Now is the time to speak the clear truth, which is that for America to be the nation that we want, we have to make things for those at the top worse. They can afford it. Perhaps that’s the greatest sin of all of it: the notion that what’s good for the wealthiest is good for the poorest. If we derive any wisdom from this terrible crisis, let’s start by acknowledging the obvious: that different classes are in fact natural antagonists, that sometimes we need to support one against the other, and that when those on top have too much power and too much money, it has to be clawed back, by the people, in a way that some won’t like. No more lies about rising tides, but instead the reality of class conflict.

http://tinyurl.com/cr6vrey

From Occupy to Quebec – Deepening the Struggle through Strategic Demands

If the Occupy movement did one thing in North America, it put class on the agenda.

By making it easier to forge links between differing struggles, the language of the 99 percent has acted as a social lubricant between struggles previously atomized by elite narratives. This shared language of inequality is perhaps the greatest gift the Occupy movement has given to those fighting for a more socially just world.

Thus, the Occupy movement should be seen as ultimately posing the question: If our society is increasingly unequal, what are we going to do about it?

http://tinyurl.com/7enkrah

Julian Assange show: Occupy, the movement to fight a global ‘enemy’

“There’s a feeling out there that the enemy is becoming increasingly globalized, and the only way it can be challenged is by global movements,” [David] Graeber said.

Although it is economic and social inequality that are named as the main causes behind Occupy, Alexa O’Brien from Occupy in New York and US Day of Rage says it is not just about the global financial crisis but also about a global political crisis – because “institutions are no longer functional.”

[Arron] Peters [of Occupy London] agreed, saying that political failure is a global phenomenon.

“We now recognize that public policy outcomes aren’t happening at the national level, and that policy makers aren’t actually the ones who are in national parliaments. They are elsewhere, and the ones that are dictating policy aren’t any way accountable, or, you know, they are not democratic representatives,” he said.

http://tinyurl.com/d76q82o

Advocates seek $8.50/hour minimum wage in New York

Advocates including the Occupy Albany movement and clergy pushing New York’s proposal to raise the minimum wage are gearing up for the final four weeks of the legislative session.

Researchers are taking a close look at New York’s debate and other states’ experience and economic models have been used by both sides. A researcher who reviewed New York’s situation counters some of the critics who say raising the wage will hurt the state’s slow economic recovery and actually cut jobs for the working poor.

Harvard economics Professor Richard B. Freeman said a modest minimum wage increase will likely not have a major negative effect on the economy.

http://tinyurl.com/79dceuy

Occupy Santa Cruz Celebrates Past Successes with TENT MOB at Court House

Community members involved with Occupy Santa Cruz returned to the court house steps with tents and other structure building equipment for a “tent mob” celebration on May 25. The event was planned in solidarity with Adbusters’ May 18 “Laugh Riots”, and the mood was geared more towards fun than a serious occupation.

http://tinyurl.com/cj9xqaa

Anonymous calls for ‘Occupy movement’ in several Indian cities

Several India cities, including Hyderabad, are likely to witness Occupy protests, albeit on a smaller scale, on June 9

We have read about the ‘Occupy protests’ taking place across the world. Now several cities in India, including Hyderabad, are likely to witness Occupy protests, albeit on a smaller scale, on June 9 where protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks will assemble at a place. They will register their opposition to the moves of the Centre to curtail Internet freedom and oppose blocking of websites or social media accounts. The protests are called by Anonymous, a group of ‘hacktivists’.

Facebook, twitter and other social media sites were abuzz with activity on Monday, with the Anonymous calling for occupy protests in Hyderabad and several other cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Indore, Kolkata, Bangalore, Kochi and Calicut on June 9. Tweets by Anonymous India (@AnonDDos) and Operation India (@opindia_back) have been eliciting a good response from tweeple from these cities, who pledged their support to the protests.

http://tinyurl.com/cf264kr

Sinn Fein Gains Clout, Irish Polls Show

The collapse of Ireland’s much-vaunted Celtic Tiger economy prompted the Irish government to take on the debts of its delinquent banks from 2008. The authorities pumped in the equivalent of 40% of Irish annual economic output to keep its banking system from collapse. But the effort proved too much for the government, which was forced to strike a deal for Euro 67.5 billion ($84.6 billion) in bailout loans in late 2010.

Sinn Fein and its leader have been relentless in their opposition to the austerity, a stance that has borne fruit in the public-opinion polls. “The cherry on top for Sinn Fein from today’s poll is Gerry Adams’s satisfaction rating, which is up eight points to 37%, making him the highest-rated party leader in the country,” Damian Loscher, Ipsos managing director, wrote in the Irish Times Monday.

http://tinyurl.com/86awpw5

The Department of Homeland Security has flagged hundreds of words as “suspect” – and while many make sense, like “Al Qaeda,” some are just plain odd. For example, the DHS may dig through your cyber life if you write something about snow. Or pork.

So, you’ve just come back from a beach holiday in Mexico and posted about it on your blog. Or maybe you’ve tweeted about skiing lessons? Updated your status, saying you’re stuck home with food poisoning?

All those things will tweak the DHS antennae, according to a manual published by the agency. The Analyst’s Desktop Binder, used by agency employees at their National Operations Center to identify “media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities,” includes hundreds of words that set off Big Brother’s silent alarms.

http://tinyurl.com/caqbj26

“Fusion Centers” Circumvent Laws Against Domestic Surveillance (Spying on Occupy)

If recent documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) are any indication, the Occupy Movement continues to be monitored and curtailed in a nationwide, federally-orchestrated campaign, spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

http://tinyurl.com/chaptcd

What if Glass-Steagall hadn’t been repealed?

