement that they would instead drum for 4 hours per day, from 12pm - 2pm and 4pm - 6pm. The OWS Community Relations team, drummers, mediators, and several local residents from the community board spent weeks listening, building trust, and figuring out ways for drummers to work in solidarity with the occupation. As a result, drumming dropped from consistent 10 + hours a day, but is occurring more than the 2 hours consensed to by the General Assembly, and more then the 4 hours consensed to by the drummers.
In the spirit of consensus and community, mediation is still in process. The working group Pulse has been formed by the drummers and is working to bring forward proposals to the General Assembly of Liberty Square. This issue has been talked about in the park, at the General Assembly, on forums, and emails for weeks. This is an example of how we as a community share space and how we mobilize together to build consensus between all members of a conversation. Drumming has a loud voice in Liberty Square. Pulse is an important piece of our movement - they are integral to marches, morale, and the general mood of energy we have created. But many within Liberty Square feel as though their voice is being drowned out by the drumming, that it has become difficult to have the conversations that they think are important. We have created a small, vibrant and diverse community within the Square - it is natural that some issues would and will arise, but we hope to work together and continue to effect positive change in this place and in this world.
OWS
For weeks, occupiers, working groups, individuals from the community board, and neighbors have approached the drummers on the west side of Liberty Square in an effort to involve them in conversations revolving around their constant presence. The drummers have been asked to stop drumming during quiet hours, to not drum during GA, and to allow other music to enter the square. The drummers, who feel that they are bringing rhythm to the revolution and have a voice that must be heard have felt disrespected and disparaged. The situation has been heated. A division grew within the square as well as with our neighbors. On Oct 13th, the General Assembly of Liberty Square passed a resolution to limit drumming times to 2 hours a day, between the hours of 11 and 5 as part of a good neighbor policy. Many drummers rejected this. A group of mediators began to work with the drummers and reached an agreement that they would instead drum for 4 hours per day, from 12pm - 2pm and 4pm - 6pm. The OWS Community Relations team, drummers, mediators, and several local residents from the community board spent weeks listening, building trust, and figuring out ways for drummers to work in solidarity with the occupation. As a result, drumming dropped from consistent 10 + hours a day, but is occurring more than the 2 hours consensed to by the General Assembly, and more then the 4 hours consensed to by the drummers.
In the spirit of consensus and community, mediation is still in process. The working group Pulse has been formed by the drummers and is working to bring forward proposals to the General Assembly of Liberty Square. This issue has been talked about in the park, at the General Assembly, on forums, and emails for weeks. This is an example of how we as a community share space and how we mobilize together to build consensus between all members of a conversation. Drumming has a loud voice in Liberty Square. Pulse is an important piece of our movement - they are integral to marches, morale, and the general mood of energy we have created. But many within Liberty Square feel as though their voice is being drowned out by the drumming, that it has become difficult to have the conversations that they think are important. We have created a small, vibrant and diverse community within the Square - it is natural that some issues would and will arise, but we hope to work together and continue to effect positive change in this place and in this world.
OWS
US marine defends OWS protesters against police brutality
With a force of roughly 38-thousand officers, New York City has the largest police department in the country. These days, the NYPD is facing mounting accusations of using its strength and heavy handed tactics against Occupy Wall Street protestors.
That is until one US Marine Sergeant and Iraqi War Veteran put himself on the line to defend demonstrators and their right to free speech.
Six weeks into the Occupy Movement, nearly one-thousand unarmed activist have been arrested in New York City. Protestors have been thrown to the ground, beaten, netted like flies and pepper sprayed. The NYPD’s tactics have been harshly criticized, yet the most profound and public condemnation recently came from US Marine Sergeant Shamar Thomas, as he defended demonstrators from cops during a rally in Times Square.
“Why you doing this to our people? I’ve been to Iraq 14 – months for my people. They don’t have guns. Why are you hurting these people? it doesn’t make any sense. How do you sleep at night? There is no honor in this,” said Shamar Thomas, a US Marine Sergeant Iraq War Veteran.
The lone man that stood up to dozens of New York cops comes from a family of honor. His grandfather, step father and mother served in the US Marines. Sergeant Thomas and his mother were in Iraq at the same time in 2006. Sergeant Thomas completed two tours in Iraq before returning to his homeland, where he now aligns himself with the activist he says are being targeted by aggressive authority in uniform.
End The Lie
That is until one US Marine Sergeant and Iraqi War Veteran put himself on the line to defend demonstrators and their right to free speech.
Six weeks into the Occupy Movement, nearly one-thousand unarmed activist have been arrested in New York City. Protestors have been thrown to the ground, beaten, netted like flies and pepper sprayed. The NYPD’s tactics have been harshly criticized, yet the most profound and public condemnation recently came from US Marine Sergeant Shamar Thomas, as he defended demonstrators from cops during a rally in Times Square.
“Why you doing this to our people? I’ve been to Iraq 14 – months for my people. They don’t have guns. Why are you hurting these people? it doesn’t make any sense. How do you sleep at night? There is no honor in this,” said Shamar Thomas, a US Marine Sergeant Iraq War Veteran.
The lone man that stood up to dozens of New York cops comes from a family of honor. His grandfather, step father and mother served in the US Marines. Sergeant Thomas and his mother were in Iraq at the same time in 2006. Sergeant Thomas completed two tours in Iraq before returning to his homeland, where he now aligns himself with the activist he says are being targeted by aggressive authority in uniform.
End The Lie
Occupy Wall Street. Hell, let's occupy America! It's our country.
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is an ongoing series of demonstrations in New York City based in Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district. The protests were initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters.[5] They are mainly protesting social and economic inequality, corporate greed, corporate power and influence over government (particularly from the financial services sector), and of lobbyists. The participants' slogan "We are the 99%" refers to income inequality in the United States between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population.
The original protest began on September 17, 2011, and by October 9, similar demonstrations were either ongoing or had been held in 70 major cities and over 600 communities in the U.S. Internationally, other "Occupy" protests have modeled themselves after Occupy Wall Street, in over 900 cities worldwide.
Wiki
The original protest began on September 17, 2011, and by October 9, similar demonstrations were either ongoing or had been held in 70 major cities and over 600 communities in the U.S. Internationally, other "Occupy" protests have modeled themselves after Occupy Wall Street, in over 900 cities worldwide.
Wiki
But we're safer now. Right?
The eight-year Iraq war cost a cool $1 trillion and today Iran, according to a key Iraqi official now in government, wields more influence in Baghdad than the United States with an embassy staff of 1,400.
The Afghan war, including fiscal 2012, will have cost $557 billion. Keeping one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan - the longest war in U.S. history - is now running a tad over $1 million a year.
Billions have vanished into the offshore accounts of American and foreign contractors. In Iraq, an estimated $6.6 billion are unaccounted for.
More: DE BORCHGRAVE: Calculating the costs of war
The Afghan war, including fiscal 2012, will have cost $557 billion. Keeping one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan - the longest war in U.S. history - is now running a tad over $1 million a year.
Billions have vanished into the offshore accounts of American and foreign contractors. In Iraq, an estimated $6.6 billion are unaccounted for.
More: DE BORCHGRAVE: Calculating the costs of war
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