Occupy Geeks Are Building a Facebook for the 99% | Threat Level. Protesters volunteering for the internet and information boards of the Occupy Wall Street protest work and broadcast from their media center in Zuccotti Plaza on Oct. 2, 2011. Photo: Bryan Derballa for Wired.com “I don’t want to say we’re making our own Facebook. But, we’re making our own Facebook,” said Ed Knutson, a web and mobile app developer who joined a team of activist-geeks redesigning social networking for the era of global protest. They hope the technology they are developing can go well beyond Occupy Wall Street to help establish more distributed social networks, better online business collaboration and perhaps even add to the long-dreamed-of semantic web — an internet made not of messy text, but one unified by underlying meta-data that computers can easily parse.
[bug id="occupy"]The impetus is understandable. Now it’s time for activists to move beyond other people’s social networks and build their own, according to Knutson. How Occupy Stopped the Supercommittee" The Archdruid Report. Occupy protests: There's an app for that. When Apple introduced the iPad, most of its advertising focused on the applications it could showcase. Their most popular ads ended with the catchy slogan, "There's an App For That".
Now there's an App for Occupy Wall Street, as up to date and tech savvy as any of the top of the line offerings available through Apple stores. This one not only aggregates news - or at least some of it - in the world press, but offers access to social media to Twitter feeds and Facebook. There are Facebook reports zinging around the internet. There are Occupation reports relayed everywhere in the same spirit of the "Mic checks" during which occupiers in Zuccotti Park repeat what's been said so everyone can hear it.
Occupy's technology is driving its support base, communicating its message, and offering a counterpoint to the mainstream media which can be hostile and nasty. Leslie Griffith, an award-winning former news anchor on a popular Oakland, California TV station says the media has failed our democracy. Ralph Gomory: Occupy Wall Street Deserves Our Respect. I must admit that there is something about Occupy Wall Street that makes me think of the American Revolution. Not the fully developed American Revolution complete with an army, George Washington, and Valley Forge; I'm thinking of the earlier days, when there were only sporadic protests and occasional clashes. All those historic events took place in a world very different from the modern world.
The economy of the colonies was based on farms, and most people were farmers. And when those people rebelled, it was clear that they were rebelling against what they saw as oppressive government. For me the most remarkable thing about Occupy Wall Street is that it is not protesting against the government. And they could be right in their choice of target. Some American History -- Political Parties The world of 1776 was a largely agricultural world, mainly small farms. We still think of government today in pretty much the same terms that were used then.
The Goals of Corporations Effects Goals and Plans. A potpourri of #OccupyWallStreet Videos (3) In the Land of No News by Timothy Snyder. Home for me is an interstate highway in the middle of the country after dark. You could be anywhere, but you know exactly where you are. The coastal freeways, Interstates I-5 and 95, are busy and quotidian, but in the states that coastal people call “flyover country,” the big roads are our great, comforting Eisenhower modernity. The asphalt draws its lines over an uneven land, and the green signs order geography: odd numbered roads run north and south, even ones east and west; higher numbers north and east, lower south and west. In the Great Plains, you can not only register the route numbers and count the miles, once day breaks you can usually see what the next hours of driving hold. But flatlands have their own vulnerabilities. If in these last few months you tried to drive southeast from Lincoln Nebraska to Kansas City Missouri as I did, you would have found Interstate 29 flooded and the bridges over the Missouri River closed.
Group Endorses Walk Out in Economics 10. A small group of Harvard students and employees staged an “Occupy Speakout” at noon on Tuesday to express their solidarity with the “National Day of Action.” The group also sought to raise awareness of events they have planned for today, including a walkout of the popular Economics 10 introductory course and a March in Boston later in the day. “Mic Check! We are the 99 percent across the country!” The group chanted. The seven Mic Check participants drew attention to several initiatives taking place today, calling on students to join a campus-wide walkout Wednesday. “I urge all students to walk out of Ec 10, [because it] represents the ideology that brought about our current economic situation,” shouted organizer Gabriel H. Rachel J. “I think a more diverse viewpoint needs to be raised,” Sandalow-Ash said. But some students disagree with the characterization of the class.
