Dewey Square fills with Occupy Boston protestors after march from Copley Square
Between 80 and 100 protesters claiming to be activists of the Occupy movement have rushed onto Dewey Sqaure after marching through the Back Bay and downtown Boston with signs and banners.
After a slow march that ended in a sprint, some protesters shouted “Welcome home, Occupy” as they reached the green space from which the protest group was removed from last month. Others planted a flag reading “Occupy Boston at Dewey Square.”
Boston: Student movement formed from Occupy, protestors camp at UMASS
Friday marked day five of Occupy UMASS Boston protestors camping inside the university’s student center. With three tents and donated food, the group of approximately 25 students say they’re comfortable sleeping overnight on campus and returning to class in the morning all for the sake of lowering tuition and fees.
UMB Senior and Occupy protestor Stephanie Fail passionately spoke about the lack of student voice in the decision making process, “When students trustees in the past have gone to request for more student spots on the trustee board they were pushed aside too and said ‘No we would have to add more non-students trustees to keep it balanced.’ I don’t see how it’s balanced to have 20 or more trustees and two students.”
http://tinyurl.com/7jjdqh7
It’s Time to Occupy for the Minimum Wage
As a student at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., I witnessed the Occupy Minnesota movement in downtown Minneapolis. While interning in the Boston area, I visited the Occupy Boston encampment in the city’s financial district. In both regions, there appears to be widespread support for the Occupy movement, although critics say the movement lacks an issue or demand to focus on.
The minimum wage is an issue that spans partisan lines and that the Occupy movement should embrace. According to a 2011 American Values Survey, over two-thirds of Americans support raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10. At the same time, polls are mixed but many show that a majority of Americans support the goals and principles of the Occupy movement.
Although President Barack Obama did not mention the Occupy movement in his State of the Union message on Jan. 24, his call for “economic fairness” for all families was a major point of emphasis, and proposals to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor can be seen throughout the speech. Increasing the minimum wage would be a great starting point.
http://tinyurl.com/8ys627o
After lull, Occupy protest resurfaces in Oakland – more than 400 arrested
For weeks the protests had waned, with only a smattering of people taking to Oakland’s streets for occasional weekend marches that bore little resemblance to the headline-grabbing Occupy demonstrations of last fall.
Then came Saturday, which started peacefully enough – a midday rally at City Hall and a march. But hours later, the scene near downtown Oakland had dramatically deteriorated: clashes punctuated by rock and bottle throwing by protesters and volleys of tear gas from police, and a City Hall break-in that left glass cases smashed, graffiti spray-painted on walls and an American flag burned.
Corporate Media Dutifully Report Oakland City Officials’ Version of Events
It was, once again, a tale of two protests. Accounts in the corporate media relied primarily on police statements to paint protesters as wild animals running amok in the city, while those following the day’s events via a small group of “citizen-journalists” broadcasting raw, unedited footage from their cell-phones and flip-cams got a wildly divergent view of exactly how things escalated.
http://tinyurl.com/7tnsepe
Journalists-Myself Included-Swept Up in Mass Arrest at Occupy Oakland
As soon as it became clear that I would be kettled with the protesters, I displayed my press credentials to a line of officers and asked where to stand to avoid arrest. In past protests, the technique always proved successful. But this time, no officer said a word. One pointed back in the direction of the protesters, refusing to let me leave. Another issued a notice that everyone in the area was under arrest.
I wound up in a back corner of the space between the YMCA and a neighboring building, where I met Vivian Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle and Kristin Hanes of KGO Radio. After it became clear that we would probably have to wait for hours there as police arrested hundreds of people packed tightly in front of us, we maneuvered our way to the front of the kettle to display our press credentials once more.
Independent livestreamer in NYC assaulted by person in ‘black bloc’ garb – marchers strip attacker’s mask, tweet pictures
[Livestreamer Tim Pool was assaulted during the NYC solidarity with Oakland march tonight. The MSM report below focuses on it as a possible attack by a member of an affinity group in ‘black bloc’ clothing, but Pool discusses several possibilities including his beef with an affinity group of anarchists, and his suspicion that the attacker could be a provacateur here. (Update: the 10:37 pm clip has now been edited – cut short leaving out Pool’s extensive discussion with several other marchers of his issues with an affinity group, and the problem of infiltrators and provacateurs)]
Journalist Tim Pool began live-streaming an Occupy Wall Street solidarity march for Occupy Oakland in Manhattan Sunday night. The march was intended to demonstrate support for the 400 or so Occupy Oakland protesters arrested in Oakland, California on Saturday and charged with breaking into a YMCA and Oakland’s City Hall in addition to resisting police.
