Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Susan of Texas at Hunting of Snark
Make sure to check in on Susan's blog - she's always good and she does the valuable public service of reading Megan McArdle so the rest of us don't have to....
Friday, February 24, 2012
Day 11: Teamsters, CWA, Friends, Occupy AT&T in GA
Via Teamster Nation....
Occupy Atlanta launched a surprise protest against AT&T Monday, staging a sit-in at the communication giant's Southeast headquarters in downtown Atlanta to protest its planned layoffs of hundreds....the participants (include) ... retired Communications Workers of America (CWA) members, a Teamster organizer and members of Atlanta Jobs With Justice. They sat as a group in the lobby, each wearing hot-pink hearts made of poster board that read "No Layoffs" and "AT&T Have A Heart."
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Georgia's Reaction to Occupy Striking With AT&T Workers
Via Jim Nichols....
ALERT:: here comes the full on assault on BOTH the labor movement, Occupy, and all social justice organizations in Georgia. : Georgia Senate Bill 469 (SB469), introduced today, attempts to effectively bankrupt labor organizations in our state and prevent our movements from 'mass picketing' outside of a business or private residence we 'target' with penalties up to $10,000 per day of violation. But there's more....perhaps the most blatant and outrageous assault on our movements, coming right on the heels of our historic direct action at Occupy AT&T is Section 5- which will make it a FELONY to 'conspire' to commit criminal trespass while engaged in a political direct action- the act that 12 of us led last Monday at AT&T. There is no coincidence that the anti-worker, corporate funded, sponsors of SB 469 have set their targets on ALL progressive social forces in Georgia and thus require our immediate and unified response. This bill poses an absolute attack on basic worker rights and on all of our movements- but should also be viewed as a historic opportunity for us to mobilize a response in kind with even more united, bold series of actions to defeat it. Read the bill in its entirety here: http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/versions/sb469_As_introduced_LC_37_1386ER_2.htm
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Help Save Katie's Mitchell's Home - 3 Phone Calls, #OO, #OccupyHomes, @OakFoSho
Peter Barker, JP Morgan Chase, West Coast Operations - (310) 860-7007
Julius Robinson, VP Exec, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility - (415) 765-3883
Union Bank - (510) 891-9505
Suggested Script
Hello, I am calling to leave a message for (Peter Barker/Julius Robinson/Union Bank). I am calling on behalf of homeowner Katie Mitchell, residing at 5833 Freemont Street, in Oakland, California. She wants to stay in her home and I am asking that you do the right thing and give her a permanent loan modification with a responsible principal write down. Thank you.
Julius Robinson, VP Exec, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility - (415) 765-3883
Union Bank - (510) 891-9505
Suggested Script
Hello, I am calling to leave a message for (Peter Barker/Julius Robinson/Union Bank). I am calling on behalf of homeowner Katie Mitchell, residing at 5833 Freemont Street, in Oakland, California. She wants to stay in her home and I am asking that you do the right thing and give her a permanent loan modification with a responsible principal write down. Thank you.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Occupy Prisons Today
Occupy Oakland is going to San Quentin today.... I know OakFoSho will be streaming at OakFoSho.com.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Krugman - Pain Without Gain
Via NYT:
[T]hings didn’t have to be this bad. Greece would have been in deep trouble no matter what policy decisions were taken, and the same is true, to a lesser extent, of other nations around Europe’s periphery. But matters were made far worse than necessary by the way Europe’s leaders, and more broadly its policy elite, substituted moralizing for analysis, fantasies for the lessons of history.
Specifically, in early 2010 austerity economics — the insistence that governments should slash spending even in the face of high unemployment — became all the rage in European capitals. The doctrine asserted that the direct negative effects of spending cuts on employment would be offset by changes in “confidence,” that savage spending cuts would lead to a surge in consumer and business spending, while nations failing to make such cuts would see capital flight and soaring interest rates. If this sounds to you like something Herbert Hoover might have said, you’re right: It does and he did.
Now the results are in — and they’re exactly what three generations’ worth of economic analysis and all the lessons of history should have told you would happen. The confidence fairy has failed to show up: none of the countries slashing spending have seen the predicted private-sector surge. Instead, the depressing effects of fiscal austerity have been reinforced by falling private spending.
