The call to occupy Wall Street resonates around the world

They  need  our prayers,  our  support and  our solidarity to  accomplish  what  needs  to  be  done for the sake  of  our  country  and  the injustices  being  perpetrated in  ours  names   throughout  the  World !!

****************************************************************************************************************************************

I  will also  be  including  videos  and  articles  that   embody the  reasons that have inspired movements like  the  Occupy  Movement.  Events and legislation In  our  very  recent  history to  inspire movements like  the  Occupy  Movement.  The  evil and  corruption that  has  lead   to  this moment  in time in   our  history where we  as  the  Common  Man  and   Woman / "We  The  People"  have  said   "Enough"  and   "Never Again In  Our Name"!

****************************************************************************************************************************************

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/19/occupy-wall-street-financial-system

The call to occupy Wall Street resonates around the world

We need deeper changes to our financial system, or tent cities of people angry at corporate greed will keep appearing

 

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 September 2011 07.36 EDT
  • Article history
  • Occupy Wall Street Anti-Bank Protest
    People protest during the 'Occupy Wall Street' rally at Bowling Green Plaza on 17 September. Photograph: Steven Greaves/Demotix/Corbis

    On Saturday 17 September, many of us watched in awe as 5,000 Americans descended on to the financial district of lower Manhattan, waved signs, unfurled banners, beat drums, chanted slogans and proceeded to walk towards the "financial Gomorrah" of the nation. They vowed to "occupy Wall Street" and to "bring justice to the bankers", but the New York police thwarted their efforts temporarily, locking down the symbolic street with barricades and checkpoints.

    Undeterred, protesters walked laps around the area before holding a people's assembly and setting up a semi-permanent protest encampment in a park on Liberty Street, a stone's throw from Wall Street and a block from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    Three hundred spent the night, several hundred reinforcements arrived the next day and as we write this article, the encampment is rolling out sleeping bags once again. When they tweeted to the world that they were hungry, a nearby pizzeria received $2,800 in orders for delivery in a single hour. Emboldened by an outpouring of international solidarity, these American indignados said they'd be there to greet the bankers when the stock market opened on Monday. It looks like, for now, the police don't think they can stop them. ABC News reports that "even though the demonstrators don't have a permit for the protest, [the New York police department says that] they have no plans to remove those protesters who seem determined to stay on the streets." Organisers on the ground say, "we're digging in for a long-term occupation".

    #OCCUPYWALLSTREET was inspired by the people's assemblies of Spain and floated as a concept by a double-page poster in the 97th issue of Adbusters magazine, but it was spearheaded, orchestrated and accomplished by independent activists. It all started when Adbusters asked its network of culture jammers to flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens and peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. The idea caught on immediately on social networks and unaffiliated activists seized the meme and built an open-source organising site. A few days later, a general assembly was held in New York City and 150 people showed up. These activists became the core organisers of the occupation. The mystique of Anonymous pushed the meme into the mainstream media. Their video communique endorsing the action garnered 100,000 views and a warning from the Department of Homeland Security addressed to the nation's bankers. When, in August, the indignados of Spain sent word that they would be holding a solidarity event in Madrid's financial district, activists in Milan, Valencia, London, Lisbon, Athens, San Francisco, Madison, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Israel and beyond vowed to do the same.

    There is a shared feeling on the streets around the world that the global economy is a Ponzi scheme run by and for Big Finance. People everywhere are waking up to the realisation that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system in which speculative financial transactions add up, each day, to $1.3tn (50 times more than the sum of all the commercial transactions). Meanwhile, according to a United Nations report, "in the 35 countries for which data exist, nearly 40% of jobseekers have been without work for more than one year".

    "CEOs, the biggest corporations, and the wealthy are taking too much from our country and I think it's time for us to take back," said one activist who joined the protests last Saturday. Jason Ahmadi, who travelled in from Oakland, California explained that "a lot of us feel there is a large crisis in our economy and a lot of it is caused by the folks who do business here". Bill Steyerd, a Vietnam veteran from Queens, said "it's a worthy cause because people on Wall Street are blood-sucking warmongers".

    There is not just anger. There is also a sense that the standard solutions to the economic crisis proposed by our politicians and mainstream economists – stimulus, cuts, debt, low interest rates, encouraging consumption – are false options that will not work. Deeper changes are needed, such as a "Robin Hood" tax on financial transactions; reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act in the US; implementing a ban on high-frequency "flash" trading. The "too big to fail" banks must be broken up, downsized and made to serve the people, the economy and society again. The financial fraudsters responsible for the 2008 meltdown must be brought to justice. Then there is the long-term mother of all solutions: a total rethinking of western consumerism that throws into question how we measure progress.

    If the current economic woes in Europe and the US spiral into a prolonged global recession, people's encampments will become a permanent fixtures at financial districts and outside stock markets around the world. Until our demands are met and the global economic regime is fundamentally reformed, our tent cities will keep popping up.

