I will be posting a new Occupied Media interview on #D22 (it may be Boots Riley - depending on how quickly our video editor can turn the video around. I will also be re-posting an essay on #D23 and am working on another essay (which may or may not be done before the New Year).
In the spirit of year-end reflection, I'm going to post some of the great videos, articles and blog posts that have been posted here over the past three months. I'm also going to be making my way through the Berkeley Sociology Journal page on Occupy (link below) and will post links to articles of note as I work my my through them.
Occupy Wall Street Sign for the Holidays, Part I
#D21
12:03 AM: Here's an amazing link from the Berkeley Journal of Sociology with Occupy links that will keep me reading for several days (h/t Govind). I've placed a permanent link on the left sidebar - Berkeley Journal of Sociology.
12:10 AM: Cutting the Taibbi Knot:
[O]ur democracy, as well as democracies around the world, is faced with its own built-in flaw, which I refer to as the Taibbi Knot (trademark to The Balanced Republic). Matt Taibbi sums up succintly in his classic article on Goldman Sachs the flaw of modern democracy:
In a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.
Take a moment to reflect ...
This statement is perhaps one of the most important of our times.
12:28 AM: This is an article from David DeGraw discussing the origins of Occupy Wall Street. David was certainly an early advocate and organizer of the movement - in fact, if anyone is arguably the founder (the person who first put forth the idea), I would argue it was David DeGraw. I believe he was also the first to frame the issues as the 99% against the 1%. Here is a six-part series he published in February of 2010 entitled: Full Report: The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America.
12:26 AM: Democracy Now! on D17:
9:47 PM: Thank you from OWS to supporters:
#D22
12:35 AM: Matt Taibbi - OWS is making a difference:
For those saying that Occupy Wall Street hasn't had a concrete effect, take a look at this. It's not much, but it's a little something. The leaders of the House Financial Services Committee announced yesterday that they will be holding hearings on the SEC's practice of concluding settlements with Wall Street defendants without forcing the accused to admit to wrongdoing....
What yesterday's move does show, however, is that politicians are listening to the specific complaints of OWS. A year ago, we would never have even seen hearings like this coming from the likes of Bachus and Barney Frank, who also supported them move. But now, everybody is trying to find a way to ride the wave. It's too early to celebrate any of this, but it can't be a bad thing.
12:46 AM: Chris Hedges!
12:14 PM: Where OWS should go from here.
12:17 PM: Crackdown at Occupy Wall Street New Orleans.
1:32 PM: Elliot Spitzer on Wall Street.
2:05PM:
RT_America RT America
"Take the tent, we're taking City Hall tomorrow!" yells #OccupyAlbany protester during eviction #OWS
2:07 PM: What Would Gandhi Do?
India gained independence without a war, something even the United States can't claim. This was largely due to Gandhi's understanding that the ends don't justify the means, the means are the ends; the means we choose dictate the ends we get. As this has come down to us, it is popularly understood as non-violence, but it went far deeper than that. After all, if actions are only against something, however unjust, the result will not satisfy people's need to see and taste and live and work for something that is just. Even if the negative effort wins, a new negative will replace it because a critical mass of people haven't learned to live in a positive way. Gandhi went so far as to say that civil disobedience is "worse than useless…without …constructive effort."...
For example, his call for non-violence included a call for a populist effort to help the wounded in the Boer War. His argument for the eradication of "untouchables" – people outside the caste system whom Gandhi renamed Harijan or Children of God – included a call for caste Hindus to clean sewage in Harijan colonies; a reversal of their positions and jobs. His rejection of goods whose raw materials were grown in India, then shipped to British factories and sold back to Indians at a high price, was also a call to support village artisans by buying their goods instead.
Millions of volunteers were given something tangible to do. Rich and poor, women and men, entitled and disenfranchised; all joined in. Coming to know each other and challenging their customary beliefs about each other changed them. Young high-caste men worked in Harijan settlements, housewives spun yarn or threw their foreign made possessions into bonfires, men and women supported wounded soldiers, aristocrats gave up their inherited titles and become known for their personal actions, and factory owners donated funds and personal services to schools and ashrams. These actions changed not just the poor, but also the powerful. For India, constructive programming became a political tool against the British Empire. Helping wounded and traumatized soldiers meant highlighting the brutality of war, serving a Harijan colony meant challenging the hierarchy of caste. They created the daily experience of democracy from the bottom up."
The Occupy protestors have demanded more regulation of the financial industry, arrest of the "financial fraudsters" responsible for the 2008 crash, a Presidential commission to investigate corruption in politics, freeing students from the burden of college debt, limiting the profits by health insurers, and an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those are all fine demands and we have responsibility for them in the way we vote. But they all depend on action at the top. We have the most responsibility where we have the most control – and that means control over our own actions. Every time OWS protests what happens at the top, there could also be a call for constructive action at the bottom.
2:34 PM: We're already paying what it costs to provide free education. Except if it were actually free, banks wouldn't be getting their cut.
6:30 PM: Nathan Schneider on Thom Hartman re: OWS:
6:58 PM: What the Occupation Owes Anarchists.
#D23
11:34 AM: Occupy Banking (h/t rjs).
11:56 AM: Paul Krugman: Welcome to Post-Truth Politics.
12:31 PM: I completely agree with this:
You know, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and the fact that Ron Paul has a few good ideas doesn't mean he's not a lunatic kook. He is. He's a lunatic kook who's learned to speak in complete sentences1 and whose kookiness occasionally overlaps with the pet ideas of both left and right.
But he's still a kook.
And this.
12:44 PM: I grew up in a working-class neighborhood build around a small inland port - it was a neighborhood full of longshoreman and, their counterparts, teamsters. They were once great jobs. Ports, for me, are a symbol of the decimation of the working class, which is why I have a special affinity for Occupy Oakland. These are some of my favorite photos:
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This is good post.
ReplyDeleteGood video.
Thanks for sharing