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    • The OB Media Rundown for 1/18/12

    January 17th, 2012 · · Daily Media Rundown Comments Off on The OB Media Rundown for 1/18/12
    ‘Occupy The T’ issues considered

    At the meeting, “Attendees stressed the importance of rejecting the state’s claim that there is no alternative to the two proposed regimes of cuts and fare hikes,” writer Doug Greene said.  He added, “Instead of deciding between the MBTA’s two proposed plans, ‘Occupy the T’ hopes to expose the role of for-profit financial institutions in creating and perpetuating the MBTA’s budget crisis. Several present argued that the banks should cancel the T’s debt and state fund the T directly by raising taxes on corporations and the richest 1% of state residents.”

    http://tinyurl.com/84kwr7z

    Lamar Smith Says SOPA Markup To Resume In February

    For all the talk from some that SOPA was “dead,” it appears it’s alive and well and getting ready for its big re-entrance. Lamar Smith has just sent out a press release saying that he intends to resume the markup in February

    There had been some talk that, due to Rep. Eric Cantor telling Rep. Darrell Issa that he would not take it to the floor, the bill was “dead.” But, we knew all along it was only “delayed.” Especially given the Senate’s planned vote next week. This really is zombie legislation. It will not die… because some businesses that don’t want to adapt want to make sure it never dies.

    http://tinyurl.com/7bzzsao

    Occupy protesters rally against Congress at Capitol

    In a sign of renewed vigor for the Occupy movement, which staged protests in many U.S. cities last fall, several hundred protesters gathered on the Capitol’s West Front Lawn to greet members of Congress returning from a holiday break with a day of rallies and protests they said would include attempts to occupy lawmakers’ offices.

    Occupy protesters from around the country who gathered on the rain-soaked lawn carried signs saying, “Face it liberals, the Dems sold us out,” “Congress for sale” and “Congress is not for sale.”

    http://tinyurl.com/6rh2uw2

    Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/18/12” »

    Help Distribute The Boston Occupier

    January 17th, 2012 · · News and Announcements Comments Off on Help Distribute The Boston Occupier

    The latest issue of The Boston Occupier is coming out THIS WEDNESDAY (Jan 18th), We want to get out the word — all over Boston, and beyond — that our movement is growing, changing, and as urgent as ever. WE NEED HELP DISTRIBUTING, especially because we are printing 15,000 copies — 5,000 more than last time!! Here is the game-plan.

    • Our BIG DISTRIBUTION PUSH is the Wednesday afternoon commute. WE NEED VOLUNTEERS!! We want to hit all the busiest T stations; let’s have commuters on every line reading our papers — especially because our cover story concerns MBTA fare hikes! Volunteers should meet at 5 pm at “E5” (33 Harrison Ave, 5th floor). (If you can’t come until 5:30 or 6, that’s ok too.) It’s more fun to go out in pairs, so hopefully we’ll have enough volunteers to make that possible. We’ll have newly screen-printed Occupier patches and bandanas to wear, if you like. So, bundle up & come spread the Occupy news!
    • Copies of the paper will be available for anyone and everyone to pick up, beginning at noon on Wednesday in the Occupy Boston cubicle of “E5” (33 Harrison Ave, 5th floor). All of the papers (all 15,000 of them!) must be gone by the end of the week. Please take a stack and commit to distributing them in your community (small stacks in cafes, libraries, bookshops, laundry mats, community centers, waiting rooms, campuses, etc). In this issue: coverage of proposed MBTA fare hikes, the student debt campaign, the Socialist caucus, Occupy the Primaries, First Night actions, Mass Occupy, NDAA, and more!
    • If you are a part of another local-area Occupy movement, a union, or a community organization that is willing to distribute papers — let’s make it happen! Send questions or suggestions about distribution to Julie O (juliettejulianna@gmail.com) — or, better yet, just pick up a big pile of papers from E5.
    • Also available with this issue is our new subscription service, part of our effort to raise funds and make the Boston Occupier sustainable for the foreseeable future. An official online announcement is appearing on the website soon. I hope you’ll encourage those you know to subscribe to the paper!