    Bravo to those courageous souls in the encampment on New York's Liberty Street. Every night that #OCCUPYWALLSTREET continues will escalate the possibility of a full-fledged global uprising against business as usual.

     

     

     

    Channel Banner
      globalrevolution

    This channel will feature live streams from global non violent revolution spreading across the globe, with the first broadcasts from Wall Street Occupa... (more)

    Now  

    Occupy Wall Street $eptember 17th

    http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of Earthchangers College to add comments!

Join Earthchangers College

Comments

  • SWAT team invades Occupy Seattle home

     

    Published on Jul 12, 2012 by RTAmerica

    On Tuesday morning, organizers involvedwith the Occupy Seattle movement woke up to the sounds of flash-bang grenades.The local SWAT team raided the apartment with guns drawn looking forevidence of anarchist material and allegedly were continuing an ongoing investigation of aMay Day riot. Phillip Neel, a political organizer, joins us with more on whathappened that morning.

     

     

  • OWS plans mass resurgence in Philadelphia

    Published on Jul 2, 2012 by RTAmerica

    The Occupy Wall Street movement has been fairly quiet these last few months, but on July 4 the movement is expected to reawaken. In Philadelphia, the event dubbed "The National Gathering" is expected to draw thousands from the different Occupy movements across the country. RT's Kristine Frazao tells us more.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlrjSWrOrro

  • From Coal to Foreclosures, Bank of America Faces Protest at Charlotte Shareholders Meeting

    Published on May 9, 2012 by
democracynow

    DemocracyNow.org - Occupy Wall Street protesters, environmental activists, and struggling homeowners are converging in Charlotte today for a protest outside Bank of America's annual shareholder meeting. The protesters are calling attention to the bank's involvement in the financial crisis, its support for the coal industry and its long record of alleged foreclosure abuses. The rally marks a test run for activism targeting September's Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Charlotte. The city recently enacted broad police powers to stop and search anyone carrying a backpack, purse or briefcase with the intent to conceal anything on a long list of prohibited items, ranging from weapons to markers to bicycle helmets. "Folks are coming to Charlotte to stand their ground against the predatory practices of Bank of America," says Rachel LaForest of the Right to the City Alliance, a national coalition of community groups that is bringing roughly 175 residents to Charlotte who have been evicted by Bank of America. "We're coming to their shareholders meeting and to say: 'This is what your practices have done to our lives.' We're entering into the space to become decision makers and ensure this stops." We're also joined by Rebecca Tarbotton, executive director of Rainforest Action Network, which is calling on Bank of America, the largest financier of the coal industry, to transition its investments out of coal and toward energy efficiency and renewable energy. "Bank of the America is the lead [U.S.] financier of coal -- the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. We're here to say to Bank of America: You need to get out of coal if you're serious about this country transitioning into renewable energy."

    For additional reports on this case, or to watch the complete independent, weekday news hour, please visit
http://www.democracynow.org.

     

     


  • OWS being dubbed 'domestic terrorists'?

     


    Published on
May 7, 2012 by
RTAmerica

    Last week, the FBI thwarted a plan of five self-proclaimed anarchist who were plotting to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, Ohio. The mainstream media has been on a campaign to associate the five individuals to the Occupy movement and are now questioning the entire movement. An undercover FBI agent allegedly sold the group explosives and many critics believe the government is attempting to discredit the movement. Here is our report.

     

     


  • Occupy movement strikes a chord in Seattle

    Beyond the few on the streets, many in the middle are taking up the cause.

    By Tyrone Beason

    Karrsen Brannon-Young participates in the Seattle-area Occupy movement almost full-time. He is photographed on Beacon Hill in front of graffiti (left by another person) that reflects the movement's intended inclusiveness.

    Enlarge this photo

    JOHN LOK / THE SEATTLE TIMES

    Karrsen Brannon-Young participates in the Seattle-area Occupy movement almost full-time. He is photographed on Beacon Hill in front of graffiti (left by another person) that reflects the movement's intended inclusiveness.

    <a rel=nofollow href=www.seattletimes.com/nwlife/pacificnw/L37/1706749214/Middle3/Seattl..." alt="" height="1" width="1"/>

    THERE'S A SMALL sign in the living-room window of Barbara Strindberg and Linnea Skoglund's home in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood that tells everyone driving or walking by, "We are the 99 Percent."

    It's a show of support for the Occupy movement that started with protests on Wall Street last year and branched out to cities across the country, including Seattle.

    Strindberg and Skoglund, both 60, are the picture of working-class Seattle. Strindberg worked at an electrical-sign company as a graphic designer up until last year.

    Skoglund is a retired drawbridge operator who worked for years on the span connecting the Roanoke neighborhood to the University District.

