Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Now that there is a nascent movement taking form on the streets of American cities, the media are asking, Who are your leaders?, and, What are your demands? The leaders will emerge according to their abilities. The demands will bubble up on their own as well–but here perhaps suggestions are possible.
All of the action right now has the weird aura of being an overture to the year 2012, fast approaching as we slouch into the potentially demoralizing holidays of the current year. I don’t subscribe to Mayan apocalypse notions, but there’s something creepy about the wendings and tendings of our affairs these days. OWS is nature’s way of telling us to get our shit together, or else.
EB contributor Piyush reports on a Tar Sands rally and Occupy events in Washington DC. He concludes: “I encourage all at post-carbon, energy bulletin to go to their nearest occupation when possible and participate in spreading awareness and contributing in whatever way they can.”
– NY Times gives thumbs up: Protesters Against Wall Street
– Pelosi Supports Occupy Wall Street Movement
– Krugman: Confronting the Malefactors
– Derrick Jensen Speaks To Occupy DC via Skype (audio-video)
– Think Again: The Era of the ‘One Percent’
– Occupy Sesame Street Gets Violent
– #OccupySesameStreet: The Making of a Meme
Like other love affairs, mine with OWS followed the usual trajectory. Admiration from afar. Approach. Gift-giving. Statements of support. Telling my friends how awesome the new love object is. Then, finally, union. At first, I gave money from Rhode Island. Then, I decided to rent a car, fill the trunk, and drive down to deliver it and introduce myself, shyly, tentatively.
The response was emotionally overwhelming — hugs, thanks, joy. For about $600 worth of socks, Neosporin, fleece, tampons. In my work terms, about four or five hours of private SAT tutoring. Good deal.
Review of “What every environmentalist needs to know about capitalism” by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster.
The majority of protesters against Wall Street, like the ones at Tahrir Square, have not to my knowledge spoken about overpopulation or civilization, but instead rail mainly about material deprivation and the absurd monetary wealth of the greedclass. This is healthy, but when demands are too narrow, and they are even possibly met, where are we?
– List and map of over 200 U.S. solidarity events and Facebook pages
– “We Are the 99 Percent” Creators Revealed
– Wall Street protests across the US (photo gallery)
– It Isn’t Nice (Malvina Reynolds)
We all know, or at least sense, that the world is upside down: we act as if there is no end to what is actually finite—fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions. And we act as if there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually bountiful—the financial resources to build the kind of society we need.
The task of our time is to turn this around: to challenge this false scarcity. To insist that we can afford to build a decent, inclusive society—while at the same time, respect the real limits to what the earth can take.
Whether Hartley’s unusual project will ultimately rise above the level of spectacle (or taxpayer boondoggle) remains to be seen…But at its best, by encouraging would-be activists to act as though they have the power to shape an imaginary community, such a project can show people that they can reshape their own real societies — simply by acting out, in sufficient numbers, the behavior of those whose actions matter. Activists in Greece, in Spain, on Wall Street, and throughout the Arab world have already discovered this hidden truth, sometimes at tremendous sacrifice.
– Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don’t get it
– What I Saw at the Revolution
– The Anti-Politics of #OccupyWallStreet
– Protests Offer Obama Opportunity to Gain, and Room for Pitfalls
– Blogging OccupyUSA (good source of links)
Deepening political anxiety about the economic crisis went public this week as Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England declared that “this is the most serious financial crisis at least since the 1930s, if not ever.” and David Cameron in his keynote speech to the Conservative Party Conference admitted that “the threat to the world economy – and to Britain – is as serious today as it was in 2008 when world recession loomed.”