As soon as the Great Crash hit, we were inundated with paid experts explaining to anyone who would listen that the repeal of Glass-Steagall did not cause the Great Crash. That went pretty well for the people who repealed Glass-Steagall, so now they started pushing the idea that Glass-Steagall would not have prevented banks from engaging in the activities that led to the Great Crash. We get a crash course from Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times Dealbook, who begins by blaming the left for perpetuating the meme that repeal led to the Great Crash.

Sorkin argues that you can look at each failed entity and see that it was never covered by Glass-Steagall, like Lehman or Bear Stearns or AIG; and that for banks, which once were covered by Glass-Steagall, the problem came from the commercial side, in the form of bad mortgage loans. That superficiality is the hallmark of the defenders of Wall Street. So let’s try to look a bit deeper.

The most important impact of Glass-Steagall is that it reduced the number of openings for investment bankers. If commercial banks couldn’t have investment banking arms, they would not have needed to hire investment bankers. There would not have been the crushing need to make gigantic profits off those people. There would not have been the enormous pressure to find ways to make money, including cutting corners and outright fraud. And there would have been fewer people trying to make themselves insanely rich with other people’s money, and at no risk to their personal finances.

http://tinyurl.com/7p2zt23

The Best and the Greediest? Ivy League Students Are Still Heading to Wall Street

The universities themselves have not done much to stem the tide of the Wall Street recruiters, and often appear to be part of the problem, steering students into finance at every opportunity. Writing in the Nation, Sandra Y. L. Yorn confessed that the combination of Ivy League culture and the Wall Street firms’ high-octane recruiting efforts made her feel, when she was at Harvard, that finance was nearly the only game in town. There was information available for those wanting to go into teaching or medicine, but, she reported, “These resources are often much less accessible and updated than those promoting investment banks and consulting groups.”

In February, over 100 Princeton alums signed a letter in the Princeton Alumni Weekly complaining of the university’s over-zealous support for “financial-service firms that have manipulated the political systems and economies of nations around the world to the detriment of those societies and the stability of the global financial system.” The authors of the letter applauded Occupy Princeton and warned students that if they choose finance as a career path, “They should know they are entering an industry with a reprehensible historical record of breaching public trust and engaging in practices that run directly counter to Princeton’s motto.” (That motto is, “In the nation’s service and in the service of all nations.”)

http://tinyurl.com/c3kjv2v

Tourism industry may force Quebec to negotiate with student protesters

Faint hope for renewed talks between the government and students in Quebec flickered Sunday as the top tourism official in the Canadian province warned of possible fallout from months of protests.

While no specific date or time have been set, student representatives could meet with the provincial education minister as early as Monday to discuss their gripe over tuition hikes, according to local media.

“If the government is prepared to move, there could be an area where we can find common ground,” Leo Bureau-Blouin, one student leader, said Saturday, further suggesting another round of talks may not be far off.

http://tinyurl.com/btvejyd

How Students are Painting Montreal Red

On Wednesday night in Montreal, we shared a long dinner with student organizers, discussing everything from police tactics in Montreal and New York to the necessity of an anti-racist and anti-colonial framework for our movements. Our hosts noticed that, around the time that the nightly 8:30 p.m. march was supposed to begin, we were getting nervous about missing it. They laughed and said, “Don’t worry, it will go on until 2 a.m.” Or at least they normally do.

By midnight, after peacefully and joyfully marching through the city for hours, the police charged our march of about 4,000 people with batons and pepper spray. In a moment the scene became one of chaos and confusion. Many in the crowd turned around and ran, but there were police behind us, too, coming straight at us with their batons out as people were pepper sprayed and thrown to the ground. Eventually, we found our way out of the melée and asked our Canadian comrade what had happened to provoke the police. “Nothing,” she answered. “They just got tired of us.”

We had been lucky. Moments after the police charged us, they surrounded a group of 506 protesters and arrested everyone in what became the largest single mass arrest since the indefinite student strike began here in Quebec 103 days ago.

http://tinyurl.com/76f7cgn

Lloyd’s of London preparing for euro collapse

The chief executive of the multi-billion pound Lloyd’s of London has publicly admitted that the world’s leading insurance market is prepared for a collapse in the single currency and has reduced its exposure “as much as possible” to the crisis-ridden continent.
Richard Ward said the London market had put in place a contingency plan to switch euro underwriting to multi-currency settlement if Greece abandoned the euro.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph he also revealed that Lloyd’s could have to take writedowns on its £58.9bn investment portfolio if the eurozone collapses.

http://tinyurl.com/6qv5kyt

Families occupy empty flats in crisis-hit Spain

Spanish grandmother Ana Lopez Corrales already feels at home in the Seville apartment where she’s been living for the past week — but it is not hers and she pays no rent.

The 67-year-old is one of 32 homeless families who are squatting in an empty four-storey building, one of thousands of unsold apartment blocks that dot Spain following the collapse of a property bubble in 2008.