    From the outside, they appear to live a comfortable life.

    But once you walk through Strindberg and Skoglund's front door and probe the reasons they've joined the Occupy movement in spirit, the full complexity of that "99 percent" idea comes into high relief.

    Skoglund, who boasts of being one of the first female longshoremen in Seattle, has multiple sclerosis, and she increasingly requires help performing some tasks and moving around the house she and her partner purchased in 1984, shortly after they began their relationship.

    Strindberg left her job a year ago, not to retire and rest easy but to care for Skoglund full time.

    The couple lives primarily on Skoglund's pension, Strindberg's IRA and regular savings. Skoglund has a generous insurance plan, but it doesn't cover some equipment she needs. They may have to pay for a wheelchair to go with a special lift they've spent their own money to install in the house — an expense that could total thousands of dollars they really can't afford to spend.

    "We were living quite nicely with both of us working," Strindberg says. Now she's worried about how long the savings will last, considering the monthly mortgage and insurance premiums of about $400 each per month. "I'm not sure how much longer we can do it."

    Skoglund says her mother, a Swedish immigrant who came through Ellis Island in the 1920s, taught her that "to be self-sustaining is best."

    Lately, though, it's hard for her and her partner to live by that principle.

    Given the kitchen-table concerns of Americans like them, Strindberg and Skoglund say they can't believe politicians speak of cutting social programs and tax breaks for the middle class while preserving perks for the wealthy and well-connected.

    It's not just that regular folks and the powerful aren't playing on an even field — it appears to this couple, at least, that those at the top are playing an entirely different game that enriches only themselves.

    "More people are fed up than are not fed up" with the nation's politicians in particular, Strindberg says. "They're not governing — they're arguing and fighting."

    Harvard law professor and ethicist Lawrence Lessig put it another way in a recent television appearance: "The most interesting political divide in America right now is between the inside and the outside. The inside is from Mars and the outside is from Earth."

    In his book "One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic" he says "movements today are movements without leaders. They are movements of ideas mixed with passion." This observation perfectly captures the Occupy campaign.

    Organizers of the Occupy movement, many of whom are disillusioned with electoral politics, are not like their equally frustrated counterparts in the Tea Party, which had a significant impact in some 2010 congressional races. In fact, Occupy is not set up to morph into an actual party with clear leaders and a platform.

    Its members are less interested in running candidates than in amplifying the public's murmuring unease about the state of politics and the economy.

    Signs of the "passion" Lessig talks about are visible everywhere: from the placard someone recently hung above Interstate 5 on Capitol Hill proclaiming "Corporations are not People," to the cutout of a closed fist hung on a fence along Yesler Way in the Central District that beckons drivers to "Rise," to the letter board on an industrial building across the street from yacht marinas on Lake Union that screams, "Wake up America . . . Everyone benefits when everyone benefits," to the more personal message in Strindberg and Skoglund's living-room window.

    Who is the 99 percent? Consider these two answers:

    Read Full Article Here

  • Occupy clashes mark May Day in Seattle, Oakland

     
     
      
     
    License photo
     
     

    NEW YORK, May 1 (UPI) -- May Day protests in Seattle's retail area turned violent Tuesday when an estimated 50 demonstrators broke windows and clashed with police, authorities said.

    The demonstrators, wearing black and wielding poles, dispersed when police in riot gear confronted them, The Seattle Times reported.


    Mayor Mike McGinn said at a news conference those demonstrators got rid of their black clothing and rejoined the crowd. He said he had issued an order banning items at the demonstrations that would be used as weapons, the newspaper said.

    Some Occupy protesters in Oakland came under tear gas attack Tuesday by police who arrested nine demonstrators, authorities said.

    The Oakland rally was one of many that took place across the United States.

    The nine taken into custody on suspicion of interfering with officers, failing to disperse and related counts were among more than 400 people who showed up at Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza near City Hall, the Los Angeles Times reported.

    Police said they used "small amounts of gas" three times against "small groups of people who were committing violent acts," the newspaper said. Police said yellow paint was thrown at one officer, who was hit by a metal paint can and kicked in the ribs, the newspaper reported.

    A television news van and a police van were vandalized, and there were other minor acts of vandalism and graffiti, authorities said.

    Mostly, though, the rally was peaceful, the Times said. Among the protesters was Shaina Burnette, 31, who brought her 2-year-old son in a stroller decked with signs that read "Dear Corporate State, Can you please spare some clean air, water and food for my generation? Maybe a couple schools? Animal species? Trees? PLEASE…"

    In Chicago, dozens of demonstrators blocked the entrance to a downtown Bank of America branch, police said.

    More than two dozen city police officers were at the scene of the sit-in but no arrests had been made, WBBM-TV, Chicago, reported. About 15 of the protesters were ejected from the branch when they tried to go inside to open accounts, the TV station said.