However, Randi B. EC 10 professor N. This article has been revised to reflect the following corrections: An Open Letter to Greg Mankiw. The following letter was sent to Greg Mankiw by the organizers of today’s Economics 10 walkout. Wednesday November 2, 2011 Dear Professor Mankiw— Today, we are walking out of your class, Economics 10, in order to express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics course. We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University, and our greater society.
As Harvard undergraduates, we enrolled in Economics 10 hoping to gain a broad and introductory foundation of economic theory that would assist us in our various intellectual pursuits and diverse disciplines, which range from Economics, to Government, to Environmental Sciences and Public Policy, and beyond. Instead, we found a course that espouses a specific—and limited—view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today. Sincerely, Concerned students of Economics 10. In Defense of Ec 10. Today, several Ec 10 students plan on walking out of class to express their “discontent with the bias inherent in [the] introductory economics course.” (An open letter to Greg Mankiw gives a full description of why the students say they will be walking out.) As an economics concentrator, an Ec 10 alum, and a self-identifying liberal (on most issues), I think this walkout is regrettable, because the class gave me an excellent economic foundation that has been crucial to my success as a student and my development as a thinker, and furthermore, these protesters’ arguments (or lack thereof) against the course are entirely unfounded.
One would presume that, in this letter, students would lay out precisely what biases they find objectionable in Ec 10, but the closest they come to doing so is when they say, “There is no justification for presenting Adam Smith’s economic theories as more fundamental or basic than, for example, Keynesian theory.” So, the lectures and the readings seem clean. Who is Occupy Wall Street? After six weeks, a profile finally emerges. Very cool video by friend inspired by Occupy Wall Street protests. Michal Shapiro is a good friend of this blog, longtime reader and occasional mentor. She just joined Wikistrat because we want her analytically sharp but artistically infused perspective, which she shares regularly in a blog at HuffPo. Why? We don't want Wikistrat to simply replicate the closed society of intell/consultants from the real world. We want breadth, so that means subject matter experts from around the dial so blind spots in thinking are rooted out ("Has anybody ever considered . . .?
") in the simulations we pursue. Michal is an amazing artist (one of her paintings hung in Don Draper's office in "Mad Men" - and now hangs in my home office thanks to her gift) and turns out to be an amazing singer too, as this video shows. "Up the Spout" (thanks, Occupy Wall Street) from Michal Shapiro on Vimeo. Find it to play here at Vimeo.
Unbelievable Rant on MSNBC! Reporter CRACKS & Spews TRUTH! Occupy Wall Street Anonymous LOOK! Beyond the Limits of Neoliberal Higher Education: Global Youth Resistance and the American/British Divide | Truthout. “We need a wholesale revision of how a democracy both listens to and treats young people.”[1] The global reach and destructiveness of neoliberal values and disciplinary controls are not only evident in the widespread hardships and human suffering caused by the economic recession of 2008, they are also visible in the ongoing and ruthless assault on the social state, workers, unions, higher education, students, and any vestige of the social at odds with neoliberal values. Under the regime of market fundamentalism, institutions that were meant to limit human suffering and misfortune and protect the public from the excesses of the market have been either weakened or abolished, as are many of those public spheres where private troubles can be understood as social problems and addressed as such.[2] Privatization has run rampant, engulfing institutions as different in their goals and functions as public schools and core public services, on the one hand, and prisons, on the other.
Endnotes [1]. Occupy Movement Inspires Unions to Embrace Bold Tactics. Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination | David Graeber. Why are people occupying Wall Street? Why has the occupation – despite the latest police crackdown – sent out sparks across America, within days, inspiring hundreds of people to send pizzas, money, equipment and, now, to start their own movements called OccupyChicago, OccupyFlorida, in OccupyDenver or OccupyLA?
There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates. Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future? Perhaps, it's not surprising. A potpourri of #OccupyWallStreet Videos (4) Semi-Random Notes on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement. (October 20, 2011) Here are some semi-random notes on the Occupy Wall Street movement, based partly on some "insider" contacts.
