Occupy Oakland silkscreen image, not sure which artist(s) to credit
An Iraqi boy in an orphanage drew his mother and slept in her arms.
Image credit: imgur, via James Hobbs' facebook page.
Source: Occupy Maine facebook event for May 1, 2012 General Strike
Jeju Island, South Korea, where the Samsung Corporation is being paid to pour concrete over the UN Heritage Site coral reefs in order to make a port to dock Aegis nuclear weapons equipped destroyers built in Bath, Maine, USA. (In case you were wondering what the sign in the first image -- SYSTEM SUCKS -- was talking about.)
Birth defects in Fallujah after use of depleted uranium weapons by US military in 2004. Source: http://truth-reason-liberty.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-suffering-for-people-of-fallujah.html
The study, released by the Switzerland-based International Journal of Environmental Researchand Public Health, shows that in the years following Operation Phantom Fury there has been a 4-fold increase in all cancer, including a 12-fold increases in childhood cancer in those aged 0-14.
You can't arrest an idea whose time has come, and the gathering of about 150 occupiers from all over the state of Maine last Saturday in Augusta was brimming with ideas. People of all ages came together as the 99%, and the youngster on the left wanted people to think about an economy that is based on value rather than on cash. She joined the Alternative Economies breakout session and explained her idea; she also listened to the ideas of people who have experienced those kinds of arrangements. The next day she told me, "I want to do more stuff like that. Stuff that changes things and make it better."
Introductions during
which people identified where they Occupy ... Portland, Augusta,
Bangor, Brunswick, Ellsworth, Blue Hill, MDI (Mt. Desert Island),
Waldo County, Mt. Washington Valley/Conway, Boston, Wall St.,
cultural mythology, the food supply, independent media.
Portland, Maine was identified as the longest continuous occupy encampment in the country -- established October 1 and still going strong despite punishing cold, and an eviction notice from the city hanging over their heads since December 15. They have vigorously pursued relief in the courts, and are awaiting news on a permanent injunction to halt eviction.
Occupy Augusta pulled up stakes rather than apply for a permit, removing their Capitol Park teepee with dignity and self-respect, continuing to hold General Assemblies each Saturday at 5pm indoors.
In our diversity lies our strength!
After an amazing rapid whole group share of examples of occupation that covered centuries, we moved into small groups with people we didn't know to address two prompts:
1) Why did you join the Occupy movement?
2) What's special about the Occupy movement?
This was ably modeled by Curtis (above, left) who responded:
To gain experience. Our world's
falling apart and many people don't seem to care. But those who do
care need to get together, share knowledge, and form a movement.
It signifies nations all across
the world rising up and demanding an end to the common ills we all
share – war, poverty, unemployment. Shows the governmentts that we, the workers,
will not be silent. We will fight back, and take what's ours.
I joined a group to talk about Media. Ten people briefly discussed the
problems with mainstream media, and then spent most of the time
talking about alternative media in forms including local access
tv and radio, online news, YouTube, blogs; and direct
actions/publicity stunts that attract MSM attention. Further uses of
MSM included letters to the editor, online comments, developing
relationships with reporters, and providing press releases to
reporters. The role of drum circles at Occupy sites from Wall St. to
Maine to Native communities in Canada was examined also, with reference to
their importance in building community, and as an outlet for
expression that is non-verbal.
Then I joined a group to talk about Food and Land. About 35 people gave examples of local
food production and land use including becoming farmers, supporting the work of
farmers, addressing the problems of landless farmers, various land
use schemes, cooking, educating, gleaning, and exchanging food for work. Then
the group brainstormed ways that the Occupy movement can or does
connect with food production/land use.
This is a strong strand for Maine and there are years of intelligent collaborative effort to build on. A murmur of delight went through the crowd when I mentioned a Wall St. tweet I'd seen that the OWS kitchen had quickly organized to feed the largest number of folks ever, daily, in NYC. No wonder they were perceived by authorities as such a threat!
Further news of the 99%: While we were meeting, Occupy Oakland in California was being tear gassed, beaten, shot with rubber bullets and flash bang grenades, and arrested in droves (especially reporters). Their crime: trying to occupy a years vacant building to establish a community center. Solidarity events broke out everywhere on Sunday. Here's an inspiring video from Occupy Boston:
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, but a woman's got to sleep sometime. Thus I went to bed last night and missed seeing around 8,000 people assemble to close down commerce at the port of Oakland. And San Diego, Portland OR, Longview WA, SF, LA/Long Beach -- I saw them all yesterday face off with riot police using song, dance, signage and cheers to get their point across: police violence will only bring increased numbers of us to the streets. Related chant at raided encampment on the San Francisco side of the bay: "Occupy will never die! Evict us? We multiply."
