Football players may support Occupy the Super Bowl in fight against ‘right to work’ law
As the February 5 Super Bowl approaches, right-to-work opponents [in Indiana] are buoyed by support from the NFL Players Association. The NFLPA released a statement against the bill and six football player unionists, all Indiana natives, sent letters to the legislature last week opposing it. Protesters celebrated this support with an “NFLPA Appreciation Day” last Thursday. Wearing football jerseys, hundreds marched through the snow to Lucas Oil Stadium, where the Super Bowl will be played.
While Democrats said today they have no plans to intervene in the big game, protesters may have other ideas. In the past few weeks, “occupy the Super Bowl” has become one of the most popular chants in the statehouse.
NFLPA Director DeMaurice Smith indicated in an interview yesterday that the football players’ union may “possibly” support a demonstration outside the stadium. Noting that the union has lent its support to picket lines in the past, he said, “We’ll have to see what is going to go on when we’re there, but issues like this are incredibly important to us.”
http://tinyurl.com/7ywzgdt
Update: Support petition for NFL player action here.
Corporate cheerleaders at Davos: ‘Now is the moment for business to take over from government as the key force for social change’
The Corporate Muppets running Davos, the annual gathering of financial and industrial leaders, launched their 2012 meeting saying that now is the moment for business to take over from government as the key force for social change. But the evidence they present for this claim proves quite the opposite: in reality, while trust in politicians and companies has collapsed, public movements like Occupy and Tea Party, plus peer-to-peer web sites are likely to become far more influential.
The impetus for the debate is the just-released poll by Edelman, a corporate PR company, showing that the public’s faith in government has dropped sharply around the world in the past year due to a mixture of corruption and incompetence. It is this change which is causing people to go off-grid in growing numbers, particularly in the US.
http://tinyurl.com/77r3yfo
Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable
You may remember that there was a time when apartheid in South Africa seemed unstoppable. Sure, there were international boycotts of South African businesses, banks, and tourist attractions. There were heroic activists in South Africa, who were going to prison and even dying for freedom. But the conventional wisdom remained that these were principled gestures with little chance of upending the entrenched system of white rule.
“Be patient,” activists were told. “Don’t expect too much against powerful interests with a lot of money invested in the status quo.”
With hindsight, though, apartheid’s fall appears inevitable: the legitimacy of the system had already crumbled. It was harming too many for the benefit of too few. South Africa’s freedom fighters would not be silenced, and the global movement supporting them was likewise tenacious and principled.
http://tinyurl.com/7gcjfhu
Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/23/12” »