Corrales said she found herself on the street when she could not keep up with her monthly rent of 500 euros ($630). She and her 70-year-old husband, who has been bedridden for the past two decades, now occupy the show flat of the building, the only one that was furnished, and her kitchen is used by all the squatters.

http://tinyurl.com/7cxhuc8

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RACE:  THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION

Monday May 28, 2012
6:00 – 9:00 PM
Community Church of Boston
565 Boylston Street  -  Copley Square

Let us gather, as the Occupy Boston community, and observe Memorial Day with a radically different approach!

Rather than “memorializing”, let us gather to unleash ourselves from our collective historical amnesia.  As we watch sections of the documentary, “Race:  The Power of An Illusion”, we can learn about and reflect on the underlying social, economic, and political strategies that built an entrenched system of racism and classism in this country.

Together, we can grow to better grasp and understand the deliberate and intentional actions that have been taken over the years … actions that grew from and reinforced beliefs of white supremacy and privilege … actions that, to this day,  disproportionately channel advantages and opportunities to white people.

 Let us gather, as a community, to recognize and honor the cost that racism has extracted from this country since the first moments that white colonizers claimed a land that wasn’t theirs.

Let us strive together to shift the conversations and organizing that we engage in to build a more just and equitable society that has an “up-front”, authentic awareness and commitment to dismantling racism in our own movement and beyond.

Canada is dismantling the nation’s entire ocean contaminants program as part of massive layoffs at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. [Chief researcher Peter] Ross told EHN that his main concern is the “wholesale axing of pollution research” that will leave Canada, and much of the world, without the scientific knowledge to protect whales, seals, fish and other marine life — as well as the indigenous peoples who rely on them for their traditional foods. Many scientists say the purpose of the move by the Canadian government is not just cost-cutting but to eliminate environmental rules and protect the oil and gas industry. The following is an essay that Ross wrote Thursday for EHN.
. . .

It is with deep regret that I relay news of my termination of employment at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the loss of my dream job. It is with even greater sadness that I learn of the demise of DFO’s entire contaminants research program – regionally and nationally. It is with apprehension that I ponder a Canada without any research or monitoring capacity for pollution in our three oceans, or any ability to manage its impacts on commercial fish stocks, traditional foods for over 300,000 aboriginal people and marine wildlife.

Canada’s silence on these issues will be deafening this summer and beyond.

http://tinyurl.com/7hjpvlu

The US public school system is under attack

The US public school system, once a model for the world, is under sustained attack by the nation’s elites. Philadelphia, the latest casualty, is getting ready to sell off its schools – and their governance – to profiteers and snake-oil salesmen. We already know how this story ends.

The Philadelphia school system announced in late April that it was on the brink of insolvency and would be turned over to private operators, dissolving most remnants of democratic governance. Specifically, if the city’s leaders have their way, 64 of the city’s neighbourhood public schools will close over the next five years, and by 2017, 40 per cent of the city’s children will attend charter schools. These are are privately run schools that use public funds. Perhaps most disturbingly to those who value democracy and doubt the wisdom of corporate elites, the city will have no oversight of its own school system. Schools will instead be governed by “networks”, control of which will be auctioned off through a bidding process, and could be bestowed on anyone – including a CEO of a for-profit education company.

The situation in Philadelphia, which has received amazingly little attention from the national media in the US, offers a disturbing window onto what the US elite is planning for the rest of our public schools – disturbing because Philadelphia’s experience has already demonstrated that turning public education over to private entities will ultimately lead to its destruction.

http://tinyurl.com/7cfseoz

Inequality wasn’t the answer: in fact, it was our downfall

There is a popular argument, put forward by Ben Broadbent at the Bank of England among others, that the UK’s unprecedented levels of household debt don’t matter, and won’t hold back recovery, because they have been matched by a sharp increase in assets.

That sounds right if you think of homeowners matching their rising mortgages against rocketing house prices. But NIESR found that, in fact, it was overwhelmingly the poor doing the borrowing through this period while the rich were accumulating the assets. Over the decade to 2007, for example, the bottom 10% of households saw their incomes grow by 17% but their spending rise by 43%. As NIESR puts it: “Given only a minority of the poorest are homeowners paying off their mortgage, it is highly unlikely this was counterbalanced by an increase in housing wealth.”

Without this borrowing binge, it is likely that consumption would have collapsed, and with it growth. And because many poor families are now hamstrung by unpayable debts, demand may be held back for years. So it seems rising inequality does matter – economically, as well as politically.

And it is this history – of decades in which lavish rewards accrued to the few while everyone else papered over the cracks with debt – that could make austerity impossible to bear.

http://tinyurl.com/cwxn2a7

Typical American Worker Would Need 244 Years To Match CEO’s Annual Salary

The average CEO made $9.6 million in 2011, even as workers’ wages remained stagnant and unemployment hovered nationally around 8 percent. Chief Executive Officers are being paid at the highest-ever rate since the AP started tracking the figure in 2006, according to a new report from the news organization.

But while CEOs may be reaping the rewards of higher profits and a growing stock market, very little of that achievement spreads as far as the average worker – or even the company’s stockholders:

Profit at companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index rose 16 percent last year, remarkable in an economy that grew more slowly than expected.

http://tinyurl.com/7oekjmc

Most Americans think campaign money aids rich

Most Americans, no matter what their political party, believe there is too much money in politics and reject the idea that people should be allowed to spend what they want, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Thursday.

Seventy-five percent of Americans feel there is too much money in politics, and only 25 percent feel there is an intrinsic right to unfettered election spending, an argument commonly used by opponents of controls on campaign finance.