A Word re: We Are All Greeks
Regarding the piece I posted, below, I really liked the piece except for this conclusion:
Really? Squatting empty buildings, community gardens and food networks? That's just too Road Warrior for me to get excited about. I mean we do still live in a good (albeit crumbling) country here - can't we just get rid of the greedy fucks and fix this shit up? Frankly, I think the climate's going to demand some sophisticated solutions. So, just thought I'd weigh in to say this post-apocalyptic scenario could happen, I suppose, but it really shouldn't be our goal.
That pushing through of a different world is not just a question of rage, although rage is part of it. It necessarily involves the patient construction of a different way of doing things, the creation of different forms of social cohesion and mutual support. Behind the spectacle of the burning banks in Greece lies a deeper process, a quieter movement of people refusing to pay bus fares, electricity bills, motorway tolls, bank debts; a movement, born of necessity and conviction, of people organising their lives in a different way, creating communities of mutual support and food networks, squatting empty buildings and land, creating community gardens, returning to the countryside, turning their backs on the politicians (who are now afraid to show themselves in the streets) and creating directly democratic forms of taking social decisions. Still insufficient perhaps, still experimental, but crucial. Behind the spectacular flames, it is this searching for and creation of a different way of living that will determine the future of Greece, and of the world.
Really? Squatting empty buildings, community gardens and food networks? That's just too Road Warrior for me to get excited about. I mean we do still live in a good (albeit crumbling) country here - can't we just get rid of the greedy fucks and fix this shit up? Frankly, I think the climate's going to demand some sophisticated solutions. So, just thought I'd weigh in to say this post-apocalyptic scenario could happen, I suppose, but it really shouldn't be our goal.
Two Kinds of Non-Violence
Full piece here:
Violence has always been a useful term for governments and their allied establishment figures in media and punditry. Key to that utility is a very specialized use of the term as a descriptor for actions that don’t originate with the establishment or authorities. Police, armies, presidents and city administrators do not engage in violence. They use strategies, protocols, plans of action, deployments, operations and strikes. The people that are injured and die in those acts are not actively killed by violence. Rather, they suffer only in the passive voice. Those swept up and encaged like animals along the way, without evidence, charge or sentencing in varying degrees, are not violently deprived of their liberty by the use of threat and force; they are administratively detained, imprisoned and held.
The language imbalance is a product of who controls the discourse of dissent. For governments, and their allied propaganda aides, violence is a fluid word used only to describe the actions of those who destabilize the status quo. This has been readily evident in my experience with Occupy Oakland, wherein all that is needed to focus a discussion about violence solely on the unarmed, is a bit of smashed glass, graffiti and/or the presence of flames. While that focus remains almost exclusively on the actions of the disempowered, authorities meanwhile use a wide-range of violent tactics to get their way. In the every day policing of the population they’re meant to protect, this varies from shootings, physical blows, the use of tazers in place of de-escalation, and incarceration. In the political realm, this includes the unsanctioned use of less-than-lethal measures in lethal ways; to the illegal and unjust kidnapping of protesters asserting their rights to assembly. Authorities rarely call any of these actions violence, nor do the liberals, conservatives and compliant media that support them.
No War, But the Class War: Contraception Edition
So, the economy is such shite that Republicans are having to go turn of the 20th century to get a bullshit cultural issue that actually gets people talking about something other than the 99% and the 1% (even Newt fucking Gingrich). I've resisted, but this one was funny (I'm posting for the joke, not the substance):
In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal.
Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception.
We Are All Greeks
David Rovics singing Internationale....
And my favorite version of Internationale (could have something to do with Warren Beatty)....
And my favorite version of Internationale (could have something to do with Warren Beatty)....
Saturday, February 18, 2012
LA Residents (#OLA, @OccupyLA)
UFCW Local 770 request support at Burbank City Council Meeting to oppose proposed WalMart store.
Please come to the next Burbank City Council meeting. Come early to make our presence known in a pre-meeting rally, and then sign up to tell the council your concerns!
When: Tuesday, Feb 21, 2012
4:30 pm Rally
6:00 pm Council Meeting
Where: Burbank City Council, 275 East Olive Avenue, Burbank, CA
Khader Adnan - 64th Day of Hunger Strike
In protest of being held in Israeli prison without charge. (Just read on twitter Gandhi's longest hunger strike was 21 days - couldn't verify that, but - in any event - 64 days is really long.)