Mr. Pool’s jittery stream provided a chaotic look at an Occupy action from the inside and also raised questions for many not that familiar with the Occupy movement and associated variations in protest actions. Questions such as: what does the ominous term “Black Bloc” mean and is it really part of the Occupy movement?
“Occupy” Super Bowl XLVI has arrived
A growing development this week will be the Occupy Indiana movement as workers are protesting a current “Right To Work” bill which is set to pass on Wednesday. Gov. Mitch Daniels is set to sign the bill and make it law on Wednesday after the bill goes back to the Indiana Senate which had already voted in favor. Indiana Republicans are hugely in favor of the bill because they believe it will bring business to the state. What it does is ban Labor Unions from collecting dues from it’s members, thus pretty much bankrupting the Union and “Busting” it. Given the Super Bowl is about as big of a stage as it gets, it will be interesting to see if news outlets are willing to cover the protests as they grow throughout the week .
The protesters are also likely to have some pretty good support. The NFLPA has released a statement against the bill and player rep DeMaurice Smith stated the players union may “possibly” support the protest but “We will have to see what’s going to go on when we’re there, but issues like this are incredibly important to us.” Not only player support could affect the environment surrounding the game, but beer truck drivers and other unions which could impact the flow of the day could also join in.
http://tinyurl.com/7frogns
Apple hit by boycott call over worker abuses in China
Apple, the computer giant whose sleek products have become a mainstay of modern life, is dealing with a public relations disaster and the threat of calls for a boycott of its iPhones and iPads.
Medical Professionals Join Washington Square Demonstration
Doctors sporting white coats, nurses in their scrubs, patients and health care advocates are joining the ranks of the Occupy Wall Street movement to protest at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village this afternoon.
The demonstration, called “Healthcare For The 99 Percent,” aims to show how economic inequality is making patients sick.
http://tinyurl.com/6vksr7l
Critics of capitalism call global protest in June
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – Thousands of critics of capitalism meeting in Brazil called Sunday for a worldwide protest in June to press for concrete steps to tackle the global economic crisis.
The World Social Forum wrapped up a five-day meeting in this southern Brazilian city, urging citizens to “take to the streets on June 5” for the global action, which would be in support of social and environmental justice.
The forum also announced a “peoples’ summit” of social movements to be held in parallel with the high-level UN conference on sustainable development scheduled next June 20-22 in Rio.
http://tinyurl.com/8584osv
Twitter Users Boycott Censorship with Silence
Before the blackout, Twitter users all over the world used the site to bash the policy. The site has been a powerful tool in organizing the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States and pro-democracy protests throughout the Middle East. Now, critics believe that function could be put in jeopardy.
“It’s bringing questions to people’s minds and raising awareness that this is happening,” Espinosa said.
Understanding capitalism’s crisis – The GOP campaign and Occupy need to fully understand capitalism to address current issues
Historically, groups committed to religious, paternalistic, ethnic, communal and socialist logics have formed the most important resistances to capitalism. Each group has its own history. Many predate the emergence of capitalism. Most importantly, unlike the capitalist way, they all believe human beings are social beings who have moral obligations to each other.
The first principle of capitalist logic is that anything real or imagined can be turned into a commodity. Capitalist logic establishes the value of commodities in markets where sellers and buyers set prices. As capitalists see it, commodities that find no buyers have no value; production and exchange of commodities are good if profits result and bad when losses result. Here, the terms good and bad have no moral content.
Private ownership and profit maximization are also essential elements of capitalism. In capitalism, we own ourselves as property, defining human beings as individuals motivated by self-interest who are essentially alienated from each other. It turns love and affection into an investment and cost-benefit calculation.
http://tinyurl.com/7263m22
Cops tase protester at Occupy DC
Tensions between Occupy DC protesters and law enforcement increased Sunday afternoon with the arrest of a demonstrator and the approach of Monday’s noon deadline to enforce a ban on overnight camping.
Tempers flared around midday after police subdued a protester in McPherson Square with an electric shock. Several protesters accused the police of using excessive force, saying the demonstrator had been handcuffed by two police officers before a third used the electronic device to stun him.