Almost the same proportion – 76 percent – feel that the amount of money in elections has given rich people more influence than other Americans, the online survey found.

http://tinyurl.com/dx7z6nj

The gay marriage excuse – in service of perpetuating the economic status quo

In Colorado, Democratic activists have cast Gov. John Hickenlooper as a great liberal for supporting same-sex civil unions, all while he loyally shills for oil and gas corporations. At the federal level, the Obama reelection campaign is doing the same, trumpeting the president as a progressive hero for endorsing gay marriage, all while he slow-walks tougher bank regulations.

Even on Wall Street itself, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has lately portrayed himself as a great humanitarian. As proof, he doesn’t cite any willingness to acknowledge financial-sector crimes. Instead, he cites his decision to become the Human Rights Campaign’s national spokesman for gay marriage.

Noting all this isn’t to disparage the push for same sex marriage (I’m a strong supporter!) – it is merely to spotlight a bait and switch whereby social issues are increasingly used to perpetuate the economic status quo.

http://tinyurl.com/bru9ols

Occupy Protesters Help Los Angeles Woman And Disabled Daughter Save Their Home From Bank Of America

Last month, Bank of America foreclosed on a Los Angeles woman and her disabled daughter. Dima Rodriguez had spent thousands of dollars retrofitting her home to accommodate her daughter – who has cerebral palsy – and fell behind on her loan payments. Bank of America gave her a loan modification, and even though Rodriguez had made her trial modification payments for a year, the bank sold her house at auction, right out from under her.

However, Rodriguez and her daughter will get to stay in their home, thanks to some help from Occupy Wall Street protestors:

Desperate, Rodriguez contacted several community groups including Occupy Fights Foreclosures – the battle to save the Rodriguez home began. Suzanne O’Keeffe, with Occupy Fights Forclosures, says the bank didn’t treat the Rodriguez family right. She charged they not only didn’t fill out the proper paperwork to foreclose, they waited too long. [...]

http://tinyurl.com/778p2ne

Educational Strike in Spain Brings Hundreds of Thousands Into the Streets

(video)

Students, parents and teachers from pre-school through university levels of the Spanish public education system went on strike to protest the massive cuts proposed as part of the government’s austerity program.

http://tinyurl.com/d4da7pe

‘This is payback for Greece’

Asked whether it was “payback time” for Greece and other debt-ridden eurozone economies, [IMF chief Christine Lagarde] responded, “That’s right”, the newspaper said.

Attend an Occupy gathering, event, meeting or protest. Come to the General Assembly gathering at 5 pm tonight at the Community Church of Boston, 565 Boylston Street, second floor, across from Copley Square. Or attend the Strategic Action Assembly at 5 pm Sunday in Copley Square. Find out more about how you can plug in in the Occupy Boston calendar. Join the online Occupy Community on the Community Forum here.

It should be a common axiom in teachings and understanding around movement building that there is a spectrum of radicalness, and this spectrum is actually necessary for large scale and long term social change. But in the past decade social movements in Canada have practically disappeared this concept -in specific, labour leaders and leftist politicians bad mouthing and baiting anarchists and anti-capitalists, with pacifist activists chiming in along behind them.

This tension, is often couched in the contrast between ‘peaceful’ vs. ‘violent’ protesters, but is actually more about goals than tactics. There are the liberals and moderates, who push for conservative lawful means of action and there are the radicals and revolutionaries who push for immediate systemic changes often outside of or counter to the law. It’s the reformist/revolutionary spectrum. Both ends of the spectrum have overlapping goals but often come into conflict with each other over both the means and the ends of social struggles. Unfortunately, peaceful protest has become equated with lawfulness in ahistoric precedents. Somehow, moderates forget that the participants of the Civil Rights Movement, though devoutly pacifist, were considered radical extremists and menaces to society in their day. Lawfulness and peacefulness are not interchangeable words, and further, are often adversaries of each other.

http://tinyurl.com/6qy3vpq

The City as University: Occupy and the Future of Public Education

For quite a long time now, we precariously situated students and faculty in CUNY have been practicing the art of what Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o calls “poor theory”- “maximizing the possibilities inherent in the minimum… being extremely creative and experimental in order to survive.” Unable to isolate ourselves within the velvety quicksand of armchairs and seminar table solipsism, we have instead pursued a kind of crowd scholarship that jettisons “interest” for “involvement.” Discussions among crowds of people-in and out of assemblies, street marches, virtual forums, shared meals, space-transformations, and yes, even jail stints-have assembled critical lessons and experiences not yet valued by scholastic frameworks of singularly rendered knowledge. Thousands have co-authored this document itself.

We are engaged in a process of defending our educational and social futures from a threadbare past and present. US student debt has surpassed $1 trillion-a third of this debt is held by graduate students. Crippling tuition increases and education cuts in some cases triple tuition and erase whole departments. Meanwhile, our campuses become increasingly militarized. As recently spotlighted in UC-Davis and CUNY’s Baruch and Brooklyn Colleges, administrators unabashedly welcome the surveillance, intimidation, and brutal arrests of students and faculty who peacefully dissent. But after our pulses shudder from being followed by armed officers, after our indignation roils from reading lies that presidents and chancellors print about our political acts, and after our bruised bodies heal from being treated like enemy combatants on our own campuses, we gather in crowds again because we have no other choice.

http://tinyurl.com/clvsj34

Millennials, Activism and Race: A New Study

Politically active, young progressives most often find themselves in the work as a result of family influences. They aren’t having grand epiphanies at lectures by prominent people or even recruited heavily by their friends. Their understanding and commitments come from observing or experiencing daily struggle.