End the Castlewood Lockout F#25
2-year labor dispute needs support.... #F25
SATURDAY, February 25th, 2012
9:30 am
Meet at the corner of Bernal Ave and Main St, Pleasanton. March to Castlewood.
* * *
PLEASE RSVP and invite friends – this is going to to be one of our biggest actions ever. Please let us know if workers can make a presentation at your school, union, community group, GA or encampment! For questions or rides, contact Matt at matt2850@gmail.com or 510-239-3472.
SATURDAY, February 25th, 2012
9:30 am
Meet at the corner of Bernal Ave and Main St, Pleasanton. March to Castlewood.
* * *
PLEASE RSVP and invite friends – this is going to to be one of our biggest actions ever. Please let us know if workers can make a presentation at your school, union, community group, GA or encampment! For questions or rides, contact Matt at matt2850@gmail.com or 510-239-3472.
West Coast Port Shut Down "Crucial" in Longshoreman Settlement
This is really good....
Here's another great piece on the settlement.
And from Daily Kos....
Just as a refresher, this was Occupy's explicit goal in calling for the shutdown:
This is a victory for Occupy in their involvement in forcing negotiations. Make no mistake – the solidarity and organization between the Occupy Movement and the Longshoremen won this contract,” said Jack Mulcahy, ILWU officer with Local 8. “The mobilization of the Occupy Movement across the country, particularly in Oakland, Portland, Seattle, and Longview were a critical element in bringing EGT to the bargaining table and forcing a settlement with ILWU local 21.
Here's another great piece on the settlement.
And from Daily Kos....
Just as a refresher, this was Occupy's explicit goal in calling for the shutdown:
Friday, February 17, 2012
They're Feeding People!
So, Foods Not Bombs is getting multiple reports of people being arrests and laws being enacted to stop people sharing free food with the hungry....
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Occupy the SEC Comments on the Volker Rule
About those disorganized kids....
And commentary....
Despite the seemingly universal sense that this could really do something, I can't help but think about the fact that Occupy - unlike the financial industry - cannot offer SEC employees ridiculously lucrative jobs. Hopefully, I'm just being cynical.... ultimately, we'll see if the SEC actually enacts Occupy's suggestions.
Occupy the SEC (with link to their full letter)
And commentary....
Reuters
Rortybomb
Mother Jones
Matt Yglesias
Swampland
FDL
The Nation
Salon
Despite the seemingly universal sense that this could really do something, I can't help but think about the fact that Occupy - unlike the financial industry - cannot offer SEC employees ridiculously lucrative jobs. Hopefully, I'm just being cynical.... ultimately, we'll see if the SEC actually enacts Occupy's suggestions.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Anonymous Message to Greek Government
No confirmation on whether this is authentic yet - will keep you posted.
Fucking Greece!
Austerity approved....Athens burns.
Anonymous is crashing every Greek site they can find and reports of "Tango Down" (used by the military to signal downed enemies and also by Anonymous each time a targeted site is crashed) are popping up on twitter every couple of minutes. You can follow at #OpGreece.
This is what Greek austerity looks like....
Anonymous is crashing every Greek site they can find and reports of "Tango Down" (used by the military to signal downed enemies and also by Anonymous each time a targeted site is crashed) are popping up on twitter every couple of minutes. You can follow at #OpGreece.
Anonymous @YourAnonNews
#Germany protests, #Greece burns, #Syria bleeds. #USA watches the #GRAMMYS. (via @AnonyOps)
This is what Greek austerity looks like....
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, CAN'T LOSE
I don't mention it often, but I'm a huge TV fan - not reality TV (gross), but the great "prestige television" that started around the late 90s and has continued to the present day. However, I don't write about it much, in part because I almost never watch it when it's actually on TV. I watch it on DVD, sometimes years after the series ends. I actually watched Friday Night Lights relatively contemporaneously to its air date, but since I was sick for two weeks, I had the opportunity to re-watch the entire series from beginning to end (which confirmed my belief that this is, by FAR, the best way to watch great TV shows).
Bottom line, it blew me away. It's one of my favorite series of all time and if you haven't watched it from the pilot to the finale, do yourself the favor. I've been meaning to write about it, but I almost have too much to say, if that makes sense. But then I happened upon this piece by Amanda Marcotte - who I almost always agree with - and I so vehemently and viscerally disagreed with her analysis that I had to organize my thoughts as to why.