But my all time favorite chant of yesterday, offered up by what sounded like mostly women's voices as the buff riot police of the OPD marced by at the Port of Oakland yesterday:
"You're sexy, you're cute, just take off your riot suit."
Ok, Lt. John Pike is probably not sexy or cute in the buff -- but he looked pretty good as a cut out, marching on Dec. 12 in Oakland.
Why is all this important? Because the U.S. military profit machine has been killing innocent civilians and making more enemies with drone strikes in Pakistan, against our will, and with our tax dollars. Reporting in WIRED by Spencer Ackerman featured a rare collection of photos of bloody "facts on the ground" as the military likes to call them.
Because the Senate passed the annual defense spending authorization bill with $662 billion slated for war profiteers and their minions next year, plus the authority to detain anyone anywhere indefinitely and without charges on battlefield Earth in the war on terror. As Jon Stewart put it, So this will continue until...terror surrenders? S
Because Bradley Manning is still in detention without a day in court after 17 months. His first appearance, for a pre-trial hearing, is slated for this week. His defense has asked to call witnesses including the Secretary of State and the POTUS, who infamously said on camera of Manning: "He broke the law." Some constitutional law professor he turned out to be.
The Magna Carta established the legal concept that indefinite detention is WRONG in 1215. This historic document established, among other rights, that of habeus corpus i.e. not being locked up indefinitely, but having an appearance in court to hear what you are being charged with. Ok, it didn't apply to serfs, only to "freemen." Guess which one your governments considers you to be?
Lessening or even losing conditioned shame about poverty is one of the most significant developments of the occupy movement. The voices of both the young woman Cat, who is homeless, and Kimberly, whose job is to help people find non-existent jobs, are eloquent around this point in this video I made at Occupy Bangor yesterday.
On Facebook yesterday someone shared this fact from the website Feeding America: 4.8 percent of all U.S. households (5.6 million households) accessed emergency food from a food pantry one or more times.
The post drew these comments:
"I was embarressed at this, but I had to utilize a food pantry twice this year."
"don't be embarassed be proud that you took the courage to ask for help when you needed it. You've taken an important step amongst many to become true to your SELF!!!"
Where is the wealth of our nation going? What do our taxes actually fund?
The Pentagon detention center that started out in January 2002 as a collection of crude open-air cells guarded by Marines in a muddy tent city is today arguably the most expensive prison on Earth, costing taxpayers $800,000 annually for each of the 171 captives by Obama administration reckoning. Congress, charged now with cutting $1.5 trillion from the budget by Christmas, provided $139 million to operate the center last year, and has made every effort to keep it open - even as a former deputy commander of the detention center calls it "expensive" and ‘inefficient.’
Then, in the CalTV video below, we see yet more tax-funded public servants. These are Berkeley police officers beating up citizens engaged in nonviolent protests against the rising cost of tuition at Univ. of California, Berkeley. Who pays their salaries? Who paid for the pepper spray and rubber bullets that were used that day but that we don't see in this particular video? Who will pay for the lawsuits by people like Scott Olsen who were injured by the brutality of police in the neighboring town of Oakland recently?
The 99% are coming together to figure out how to stop paying for this shit.
source: The Atlantic's translation of Egyptian protester's manual -- click to read it online.
Democracy Now! reported: "...for inciting violence...Alaa Abdel Fattah, considered one of Egypt's most influential bloggers, has been ordered to spend at least 15 days behind bars." Last winter DN! interviewed Fattah and he stated:
"We are continuing the pressure
because we want what happens next to be power to the people and to be
through a democratic Egypt that represents all of its people.
We should
also remember that the initial slogans were not just 'Topple the regime'
but were also [in Arabic],
'Bread! Freedom! Social
justice!'"
Fattah made those remarks two weeks into the Egyptian uprising, last February. Note how the many uprisings now underway in the U.S. and elsewhere express those very same values.
Palestinian people struggling under a half century plus of occupation by Israel can use the very same slogan. The open air prison of Gaza starves while being bombed, its inmates playing word games on Twitter to keep up morale while awake overnight monitoring drones moaning overhead, and bracing for explosions below.