People active in Occupy and those active in community organizations are similarly disenchanted with the electoral system. Their frustration was less about the Obama administration than it was about the dysfunctionality of the electoral and legislative systems generally.

All our participants named a dominant doctrine of individualism as a critical barrier to progressive change, but people involved with Occupy had a more explicit critique of capitalism as a system than those involved in other organizations.

Most respondents felt the need to address the racial dimensions of inequality, but they both wanted to include other systems in that analysis, and had few tools with which to bring in race with any combination of other systems like class, gender and sexuality.

http://tinyurl.com/c846ynw

Occupy Charlotte holding anti-KKK rally near where white supremacy group meeting

Members of Occupy Charlotte said they plan on being in the small town of Harmony on Saturday in anticipation of Ku Klux Klan gathering there.
“There’s going to be signs; there are going to be banners,” said Adam Nubar, of Occupy Charlotte. “We’re going to try to create somewhat of a scene.”

According to a Klan website, the “Loyal White Knights” will be holding a “cross-lighting.” A flier for the event said only whites were invited to attend.

But members of Occupy Charlotte said they plan on lining the streets of Harmony, along with other protestors, as the Klan makes its way into town.

http://tinyurl.com/brn6pwq

Sherrif’s department retreats from second eviction attempt, broken door from raided home delivered to sheriff

A 4:00 PM sheriff’s raid on the foreclosed home of the Cruz family on May 23 was foiled by the aggressive efforts of Occupy Minnesota. The deputies retreated. They returned again at 4:00 AM, May 26 armed with battering rams, jack hammers and massive bolt cutters. There were about a dozen occupy volunteers sleeping at the house. All but two were ordered outside – the two couldn’t find their shoes. The five people secured to the building were forcibly removed and arrested, currently held until Tuesday morning.

Again the sheriff’s crew was driven back by the occupy volunteers who came up the alley and entered the back of the house. The deputies retreated with their prisoners leaving the home is shambles.

A rally in front of City hall at noon on May 25, featured the broken door and speeches by supporters including three members of the Minneapolis City Council. The door was then delivered to Sheriff Stanek’s Office in City Hall. The sheriff declined to meet with the demonstrators. The broken door was left at the front door of his office. A major source of frustration was that the bank was working with the Cruz family to clear up the situation and renew the mortgage. The sheriff’s actions cut across this progress and was seen as unnecessary and punitive by those close to the situation.

http://tinyurl.com/7vbvb6l

Occupy Port Jefferson Member Started Protesting Later in Life

What do people on a corner in a small Long Island village hope to accomplish by protesting every week? These Occupy Port Jefferson protesters are not the out-of-work, digital youth generation just out of college camping out in tents. Most are Baby Boomers. Many are even older. What attracts these people to go out and protest every week? We asked three regular Occupy Port Jefferson demonstrators some questions about what they do and why.

http://tinyurl.com/7j6z4ck

EU health commission: Monsanto strain won’t be banned

Invincible agricultural giant Monsanto has once again demonstrated its ability to crush countries on the legal battlefield. The EFSA has ruled there is no “scientific evidence” of damage caused by consuming genetically-modified maize.

France is the latest country to try and battle Monsanto over its genetically-modified corn. In February it requested that the European Commission ban the MON 810 strain from EU markets, supporting the request with scientific argumentation. While awaiting the decision, French government unilaterally reinstalled a ban on MON 810, though the country’s highest court had earlier ruled in favor of Monsanto.

It took the European Food Safety Authority three months to come to a quite predictable conclusion – that the strain poses no threat, and will not be banned.

The Occupy Monsanto movement is planning to launch another round of protests during the harvesting season 2012.

http://tinyurl.com/89po9nk

To get a daily listing of Occupy Boston’s events and activities (and more!), subscribe to the Daily Digest by going tohttps://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/obupdates. To subscribe to the OB Media Rundown, send your request to johnm@occupyboston.org

Occupy had boasted a presence at the home for 25 days, but only four or five activists were there guarding the front and back doors at 4044 Cedar Ave South when the sheriffs arrived at around 3:30 p.m. The activists quickly employed a rapid-response text messaging system that Occupy Homes had just put into effect, and within an hour, approximately 100 of their friends had arrived. Occupy activists cordoned off the street with signs and banners, the sheriffs deputies retreated, and Minneapolis police officials replaced them. By 5 p.m. the confrontation was diffused once it became clear that the city police would not seize the Cruz home.

http://tinyurl.com/c8h59el

Reflecting on Cleveland’s experience after passing the nation’s first responsible banking law two decades ago

Q: Is there any way you can gauge whether this law has reduced unsavory lending practices, prevented foreclosures or pushed banks’ support low-income communities in other ways?

A: We were hard hit by foreclosures. Our foreclosures were subprime loans and a lot of those were not purchase loans. But a high percentage of the subprime loans came in through the home repair door. So, they were targeting minorities, seniors and people for whom English was a second language. And they were targeting people with high equity. The city introduced an ordinance in 2002 which caused a lot of predatory subprime lenders to not have a Cleveland address. As we looked at foreclosures and defaults, our depository banks had a fairly low inventory of REOs [Real Estate Owned properties] and foreclosures in their loan portfolios with the city, where they were working on development projects and development activity.

http://tinyurl.com/bmkjchh

‘Among the rebels’ – Nine camps, dozens of interviews and two months among the dissidents of Occupy

[Boston] When I arrive, much of the community is gathered in front of a towering spot-lit brick wall to hold the evening’s general assembly. The facilitators, a young German-American named Anna and a middle-aged man named Greg, first spend ten minutes explaining the general assembly process.