Marcotte opens by disagreeing with the notion that Coach and Tammy are feminist role models; however, this is Marcotte's entry into the post, but not really it's point. The point - and what really, REALLY bothered me - was this:
Now, I'm only 2/3 the way through the last season, but I can say with confidence that much of the show has been about disillusioning Eric Taylor when it comes to his belief that hard work and clean living is all you need.
Given that Marcotte's piece is entitled "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can Lose," this is the real point of the piece. For Marcotte "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" equals "hard work and clean living is all you need." She continues:
As much respect as the show has for Eric, let's face it. Much of the show has been about the limits of his philosophy. He isn't even able to keep Tim Riggins out of jail, and Riggins was a layabout but basically a good kid.
This analysis just goes on and on, each new word deepening my conviction that we watched completely different shows.
It's difficult to know where to start because Marcotte's interpretation of "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" is flawed at every juncture.
First off: "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts" does not equate to hard work and clean living. I'm not sure how she makes that leap, but my best guess is that for Marcotte "clear eyes" refers to "clean living" (I guess because blurry eyes is the mark of hard living?) And then "full hearts" is the hard work part? I think you'd be hard-pressed to find much textual support for this interpretation (find me Coach Taylor telling anyone that all that is required is hard work and clean living).
I would argue - adopting a fairly literal interpretation - that "Clear Eyes" means knowing and accepting the truth. That can seem trite and easy to gloss over, but there's almost nothing harder than knowing and accepting hard truths about yourself, about others, about reality. For example, almost the entire town refuses to accept Jason Street will never walk again (the significant exceptions being Coach, Tim Riggins, Tyra Colette and Jason himself). Tyra later identifies Jason Street's injury as the key turning point in her life because, at that moment, she knows and accepts that life is not fair for anyone, which takes away her excuse to fail:
Tyra (angry): What should I write [my college essay] about? My trashy family? About the fact that my sister's a stripper? Or my mom is a high school drop out who drinks boxes of wine like it's water? Or about the fact that I lost my virginity when I was thirteen, or the fact that my papa wasn't around? How about that? Oh, I know. I could write about how up until two years ago I had enough hate in my heart to start a freaking car.
[pause]
Landry: What changed?
Tyra: What?
Landry: What changed? Why did you stop having enough hate in your heart to start a freaking car?
Tyra: Jason Street got paralyzed....
I realized that he was this great guy - this hero, and it happened to him.
It made me realize that life isn't fair for anybody. Not just me.
Marcotte's notion that Coach thinks that all that is required to succeed is "hard work and clean living," is simply false. Jason Street, of course, is the paradigm of "hard work and clean living" and he's paralyzed. In the pilot. And Coach is never deluded about Jason's injury, in fact, this is his reaction:
Give all of us gathered here tonight the strength to remember that life is so very fragile. We are all vulnerable. And we will all at some point in our lives fall.... We will all fall.
We must carry this in our hearts…that what we have is special.
That it can be taken from us and that when it is taken from us we will be tested…
We will be tested to our very souls.
We will now all be tested.
It is these times, it is this pain that allows us to look inside ourselves.
This is not someone who thinks "hard work and clean living" will magically result in desired outcomes. It's someone who recognizes those outcomes are out of our control and that our happiness and well-being, to be enduring, must depend on something internal and independent from the contingencies of life.
And, of course, "Full Hearts" is not merely about good intentions. It's about character and integrity. It's about relationships to friends and family. And it's about living with love and joy. It follows that the point of "Can't Lose" obviously isn't that you literally can't lose a football game - or be paralyzed for fuck's sake - the point is that if you truly have "Clear Eyes" and a "Full Heart," you've already won. The point is: the outcome was never the point. Football - like life - isn't really about the outcome. That's the meaning of "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose."
In the film Friday Night Lights - also written by the TV show's creator Peter Berg - the fact that it's not really about winning is made explicit:
Mike Winchell: You ever feel cursed, Coach? Like, no matter what, inside your heart you feel that you're gonna lose. Like something's hanging over you, following you like a witch or a demon that just... I feel like that all the time. Even when things are going good. When we're winnin', it's there. And when we're losin', it's there.
Coach Gary Gaines: It took me a long time to realize that, uh, there ain't much difference between winnin' and losin', except for how the outside world treats you. But inside you, it's about all the same. It really is. Fact of the matter is, I believe that, uh, our only curses are the ones that are self-imposed. You know what I'm sayin'? We, all of us, dig our own holes.
