Occupy SF Bay Area – in photos
For money, he does restaurant work, but his passion is photography. He travels by mass transit to Occupy events in the San Francisco Bay Area, documenting them with gorgeous art photos.
Activism
The most important news story of the day/millennium
The most important piece of news yesterday, this week, this month, and this year was a new set of statistics released yesterday by the Global Carbon Project. It showed that carbon emissions from our planet had increased 5.9 percent between 2009 and 2010. In fact, it was arguably among the most important pieces of data in the last, oh, three centuries, since according to the New York Times it represented “almost certainly the largest absolute jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution.”
System, not consumers, are the big green problem
Monstrous as the consumer economy has become, consumer spending is not the biggest environmental problem. Most waste and pollution is caused by industrial, military and commercial processes, over which consumers have no control.
Transition & solutions – Dec 4
– The Atlantic: A Conversation With Rob Hopkins, Transition Movement Founder
– Mark Bittman: Making Local Food Real
– Crowdshare and other events: How to share
Occupy – Dec 4
– U.N. Envoy: U.S. Isn’t Protecting Occupy Protesters’ Rights
– Occupy’s new grammar of political disobedience
– Hard Times at Occupy Boston
Around the world – Dec 4
– Thousands rally in Durban for climate action (BBC video)
– Dateline: Tahrir Square
– Letter from Cairo: the liberals, the Brothers, and the poor (some lessons for Occupy)
Occupy the Million Dollar View
Now that the current phase of the Occupation movement—one that involved camping out in public places—is drawing to a close, thoughts turn to other, even more effective venues and exploits. Occupying the front lawns of mansions owned by the 1% would certainly send a message, although a very brief one, since trespassing happens to be illegal.
And then it hit me: Occupy flotillas floating up to crash swank exclusive seaside gatherings.
Deep thought – Dec 3
– Powering the Future: A Nobel-Prize Winner Takes a Look Deep into the Energy Future
– Global warming, population growth, and food supplies: When will Americans finally “get it”?
– Feminism, Finance and the Future of #Occupy – An interview with Silvia Federici
– The Tailor of Ulm – a look at the Italian Communist Party
Around the world – Dec 2
– Millions of British Public Sector Workers Take to the Streets in Historic General Strike
– Lessons from Egypt: Occupy the Democratic Party
– Student Protests Spread Throughout Latin America
Occupy – Dec 2
– 2012=1968? (good article)
– Organizing Principles for 99 Percent Clubs
– Arundhati Roy: ‘The people who created the crisis will not be the ones that come up with a solution’
– NYT: Camps Are Cleared, but ‘99 Percent’ Still Occupies the Lexicon
– Why Naomi Wolf got it wrong
Climate – Dec 2
– Nature Bombshell: Climate Experts Warn Thawing Permafrost Could Cause 2.5 Times the Warming of Deforestation
– An Arctic Wildcard Could Make the Climate Go Bust
– Changing climate of Republican opinion doesn’t agree with Tea Party
– Climate change: 2011 temperatures the hottest ever during La Nina
Where do we occupy from here?
They clearly do not want us in the parks. That much is clear after a national crackdown on park occupations throughout the United States. With violent police interventions from Portland to Oakland to Philadelphia to New York (and a lot of other places), this particular tactic may have run its course as the spatial organizing principle, at least for now. We’re also headed into December, and in New York at least, an outside occupation was going to go the way of Valley Forge. So rather than be demoralized, I’d like to see our removal from the parks as an opportunity. Don’t get me wrong, police beating people is never “a good thing,” but it forces us to imagine other ways to channel this energy. Here are some ways people have thought of occupations beyond the park.