A young man named John stands up. His army issue cap covers his eyes: “The safety group proposes that we remove a certain individual, Henry [from the camp].” Henry is an alcoholic who is at times violent. Despite interventions and counseling from members of the camp, Henry is extremely disruptive. As the group debates the proposal, the hypocrisy becomes apparent: How can an avowedly inclusive community defend forcible removal of a member, especially in a public space?

In the next hour-and-a-half, the conversation vacillates between booting Henry out and allowing him to stay-illuminating both the success and failure of the camps.

In hundreds of parks in towns and cities across North America and the world, Occupy camps vitalize debate by “occupying” what might otherwise be abstract conversations with real people and real problems, often leading to real solutions. At the same time, the energy needed to care for the homeless, addicts, and mentally ill-members of the community most affected by the nation’s wealth disparity-undermines the progress of the movement.

http://tinyurl.com/6ul4faw

Lawsuit decries raid on Occupy ‘People’s Library’

The city of New York violated the Constitution by raiding an Occupy Wall Street site last year, destroying the “People’s Library” and seizing its 3,600 books, a new lawsuit charged Thursday.

The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan demanded at least $50,000 in damages, enough to cover the $43,000 value of the books and other costs, along with several thousand dollars in punitive damages.

The books were taken in the early morning hours of Nov. 15 when police raided a Manhattan park where the group had gathered for several months to protest income inequality in the United States. Among the books seized were classics by William Shakespeare and Fyodor Dostoevsky, as well as various autobiographies, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s own, “Bloomberg on Bloomberg,” the suit said.

http://tinyurl.com/6rfqehd

Occupy Wall Street-Affiliated Group Sides With Federal Judge Jed Rakoff In SEC Feud

A group affiliated with Occupy Wall Street has come to the defense of a federal judge who is on the ropes in his fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether he can reject a settlement he thinks is unfair.

In an amicus “friend of the court” brief filed earlier this week, the Occupy-associated group argues that Manhattan federal district Judge Jed Rakoff acted within his rights when he threw out a $285 million settlement between the SEC and Citigroup late last year. Rakoff said in November that the “neither admit nor deny” language left him no way to determine whether the settlement was fair.

While the well-reasoned brief is notable — a sign, perhaps, that some affiliated with the Occupy movement are developing into a more traditional advocacy group — it likely won’t swing momentum in favor of Rakoff. At every other turn, the judge is losing the fight to exert judicial authority over agreements reached between the SEC and defendants like Citigroup.

http://tinyurl.com/cbsts46

Has the FBI Launched a War of Entrapment Against the Occupy Movement?

With the high-profile arrest of activists on terrorism charges in Cleveland on May Day and in Chicago during the NATO summit there, evidence is mounting that the FBI is unleashing the same methods of entrapment against the Occupy Wall Street movement that it has used against left movements and Muslim-Americans for the last decade.

Simply put, the Cleveland and Chicago cases appear to be instances of the federal government foiling its own terror plots. Two days before the Cleveland plot was supposedly thwarted, David Shipler, author of Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America, presciently described in the New York Times the mechanics of the FBI trap about to be sprung. Shipler wrote that FBI terror stings typically begin by targeting “suspects for pure speech” such as comments, emails and “angry postings” on the Internet. The suspects are then “woo[ed] into relationships with informers, who are often convicted felons working in exchange for leniency, or with FBI agents” working undercover. Some suspects are “incompetent and adrift, like hapless wannabes looking for a cause that the informer or undercover agent skillfully helps them find.” Noting that the FBI is “cultivating potential terrorists,” Shipler asked, “would the culprits commit violence on their own?”

http://tinyurl.com/c7ns7pg

SEC trials increase 50 percent as execs refuse to settle, fight lawsuits instead

The wave of litigation has two main sources: more complex cases stemming from the 2008 financial crisis and a related increase in lawsuits filed against individual executives.

The collapse of the housing market and resulting financial turmoil involved complex securities for which there was little legal precedent. In addition, the agency has brought more financial crisis lawsuits against executives — more than 50 so far — and individuals are often inclined to fight claims that could damage or end their careers.

Those cases, which have required years of investigation, are central to the agency’s effort to restore its reputation after being battered for more than three years by lawmakers, judges and investors who claimed it hasn’t been tough enough in holding Wall Street to account.

http://tinyurl.com/bvpya44

The US Government Is Running A Massive Spy Campaign On Occupy Wall Street

Interest in the Occupy protesters was not limited to DHS and local law enforcement authorities.  The most recently released correspondence contains Occupy-related missives between the DHS and agencies at all levels of government, including the Mayor of Portland, regional NOC “fusion centers,” the General Services Administration (GSA), the Pentagon’s USNORTHCOM (Northern Command), and the White House. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the PCJF, contends that the variety and reach of the organizations involved point to the existence of a larger, more pervasive domestic surveillance network than previously suspected.