    Read Full Article Here

  • Police offering drugs to Occupy Minneapolis?

    Published on May 4, 2012 by RTAmerica

    Some police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota are being accused of handing out drugs to members of the Occupy movement. A documentary called MK Occupy Minnesota sheds light on the alleged happenings and showcases teens who claim that cops offered them illegal substances. Many of those allegedly targeted by police are Occupy Minneapolis members and some believe the police are doing this to infiltrate the movement. Dan Feidt, journalist and OWS activist, joins us with more on this shocking allegation.

    Twin Cities Indymedia ( http://tc.indymedia.org )
    RogueMedia.org, Communities United Against Police Brutality ( http://cuapb.org ) Occupy Minneapolis ( http://occupyminneapolis.mn)

     

     

  • Protesters with the Occupy movement block one of the entrances to the Port of Oakland in California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

    Protesters with the Occupy movement block one of the entrances to the Port of Oakland in California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

    Bloomberg News

    Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Protests in May Day Resurgence

    By Henry Goldman and Esmé E. Deprez on April 30, 2012

    Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, whose anti-greed message spread worldwide during an eight-week encampment in Lower Manhattan last year, plan marches across the globe today calling attention to what they say are abuses of power and wealth.

    Organizers say they hope the coordinated events will mark a spring resurgence of the movement after a quiet winter. Calls for a general strike with no work, no school, no banking and no shopping have sprung up on websites in Toronto, Barcelona, London, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia.

    In New York, Occupy Wall Street will join scores of labor organizations observing May 1, traditionally recognized as International Workers’ Day. They plan marches from Union Square to Lower Manhattan and a “pop-up occupation” of Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, across the street from Bank of America’s Corp.’s (BAC) 55-story tower.

    “We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo,” organizers said in an April 26 e-mail.

    Occupy groups across the U.S. have protested economic disparity, decrying high foreclosure and unemployment rates that hurt average Americans while bankers and financial executives received bonuses and taxpayer-funded bailouts. In the past six months, similar groups, using social media and other tools, have sprung up in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

    Read Full Article Here

  • Occupy Wall Street Sees Merit in Current Tax System?

    Wednesday, April 18, 2012 – by Staff Report
    tax150.jpg

    Tax Day Doesn't Belong to the Tea Party Anymore ... Over the past several years, few annual occasions have been more symbolic of the direction of political discussion in our country than Tax Day. This year, the IRS due date bears witness to the impact of the Occupy movement in American politics. Back in 2009 and 2010, Tax Day protests were a high-water mark for the Tea Party; they were the mass actions that really put the right-wing movement on the map. But by 2011, as I wrote at the time, that was already changing. The Tea Party still had plenty to be happy about: it was coming off of midterm elections that gave Republicans control of the House, with a rabidly reactionary class of congressional freshmen. And through the summer the supposed imperative to cut back government spending—never mind the country's ongoing crisis of joblessness—would dominate Washington debate. – Dissent 

    Dominant Social Theme: The US tax system would be more tolerable if only everyone paid their fair share ...

    Free-Market Analysis: This article from Dissent magazine was also carried by Truthout, which is a leading alternative media news source, though one that focuses on an apparently leftist interpretation of modern events.

    The point the article makes is an interesting one and once more confirms our belief that the Occupy Wall Street movement is becoming a kind of anti-Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement itself was in its original formula a populist expression of disgust with the way the US is headed.

    The deepening economic recession (depression?), unemployment, endless war on terror and a political establishment that was continually more intrusive rather than less all helped trigger a spontaneous outburst of frustration. The campaign of Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul provided a focal point (and unifying force) for the initial movement.

    It still exists, though it has been to a considerable extent co-opted by a political establishment that has tried to push the movement toward the profile of the GOP's pro-war "patriotism" perspective.

    The Occupy movement itself, we have long been aware, is also a sort of establishment effort to co-opt the populist – and libertarian – feeling that gave rise to the Tea Party. Along with others, we've traced the money trail back to people like George Soros.

    Soros, one of the world's richest men, is also a globalist who works with the dynastic banking families that are apparently trying to create world government. It is not in the interest of the elites to have anti-government social untrest, especially in a powerful country like America.

    As a result, the powere elite that apparently wants to rule the world strikes back with false flag social movements intended to co-opt the real ones. Occupy Wall Street, with its emphasis on using mainstream government solutions (the current mad legal system, for instance) and enveloped in anti-market sentiments generally, is more along the lines of a "controlled" protest movement.

    Read Full Article Here

  • Fault Lines: Occupy Wall Street: Surviving the Winter Part 2

    Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Mar 27, 2012

    Fault Lines follows key Occupy organisers through the winter as they continue to build a movement even after violent evictions across the country.

This reply was deleted.

Blog Topics by Tags

Monthly Archives