New York police in fresh clashes with Occupy protesters
Debris was pulled into the streets by marchers who headed from the north of Manhattan downtown towards the Financial District.
There were unconfirmed reports of a number of arrests, with claims that the police had used stun guns against marchers.
Occupy Lincoln’s [NE] letter to the city
We are here because we feel Nebraskans need to be reminded that the purpose of government is to serve its constituency, not its campaign donors. We are here to decry the ways in which corporations’ uninhibited political expenditures affect American citizens. We are here because we believe that when money is considered speech, the poor are silenced. Most importantly, we are here not only because our right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of our grievances is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, but because, as Americans – and indeed, as humans – we feel it is our duty to do so.
Occupying Hawaii: Paradise Lost and Found
The natural splendor of Hawaii draws about seven million tourists a year as well as thousands of transplants, many wealthy, who relocate to the Pacific island chain for the relentlessly balmy weather. At the same time, the tropical Shangri-La barely conceals teeming tent cities, droves of poverty-wage workers and the legacy of the conquest of native Hawaiians.
Hawaii would thus seem both the unlikeliest and most appropriate location for the Occupy movement to appear and Occupy groups have popped up on all the major islands. Like other occupations, Hawaii’s occupiers say they are opposed to the concentration of power and wealth that have stripped the 99 percent of a meaningful voice in how society is run. But the occupiers are also trapped in the same boat with tourists, natives and transplants, navigating among clashing visions of a new society. They are grappling with how the Occupy movement is a utopian project, in vision and practice, in a place that is at once a tourist paradise for millions and a paradise lost for many natives and long-term residents.
Why Some Don’t Occupy: Faces Outside the Movement
“I don’t have the time,” said Robert, the 19-year-old East Haven resident, when asked why he didn’t ‘occupy.’
He said he logs more than 50 hours a week in his position as a store clerk, and that he repairs computers in his spare time.
With the money he has earned, the young man, who lives with his mother, recently bought a 1999 Saturn to replace the red motorcycle he had driven that, he acknowledged, does not run flawlessly in cold weather.
http://tinyurl.com/6sbshf3
After UN climate talks in Durban: All talked out?
.. . . the impetus for global co-ordination has shifted away from counter-summits to more decentralised encampments – from Cairo’s Tahrir Square to Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and the Occupy movement.
These emerging movements have connected and learnt from each other without the need to be formalised in a single mega-event. Manifestos and declarations (a central part of the Cochabamba process) have been sidelined, although common actions have emerged in other ways. The 15 October call to protest was the most widespread international mobilisation since the anti-war protests, while several ‘memes’ (copycat slogans and symbols circulated online) have helped to forge a common movement identity. This was also present in Durban, where Occupy protesters mic-checked as they sought to adapt the language of the ’99 per cent’ to the climate debate.
Occupy Ireland- the voice of an alternative opposition
Following a government guarantee to underwrite the country’s six major banks shortly after the economic crisis broke in 2008, Ireland’s population of 4.5 million was shouldered with an enormous debt of ?400bn ($515bn), proportionately the highest per capita commitment in the world.
To aid this enormous debt, in 2010 the EU and IMF entered Ireland with a bailout of ?85bn. The EU and IMF loans required the Irish government to hack public spending by ?12bn ($15bn) over the next three years, for a small country, with a population of only 4.5 million it is a huge sum.
The only real protest movement which has been questioning the ethics of the Government and the Irish banking system is Occupy Ireland. With a reported seven camps throughout the country, last week I visited two of those.
http://tinyurl.com/8xkyc7s
Cape Town: Attempt to occupy Rondebosch Common
Yesterday more than forty people were arrested in a major police operation to prevent the occupation of the Rondebosch Common in an elite suburb of Cape Town – the most unequal city in South Africa, which has now surpassed Brazil as the most unequal country in the world.
How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’
While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.
Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”
http://tinyurl.com/87swjnn
Occupy The Hague: We’re not leaving
The city council wants the activists to leave because the winter regulations for homeless people will come into effect on Sunday evening. The council says the regulations apply to Occupy activists as well. “For their own health”, a council spokesperson said. “It is irresponsible to be sleeping outside in this kind of weather.”
However, a spokesperson for the activists argues they are well prepared for the cold weather. “We have warm clothing,” he said. “We have not been out here demonstrating for the past 100 days because we have nothing better to do.”
http://tinyurl.com/7jl8tz6