In the film, Coach repeatedly asks his players: "Can you be perfect?" Of course, literally, no one can be perfect - just as literally everyone will lose. But the meaning is explained in the final half-time speech, a speech that is clearly the origin of the aphorism that anchors the TV show:
Well it's real simple: You got two more quarters and that's it.
Now most of you have been playin' this game for ten years. And you got two more quarters and after that most of you will never play this game again as long as you live. Now, ya'll have known me for awhile, and for a long time now you've been hearin' me talk about being perfect.
Well I want you to understand somethin'. To me, being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship to yourself and your family and your friends.
Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn't let them down, because you told them the truth. And that truth is that you did everything that you could. There wasn't one more thing that you could've done.
Can you live in that moment, as best you can, with clear eyes and love in your heart? With joy in your heart?
If you can do that gentlemen, then you're perfect.
I want you to take a moment. And I want you to look each other in the eyes. I want you to put each other in your hearts forever, because forever's about to happen here in just a few minutes.
I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to think about Boobie Miles, who is your brother. And he would die to be out there on that field with you tonight. And I want you to put that in your hearts.
Boys, my heart is full. My heart's full.
How someone can read an all-you-need-is-hard-work, magical-thinking philosophy into that... well, as I said, we watched different shows.
Coach Taylor: When I first met you, you were climbing out of a police car. People said you were a punk and you'd never last on the field.
Vince: Screw that.I work hard for everything.
Coach Taylor: I know that and you oughta be proud of that. I am. Your teammates are proud of you. It's about character. It's about striving to be better than everybody else.
Vince: Coach, my dad just got out of prison. He's staying with me at my house. And I can't stand him. My mom she asked me to forgive him, to be better. And you're asking me to be better. I don't know how to be better because he never taught me how! He never taught me to be better! He's not around. And I'm supposed to be better!?
Coach Taylor: Listen to me. I said you need to strive to be better than everyone else. I didn't say you needed to be better than everyone else. But you gotta try. That's what character is. It's in the trying.
Far from being the shallow, borderline magical philosophy Marcotte attributes to Coach, "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, CAN'T LOSE" almost couldn't be more profound. It is the thesis - first articulated by Heraclitus - that "character is destiny." It is not - as Marcotte claims - a philosophy that denies the existence of tragedy; it is a philosophy that consciously defies - and ultimately transcends - tragedy.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Oakland Police Department
Great Yasha Levine piece on yet more excesses of the OPD (which has tended to get lost in the black bloc controversy).
New Chris Hedges - h/t Groobiecat
The Cancer in Occupy.
This is from a few weeks back and I think I posted it before, but it's worth re-watching:
This is from a few weeks back and I think I posted it before, but it's worth re-watching:
Anonymous and Occupy
So, no longer sick, but really behind on EVERYTHING.
Here is Nathan Schneider (interview with him to be posted soon) on the influence of Anonymous on Occupy:
Make sure to read the entire essay, which is fascinating. Here is an essay on Anonymous, which Schneider relies upon as well as an earlier essay by Schneider that puts forth the following thesis:
Here is Nathan Schneider (interview with him to be posted soon) on the influence of Anonymous on Occupy:
One of the things that amazed me during the first weeks of Occupy Wall Street was that, as the movement spread to occupations all around the country and the world, they were so similar to one another; all took direct democracy as the basic unit of political legitimacy, and prided themselves on a decentralized, horizontal structure, and discouraged credit-taking and self-aggrandizement. How did people all over the U.S. and the world know how to Occupy, and so quickly? Their preparedness can at least partly be attributed to the veterans of the global justice movement of a decade ago who flocked to the occupations. But perhaps even more significant an influence among the younger occupiers was the experience some of them had had with Anonymous and groups like it online.
Make sure to read the entire essay, which is fascinating. Here is an essay on Anonymous, which Schneider relies upon as well as an earlier essay by Schneider that puts forth the following thesis:
I see no quick-and-easy legislative, executive, or judicial patches for the problems which the movement means to confront. I’ve come to think, instead, that the movement’s lasting contribution could be something substantially more ambitious: a wholesale rethinking of political life, more akin to the promulgation of revolutionary France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen than, say, the introduction of a financial-transaction tax or the revocation of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
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