    Please feel free to respond to me (juliettejulianna@gmail.com) with any questions, ideas, or suggestions.

    The OB Media Rundown for 1/17/12

    January 17th, 2012 · · Daily Media Rundown Comments Off on The OB Media Rundown for 1/17/12

    Those inspired hail King legacy in and around Boston

    And last night at the Arlington Street Church, the Occupy Boston movement dedicated its weekly gathering to exploring King’s legacy.

    “We see Martin Luther King as in the tradition of Occupy in that he occupied segregation, he occupied racial injustice, and he occupied discrimination,” said Brian Kwoba, 29, of Cambridge.

    http://tinyurl.com/732ja92

    Muzzling Dr. King

    True to form, then, it was business as usual at the city’s [Boston] annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast on Monday, with elected officials reducing Dr. King’s radical message to the usual platitudes about service to others – helping your neighbors with the snow shoveling, that sort of thing. Playing the “good Samaritan on life?s roadside” is fine for starters, King said, but “we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. … an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.” Oops. Sound familiar? Wasn’t there something like that going on this fall?

    So we have Mayor Thomas Menino saying he’s “proud that Dr. King’s personal history is rooted in our city” – though the Mayor wasn’t particularly pleased when #Occupy Boston took Dr. King’s message seriously. We like the man, alright? We just don’t like all this non-violent civil disobedience and First Amendment rights stuff.

    Governor Deval Patrick, for his part, urged attendees to follow King’s example by writing letters to soldiers serving in the U.S. military abroad. Really? Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine to write letters to people who – due to their patriotism, financial need, or some combination of both – are getting killed and maimed by the greatest expansion of imperial power in U.S. history, presided over by the nation’s first black president, no less. But to ask this of kids in the name of Martin Luther King, without mentioning King’s condemnation of imperialist wars, is an active betrayal of his legacy.

    http://tinyurl.com/7w5c76f

    Occupy protesters to gather outside Capitol, demonstrate against influence of corporate money

    Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement will meet outside the Capitol for what participants hope will become the largest gathering of Occupy activists from around the country.

    Participants say plan to decry the influence of corporate money in politics and show the House of Representatives what real democracy looks like. The House reconvenes Tuesday after its winter recess.

    The protest comes as the nation’s capital has emerged as one of the strongest bastions of the Occupy movement, in part because the National Park Service has allowed protesters to maintain their encampments in two public squares near the White House.

    http://tinyurl.com/7pv47oz

    Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/17/12” »

    Howard Zinn Memorial Lectures: From Occupy to Workers Control Panel

    January 16th, 2012 · · News and Announcements Comments Off on Howard Zinn Memorial Lectures: From Occupy to Workers Control Panel
    From Occupy to Workers Control Panel
    When:Friday, January 20, 2011

    Time: 6:00pm until 8:00 pm
    Where: Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA
    Join Immanuel Ness and Elaine Bernard for a panel discussion on From Occupy to Workers Control sponsored by the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series and Encuentro 5.
    The Occupy Movement is taking new and exciting steps as it continues to reshape political possibilities (such as reclaiming foreclosed homes). The discussion of how to organize a society that represents the interests and aspirations of the 99% is a debate that is being held across Occupy sites.What would it mean to really take the Occupy Movement into the workplace? Into the heart of the economic system itself? And how to do it? Join us on Jan. 20 at 6 pm for two of the contributors to the book, Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present (Immanuel Ness and Elaine Bernard). For more information about the Zinn Lectures and our upcoming events  please visit our website.

    OB General Assembly Consents to Proposal Condeming SOPA

    January 16th, 2012 · · Passed Resolutions 2 comments

    On Saturday night’s General Assembly, Boston’s General Assembly consented to the following proposal regarding SOPA, as well as blacking out the website on January 18th:

    A Proposal for Solidarity in Condemnation of Legislation to Destroy the Internet in Favor of Corporate Interests
    Brought forth by independent members of Occupy Boston and the Occupy Boston IT working group.

    Congress is currently contemplating laws that will dramatically change the way the internet functions. First introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA),also known as H.R. 3261, and its counterpart, the Protect IP Act, also known as Senate Bill S.968, expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to allegedly combat online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.