On October 31st the rest of the world belonging to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization voted to recognize Palestine as a member, with Zionist leaders of Israel, the U.S. and Germany in opposition, and the U.K. shamefully abstaining. Phyllis Bennis of IPS wrote that the UNESCO vote will:
...trigger an immediate cut-off of U.S. dues to the UN’s cultural,
education and science organization, as well as ending U.S. dues
payments to (and perhaps thus voting rights in) several other important
UN agencies — possibly including the International Atomic Energy Agency,
which monitors nuclear production around the world.
This loss of influence mirrors the degraded role of the U.S. as a champion of democratic process and human rights in the 21st century (or of nuclear non-proliferation, for that matter). Our own white, formerly middle class kids are waking up to police violence against unarmed, nonviolent protesters in cities all over the country, while our own non-white communities say, "So what else is new?"
Source: Guardian | Occupy Oakland protesters carry Scott Olsen away after he was hit in the
head on Tuesday night. Photograph: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images (reprinted in the Guardian)
A nation that has kept a nonviolent whistleblower who exposed war crimes incarcerated without a trial for over 500 days has little to teach the rest of the world about due process or habeus corpus, unless it be teaching by examples of what not to do. Bradley Manning will have his pre-trial hearing soon, and someone close to the case recently stated of Manning's mental ability to stand trial, “He is as sane and lucid as anyone can be."
If only the same could be said of our wounded, raging empire.
Protesters were roughly treated by police arresting them at a sit-down last April demanding an end to 300+ days of Manning's solitary confinement at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia.
NEWS FLASH: This is what someone who refuses to be cowed by fear looks like. This man is part of a crowd marching from Tahrir Square to the U.S. Embassy in solidarity with Scott Olsen, and following the death in custody of another 24 year old victim of "security" forces; the gruesome details of Essam Ali Atta's torture and the grief of his family members are enough to deter anybody.
Once you have cast off fear, the authorities send their thugs to try and put it back into your heart. But it doesn't always work.
Source: Occupy San Diego Facebook post following arrests: "Stand off over the police wanting to wash the blood away."
I've been traveling to receive training
for my job, and thus spending lots more time than normal in the belly
of the corporate beast. Corporate hotels still love to leave a copy
of USA Today to greet and orient you toward an approved version of
what's going on as you step from your room each morning. Above the
fold headlines on the day after Oakland's militarized police force
cracked the skull of a young veteran of the Marine Corps and Iraq? Municipalities are growing weary of the messy occupations (never mind the 99% growing weary of kleptocracy) and, “At last, honors for the
first Black Marines.”
The information control
industries are counting on the fact that even if you avail yourself
of the free internet connection, you're unlikely to stumble on
authentic news unless
a. You read the Guardian, which is
published in Great Britain; OR
b. You find your own news using RSS
feeds, Twitter hash tags, Facebook shares, and emails from friends of
the friends of your friends; OR
c. You get lucky.
The dissonance caused by the yawning gap between the approved version vs. what's really going on is too
much for most of my fellow citizens. That chasm can be downright bewildering. For example, the livestream
from San Diego Friday at 3:30am Pacific time showed riot police advancing on unarmed occupiers. The
voiceover of the young camera operator was frantic with adrenaline
and the injustice of it all, alternately pleading with police not to
attack him, with his mom to call everyone she knows, and with the rest of us to
witness (“1000 people are watching this right now!”) as police
pulled down tents, smiling broadly as they fingered their enormous
weapons.
Meanwhile, the Google feed of top
headlines showed not a blip about San Diego, having only just caught
up with the news about Scott Olsen that had galvanized the globe
during the previous 24 hours. (Every once in a while the list of ten
headlines from this particular spun news source is so deliciously
ironic that I save it for posterity.)
GOOGLE HEADLINES from 10/27/10
Obama's Messaging Diluted Off the
Campaign Trail
Fox News - all 2105 related »
Verdicts reached in Anna Nicole Smith
drug trial
CNN - all 707 related »
Firms Knew of Cement Flaws Before
Spill, Panel Says
New York Times - all 606 related »
Moderate Governance by the Next
Congress? Fat Chance
CBS News - all 5373 related »
Ky. Senate scuffle replayed in
Democratic ad
Washington Post - all 409 related »
Voters decide if California marijuana
legalization 'worth risk'
NECN - all 1395 related »
Microsoft Q1 results boosted by
Windows, Xbox, Office
Computerworld - all 1489 related »
Another treasurer leaves O'Donnell
campaign
Atlanta Journal Constitution - all 474
related »
Baby killed for interrupting mom's
Facebook time
msnbc.com - all 370 related »
Today, as I ate lunch at the Norfolk airport, the television above my head
was frantically reporting on: the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor.