These documents show not only intense government monitoring and coordination in response to the Occupy Movement, but reveal a glimpse into the interior of a vast, tentacled, national intelligence and domestic spying network that the U.S. government operates against its own people. These heavily redacted documents don’t tell the full story. They are likely only a subset of responsive materials and the PCJF continues to fight for a complete release. They scratch the surface of a mass intelligence network including Fusion Centers, saturated with ‘anti-terrorism’ funding, that mobilizes thousands of local and federal officers and agents to investigate and monitor the social justice movement

http://tinyurl.com/chaptcd

Occupy your union bureaucracy: An insider’s call

Among vast portions of the labour aristocracy, solidarity is replaced with a stasi-like defence of the status quo; loyalty is redefined to mean blind allegiance to the governing officialdom, rather than to the dues paying membership and their constitution; and workplace and union democracy is no longer a goal, but a potentially treasonous nuisance. To enforce these redefined “values” the bureaucracy purges non-conforming ideas and individuals in a swift, coordinated and merciless way. Not the kind of modus operandi folks like me signed up for. Definitely not the kind that is capable, in its current state, of building a better world.

These are just the internal symptoms or mechanisms, if you will, by which the workers’ army finds itself today, for the most part, in utter denial of the severity and urgency of the threat to working people, our democracy, and our world. This is how they manage to remain virtually silent against the ever- encroaching corporatist police-state, bankster control of our economies, the violations of our civil liberties, and the intensifying wars of aggression, while desperately clinging to electoral parties that will do little more than further enforce the status quo, hopefully sparing some space or security for the labour bureaucracy that supports the party most.

Sadly, this is not the story of just one union. Over the past 20 years I have been a member, activist, leader, national and international union representative in six private and public sector trade unions and I can solidly say that the sun is about to set on the labour movement unless the people take back their unions, specifically their centralized labour bureaucracies. Occupy them.

http://tinyurl.com/czbjs3r

New study reveals Millennials’ activism spurred by personal experience and disillusionment

From the Occupy movement to the immigration marches to civil rights rallies, each gathering has included a large number of young people, especially people of color, who are making their presence seen and their voices heard.

For anyone who has ever wondered why there seems to be an increase in social consciousness among young people these days, a new report released by the Applied Research Center titled Millennials, Activism and Race sheds light on their motivations, the social justice issues that have stirred their passions and their attitudes towards race, government and representation.

http://tinyurl.com/cz5djvk

Climate Change Will More Than Triple Annual US Heat-Death Toll

In an average summer in the United States, there are 1,332 heat-related deaths. But climate change will make that number rise to 4,608 by the end of the century, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council. In total, the US can expect 150,000 deaths due to excessive heat by 2100, the report projects.

http://tinyurl.com/7dydk9n

Police make arrests in protest at downtown Portland post office

Police say 12 people were arrested in downtown Portland on Thursday during an Occupy Portland-affiliated protest of cuts and closures in the U.S. Postal Service.

About 80 people chanted, sang and called for the resignation of Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe at the University Station Post Office at 1505 SW 6th Ave.

The crowd arrived after 5:30 p.m., and said they disagreed with recently announced plans to close almost 250 mail processing plants nationwide beginning this summer, leading to reduced postal service and jobs.

http://tinyurl.com/7fm4z6e

Occupy the country club?? “99 percent” protesters get creative with GOP Rep. Dan Lungren

In a sign that the “99 percent” movement may be getting more creative – and perhaps more mainstream -  in their movement, a crowd of parents, kids and workers from Sacramento took their protest right to the champagne-and-chardonney crowd at the swank Sequoyah Country Club Thursday in an effort to embarrass their GOP Rep. Dan Lungren.

The group of about 40, a coalition of working folks, labor reps, MoveOn.org activists, “occupied” the Oakland hills country club at around 6 p.m. as Lungren’s campaign re-election fundraiser was in session there. The Congressman, meeting with supporters upstairs, never emerged, but that didn’t stop the crowd.

http://tinyurl.com/7gepnna

Montreal-like student protests likely in Ontario

There is a likelihood of the student protests in Montreal growing into a mass movement in other cities across Canada, experts say.

“It is in fact growing because it is about tuition fees which is an issue that affects all students across Canada and it is also about the issue of social inequality,” said Dr. Vincent Mosco , an expert on social movements from Queen’s University.

“It is a big concern to the occupy movements and I noticed recently the biggest demonstration in Montreal the other night was supported by other demonstrations in New York by the occupy people,” said Mosco.

http://tinyurl.com/d9k27ob

Occupy movement spreads to Mexico

May 24, 2012 (IPS) – The “Occupy” movement has spread to Mexico, where thousands of university students have taken to the streets, bringing fresh air to a superficial and flat election campaign and forcing political parties to pay attention to a long-ignored segment of the population.

“Our movement is demanding the democratisation of the media, and accurate, unbiased coverage,” said Sofía Alessio, one of the protesters, who belongs to the organising committee at the private Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM).
. . .

The student protests, which are common during election campaigns, are taking aim at “the heavy concentration of the electronic media, which limits freedom of expression and the right to information,” Luís Vázquez, a researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), told IPS.

“It is necessary to democratise the media, to avoid an authoritarian regime. That has become the central demand,” the academic said.

http://tinyurl.com/cc2y93f

Welcome to London, Austerity City

After a year of Occupy and trade union demonstrations in London, the sense of unfairness is growing as support for the Government erodes.