    SOPA/PIPA’s success in Congress has been in a large part due to lobbying by the infamous Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). They are opposed by nearly every internet content provider, electronic civil society organization, and the ACLU. The lobbyists are winning: As of last count 81 Congresspeople are in favor of the Act, and 29 are against.

    SOPA/PIPA extends current copyright laws, making websites liable when a user links to a page with copyrighted content. Websites such as Google, Youtube, and Reddit will be forced to proactively review any user generated content; the cost of this review will prevent the creation of the next Googles, Youtubes, and Reddits. Sites may be permanently taken down without judicial review because a user on a site linked to suspected copyrighted content. Any website which hosts user-generated content is a potential target of these acts. SOPA also makes content providers, such as Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon, liable when a user utilizes their bandwidth to access suspected copyrighted content. In order to protect their corporations, telecom companies and websites will be forced to filter and pre-approve all content. This would effectively transform the internet from a place for sharing and creativity, into a barren corporatocracy. The internet, a crucial tool of contemporary horizontal democracy, is vital to social movements such as Occupy, the global exchange of ideas, and businesses across the world.

    This proposed legislation is troubling to members of the Occupy Boston community, for reasons including, but not limited to, the following:

    •1. Freedom of Speech: The passage of SOPA/PIPA would infringe upon Internet users’ fundamental rights to freedom of speech and privacy. All speech would be pre-screened by both telecommunications companies like Cox and AT&T, and websites, like Google, Facebook, and Youtube. Websites which allow the collaborative exchanges of ideas, like Reddit, and message boards would be liable for any individual user’s link to copyrighted content. This will fundamentally transform the roiling marketplace of ideas that we currently know of as the Internet into a barren corporate landscape resembling the Internet known by web denizens in authoritarian regimes. This type of prior restraint on speech will destroy the internet as we know it and has always been unconstitutional in America.

    •2. Quelling Social Movements: Under SOPA/PIPA internet social networking could be destroyed on a whim. This would profoundly transform the way the internet is used for social movements around the world, harming any popular movement which relies on social networking. This includes the 2009 Iranian protests, the popular revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, Occupy, and other movements across America.

    •3. Jobs: SOPA/PIPA is job-killing legislation. Experts and industry professionals agree that if SOPA/PIPA passes thousands of jobs in the tech industry will be destroyed or shipped away from America to more speech friendly nations. If SOPA passes every small business that uses the internet will be negatively impacted; many startups will have little chance of surviving. Every aspect of internet business will be devastated from online advertising to telecommunications. By crushing the internet, SOPA/PIPA crushes the American spirit of innovation which has created jobs, and been a cornerstone of the American economy.

    •4. Corruption: This bill benefits a small number of Hollwood executives and music industry companies (a $10b industry), and is being pushed by their lobbyists, to the detriment of the $800b technology industry. You are not hearing about it because they control the mainstream media. This is but one example of the control well heeled corporations have over our political process, and our action is necessary to inform people who are being failed by the corporate media.

    Therefore, we, Occupy Boston do resolve the following:

    •1. To join in solidarity with other internet communities in a ‘website blackout’, Janurary 18th, where all visitors to occupyboston.org will be directed to a page containing information about both SOPA and PIPA. Functionality of the website will not be disrupted.

    •2. To encourage and implore supporters of Occupy Boston to write to their Senators and Congresspeople concerning the detrimental effects of both SOPA and PIPA.

    •3. To condemn the proposed legislation known as SOPA and PIPA for fundamentally crippling free speech on the internet, stifling social movements and creativity, recklessly destroying jobs and annihilating small businesses, and as an example of the endemic corruption which permeates our legislature in the interest of the 1%.

    •4. OBIT will work with the Media working group to use social media to proliferate the above message about SOPA. Media working group posts for the day of January the 18th will focus on SOPA. These messages will include information about the Android app SOPA Boycott.

    Any individuals with comments about ideas or possible actions are encouraged to join the live chat and share your thoughts.

    Contact us

    Occupy Boston Media <Media@occupyboston.org> • <Info@occupyboston.org> • @Occupy_Boston