So I lurch around on the internet a
lot, following threads down dark tunnels, hopping briefly onto social
networking sites whose workings I only dimly understand. Guided only
by my purpose – to gather information – and their purpose – to
make that possible – I listen in on conversations I probably won't
ever have, with people I probably wouldn't meet. For
example, here was some interesting chatter on Reddit as Olsen lay
still in his medically induced coma in Oakland's Highland Hospital:
[–]EbolakingAs a fellow (Active Duty) vet as well,
though never a Marine. I can't stand this hypocritical stance that
the elected officials are taking this horrible event. Though I was
never a Marine, he is a brother in arms. As a family, we must stand
together. I do recall that when I took my oath of enlistment that no
where did it say that I will protect corporate greed. I know for one,
if shit gets out of hand, I stand with the people and not the
corporate lackeys.
[–]mingus-nousThis is what
Mayor Jean Quan had to say about this "peaceful resolution"...
We want to thank the police, fire, public works and other
employees who worked over the last week to peacefully close the
encampment. We also thank the majority of the protestors who
peacefully complied with city officials.
I commend Chief Jordan for a generally peaceful
resolution to a situation that deteriorated and concerned our
community. His leadership was critical in the successful execution of
this operation. City Administrator Deanna Santana developed the plan
and secured mutual aid from other departments and the State of
California. She will direct departmental teams, including safety,
public works, communications, to restore conditions at the Plaza so
that it is available for public use.
Forget the petition, this woman needs to be physically removed
from office.
[–]calebh70118 "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they
fight you, then you win." - Gandhi The British are providing the best coverage of Occupy, for some
reason, so we've got the ignore part down. Fox News is providing the
laugh track. And now Oakland PD has started the fight. So let's fucking win.
And then I come across a
news item like Egyptians marching from Tahrir Sqaure to the US Embassy, or the Bangor Public Library offering the occupiers space on their lawn after the city threatened to evict them at 10pm on Day 1.
The women spread a black cloth across a main street in Sana'a and threw their full-body veils, known as makrama,
on to a pile, sprayed it with oil and set it ablaze. As the flames
rose, they chanted: "Who protects Yemeni women from the crimes of the
thugs?"
Women have taken a key role in the uprising against
President Ali Abdullah Saleh's authoritarian rule. This month the Yemeni
activist Tawakkul Karman was awarded the Nobel peace prize along with
two Liberian women, for their struggle for women's rights.
This traditional Bedouin way to call for help proves once again that nonviolent methods are anything but passive. Seeing these women in Yemen signaling to be saved from the violence engulfing their society made me feel that I ought to be doing something similar. But who can save us, except ourselves?
A two-time Iraq war vet was knocked out and had his skull cracked by a tear gas canister -- that was in Oakland, CA, near where I grew up and where my family lives, not the West Bank of occupied Palestine. I saw one report suggesting that up to 16 different jurisdictions had sent their law enforcement officers to Oakland last night ("For practice," says my husband), and that Scott Olsen, 24, may have been shot by a Palo Alto policeman.
For those of you not familiar with the SF bay area, here's a map showing how close these two cities are together. Not very.
Mark again: "I wonder if they are clearing out the ones in warm places first, because they won't have winter to drive people out." Hmm, interesting theory: Denver, San Francisco, Atlanta and Oakland are on the hit parade. NYC has had its flare ups, including massive arrests, but as yet none of the occupation site has been torn down. Why did NYC's Liberty Plaza owner back down on needing to "clean" the space? Was it really the numbers swelling early that morning, with the unions marching down en masse in support? Or a wait until they're already freezing strategy that made city officials turn on a dime.
What made Oakland, CA think it could get away with treating the occupation like a violent mob? It appears that the reports of people throwing paint and maybe other projectiles at the police are true. I also heard that a rape was followed by a vigilante-style beating within the last few days. I'm not excusing the decades of police brutality practiced in Oakland, don't get me wrong. But I am analyzing the unfolding drama of the occupations, and what they mean, and how they work.
Isn't perfectly clear that the self-discipline and nonviolence of Tahrir Square made it possible for people bring their whole families, and for the numbers swell into the millions -- and that police can do little to control such crowds?
