Activism

Memo to the #Occupied movement (a post-growth economy)

by

You courageous people in the #occupy movement are absolutely right in saying the system is broken, greedy, and unfair. But when our discussion turns to replacing the current system, we’ve got to embrace a bigger view of reality than the one held by stock traders and politicians. It’s not just our wealth they want to control, it’s our vision for what is both possible and necessary. We need a post-growth economy that works both for people (all of them) and for the rest of nature: a localized economy based on renewable resources harvested at nature’s rates of replenishment

Can the #Occupy movement be a turning point?

by

So what is the role of community organizers and progressive leaders in this moment of #occupy momentum? After the dramatic mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, the #occupy meme is spreading like wildfire and progressive forces are rapidly aligning around the protests.

Bringing down the wall: Occupy Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge arrests

by

The big bronze bull is surrounded by metal fences and strategically placed members of NYPD’s finest. The famous statue, the symbol of aggressive market optimism, is normally open for tourists to grope and fondle, but today, in part because of the “Occupy Wall Street” protest, it has been penned. Today, the Wall Street Bull looks amusingly like a panicked animal in a cage.

On the Occupy Wall Street ‘media blackout’

by

Part of the blame for poor coverage lies in the movement’s own media strategy, or lack thereof. From the outset, its organizers have focused primarily on creating their own media—just as Gandhi did during the Indian liberation struggle, and as so many other movements have since. The occupiers do this very well, with a (theoretically) 24-hour livestream, a newspaper, websites, and more.

Meanwhile, many organizers have purposely avoided contact with mainstream media outlets, and no plan was in place at first for how to deal with them should they arrive. … This is changing.

#OccupyWallStreet – COMMENT & ANALYSIS – Oct 4

by

– #OccupyWallStreet is a church of dissent not a protest
– Gandhi goes to Wall Street
– Sharon Astyk – Don’t Feed the Zombies: The Problem of Protesting the Thing You Depend On
– The Unrepentant Marxist encounters Occupy Wall Street
– Understanding the Theory Behind Occupy Wall Street’s Approach

#OccupyWallStreet – Oct 2

by

– Occupy Wall Street: FAQ
– The Bankers and the Revolutionaries (NYT’s Nicholas Kristof gives it a thumbs up)
– Keep It Simple, Keep It Real
– Declaration of the Occupation of New York City (official statement)
– A Tale of Two Rallies
– Coverage by Guardian, BBC, NY Times
– Young activist covers Occupy Boston

#OccupyWallStreet and the new forms of revolt

by

– NYT: Wall Street Occupiers, Protesting Till Whenever
– We Are the 99 Percent – protestors tell their stories
– The Nuts and Bolts of #OccupyWallStreet
– The Danger of Simplicity
– Leninist assumptions and cult hierarchies
– Murdoch and Berlusconi: the fall of two media empires and the network multitudes

The overburden: Review of “The Last Mountain”

by

The film The Last Mountain has it all: a human story of ordinary citizens fighting a soulless and unaccountable coal corporation; an urgency as the last mountain in the Coal River Valley is eyed by Big Coal for surface mining; a history and context for the people’s claim to the rights of the commons; activism in the form of petitioning the government as well as civil disobedience; the role of business, profit, labor and economy as labor power is eroded and corporate profits soar; the eco-system, heritage, and culture of the region; and a new way forward proposed by the people themselves. It’s the best documentary I’ve seen on mountain top removal. But really, it’s about so much more and has come together perfectly as a gestalt, a meme for our times.

The Last Mountain, June 2011, 95 minutes, Dada Films, Directed by Bill Haney.

Abandoning the middle class, governments lose legitimacy

by

People who care about climate change and peak oil have long despaired of convincing their national governments to take decisive action or even, in some cases, to acknowledge that there’s a problem. Now, the world’s democracies seem to be losing the confidence of their citizens to deal with the economic crisis too.