Austerity measures are taking effect just as Britain enters its first double-dip recession since the 1970s. The budgets of Tower Hamlets and the deprived boroughs of Hackney and Newham were cut the most among London neighbourhoods last year, while wealthy Richmond-upon-Thames’ budget was reduced the least.

Income inequality among working-age people has risen faster in Britain than in any other wealthy Western country since 1975. Nowhere is the divide more evident than in Tower Hamlets and Canary Wharf. Many of Canary Wharf’s 95,000 workers travel to and from the skyscrapers on trains that pass under or over the 240,000 residents of Tower Hamlets. A four-lane highway and railway separate Canary Wharf from the rest of the borough. There are guarded checkpoints for cars.

http://tinyurl.com/bpkesh3

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Stories of the Day: Tell me they aren’t going to use these on protesters: American police officers may soon be able to use unmanned aircraft not only for surveillance, but also for offensive action. The drones may be equipped to fire rubber rounds and tear gas. The US military and CIA have used drones armed with lethal weapons to target militants overseas for years. The prospect of having “lite” versions of those remotely controlled killer-machines circling over America gave some second thoughts to rights groups. “It’s simply not appropriate to use any force, lethal or non-lethal, on a drone,” Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told CBSDC. For more, see Drones Over U.S. to Get Weaponized. And the business of marketing drones to law enforcement is booming. Now that Congress has ordered the Federal Aviation Administration to open up U.S. airspace to unmanned vehicles, the aerial surveillance technology first developed in the battle space of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is fueling a burgeoning market in North America. And even though they’re moving from war zones to American markets, the language of combat and conflict remains an important part of their sales pitch — a fact that ought to concern citizens worried about the privacy implications of domestic drones. For more, see Drones for Urban Warfare. And the TSA is expanding its powers and is now conducting random searches on highways. For the video news report, click here. For a good round-up of recent news about attacks on our civil liberties, including TSA mistreatment of children and adults in airports, see Occupy Albany’s Civil Liberties Review. And a Saudi inventor’s proposal to insert semiconductors subcutaneously in visitors and remotely kill them if they misbehave will not be patented in Germany. Reporters said the document proposed that tiny semiconductors be implanted or placed by injection under the skin of people so their whereabouts could be tracked by global-positioning satellites. This could be used to prevent immigrants overstaying. A model B of the system would contain a poison such as cyanide, which could be released by remote control to “eliminate” people if they became a security risk. The document said this could be used against terrorists or criminals. For more, see Patent for Killer Chip Denied. And a member of Occupy Boston was among the NATO protesters who was attacked by police. He has 10 stitches in his head, and a genuine concern for those who were brutalized even harder. Asked whether he plans to attend the next major action wherever it may be, he answers in the affirmative. For more, see Behind The Stiches: The Face Of Chicago Police Violence At NATO Protests. And Occupy Chicago reports a first-hand account from the NATO protester who was run over by a Chicago Police van: “Amico was hit in the chest and fell hard, slamming his head onto the pavement. ‘It stomped on the gas the second I stepped in front. It was intentional,”’he told OCT. ‘Mind you, they sped off after this. It was a hit and run.’ James “Jack” Amico was struck, thrown to ground, and treated for a concussion at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.” For the story, see CPD’s Hit And Run Victim Exists, And Tells His Story.

Other Occupies/Protests: More than 400 protesters were “kettled” and arrested last night (5/23) in Montreal and mass arrests were reported in other cities in Canada as the student-led demonstrations gained even more momentum. This came after at least 300 people were arrested and twenty were injured in Montreal during weekend clashes between police and protesters, according to CTV. The movement began after a proposed tuition hike of $1,625, which would be implemented over several years. Support rallies were held in some cities in the US. For more, see 400 Arrested in Montreal Last Night, and Protests Spread to Other Cities. And on May 19, at least 20,000 people held a major rally of the local Occupy movement in Frankfurt, Germany, to decry austerity measures affecting much of Europe, the dominance of banks, and what they call untamed capitalism. The protesters peacefully filled the city center of continental Europe’s biggest financial hub on a warm and pleasant afternoon, said Frankfurt police spokesman Ruediger Regis. He said 20,000 people were there, while organizers put the number at 25,000. The protest group, named Blockupy, has called for blocking access to the European Central Bank, which is located in Frankfurt’s business district. For more, see 20,000 March at Frankfurt Occupy Protest Rally and Frankfurt sees 20,000 Protest Austerity. And Germany’s changed social stuctures means there’s a section of voters no longer served by the main parties. They are the only German party that treats freedom not just as an idealistic utopia or an economic principle but as a very real tenet of organisation. They want to protect civil rights, to increase every individual’s range to take action, and to give citizens more power to take part in political decisions through electronic means. Their method of policy-making illustrates their unconventional approach to policy-making. They call it “Liquid Democracy” and it involves members making suggestions online which then get bounced around through chat rooms, which they call Pirate Pads, before emerging from cyberspace into the real world as policy. Polls suggest that the biggest support for the Pirates is among those aged under 34. For more, see The Pirate Party Fills the Political Gap and Germany’s Pirate Party Riding High.

Attention Digest Fans: For the next two weeks while I take some much-needed time off, our special guest editor will be the Digest’s Founding Father, Kevin! Please email events to him at kevin@occupyboston.org.

“‎It is very easy to conform to what our society or your parents or your teachers tell you. That is a safe and easy way of existing: but that is not living. To live is to find out for yourself what is true.”  Jiddu Krishnamurti

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