I am honored to have long been in email correspondence with David DeGraw of Amped Status, one of the key initial organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement. As a result of our mutual support society/correspondence, I am also honored to be included in an email group of people I consider the leading lights in the movement to restore democracy and fiscal sanity to this nation, people like Matt Taibbi, Barry Ritholtz, William Black, Max Keiser, Dylan Ratigan, Karl Denninger, Yves Smith, Michael Hudson, Nomi Prins, David Cay Johnston, Paul Craig Roberts, "George Washington" and Tyler Durden, to name some whose work you have probably read.
I want to start by saying that David DeGraw has acted under extreme pressure with integrity and grace at every step of this amazing journey. There are definitely other significant groups that played a key role. 1. 2. Chinese leaders grow nervous about Occupy Wall Street. REPORTING FROM BEIJING -- On Oct. 6, Occupy Wall Street inspired some little-noticed sympathy in Zhengzhou, a city in central China's Henan province, when hundreds of pensioners and Communist Party members gathered to express their solidarity with the movement. Photos show a small group of demonstrators, many wearing red armbands, holding a banner that reads, "Resolutely support the American People’s mighty Wall Street Revolution. " But the demonstrators may have crossed an invisible line with the Chinese Communist Party.
Videos and pictures of the demonstrations were scrubbed from the Internet within days. Censors have selectively blocked discussion of Occupy Wall Street on social media websites and pared down coverage in the state-run press. "When Occupy Wall Street first happened, the Chinese government perceived this movement as a big victory for communism over capitalism," said Wen Yunchao, a prominent Chinese blogger based in Hong Kong. Global march against greed -- Jonathan Kaiman. Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for American Revolution. #OccupyWallStreet as a Global Unconference. In 2005, I had the opportunity to attend my first Foo Camp. It was an eye opening and mind expanding experience. Foo Camp is unlike any conference I’ve attended before or since. Foo Camp was the first of what became known as the Unconference movement. Over time, organizers have tried to put some structure around what constitutes an unconference.
My friend Andy Weissman pointed me to the rules of an unconference and, as you might expect, they’re kind of un-rule-y: The basic ‘rules’ of the Unconference……(1) The people who come are the best people who could have come.2) Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.3) It starts when it starts.4) It’s over when it’s over.5) The Law of Two Feet (“If you are not learning or contributing to a talk or presentation or discussion it is your responsibility to find somewhere where you can contribute or learn”). As I mentioned here a few weeks back, I’d planned to visit Zucatti Park to feel the pulse of #occupywallstreet for myself. Reflections on Occupy Wall Street and Contactcon (part 1) I arrived in NYC in the afternoon to attend www.contactcon.com (an intense one day conference hosted by Douglas Rushkoff rushkoff.com working with Venessa Miemis emergentbydesign.com and www.laureadeocampo.com/ ). Since I could not connect with anyone from the Contact event, I headed to the Wall Street area, and spent the rest of the evening participating in and observing and learning about Occupy Wall Street.
This evening was cold, rainy, and extremely windy. The park being occupied is mostly cement and cut granite, with a few trees, and filled with people eating, discussing, debating, camping, talking, playing music, and more. The park is surrounded on all sides by police barricades and news media vans and broadcasting equipment from all over the world. More than a month in to this, the people who have been camping here for a long time are generally reflecting that they are getting tired of being used as props in media stories.
I listened in on this activity for an hour or so. As German Pirate Party Hits 10%, Some Thoughts On The Next Five Years. This morning, the German Pirate Party hit double digits in a nationwide poll. That was a landmark event, no matter how you look at it. As the first double-digit poll reverbs in the five-year-old Pirate Party community, I’d like to take some time to reflect on these and the next five years. Not only is the German Piratenpartei polling at double digits, by the way: they are also in Kingmaker Position, holding the balance of power between the German political blocks. If this was the next election result, that means that they can ask for basically anything and make it happen in Germany and Europe. Next German elections are two years out, but this is already turning a lot of policymaking around.
(Side note: with polls around these numbers, it is imperative that the party leader with support is available to be visible faces of the party on all available media time. Anyhow. The old parties are not just assaulting free speech and exchange of opinion in general. Energy policy will be rewritten. There’s Something Happening Here. In The Halls Of The Hedge Fund Hackers. Marlise Karlin: Occupy Wall Street -- Global Nuisance or Revolutionary Brilliance. A potpourri of videos on #OccupyWallStreet (2)