Beyond The Choir:: Occupy & Space. No one can really say what unique coincidence of events and factors caused OWS to break into mainstream consciousness when so many well-intentioned and smartly planned protests with similar messages fell flat in the months leading up to it, but certainly the encampments were crucial (crucial though not sufficient, since one protest that took place shortly before OWS actually involved camping).
By taking space and holding it OWS has captivated America like no protest movement in recent memory. Yet the crackdowns on occupations across the country have shown it will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain these bastions of resistance moving forward: We are simply outnumbered, outfunded, and outgunned. While some groups, like Occupy Oakland, have heroically attempted to reclaim the space from which they were ousted, they have been rebuffed each time by overwhelming force. So far, in New York at least, energy for protest has not waned. The movement can appear anywhere at any time. How it works at Occupy Wall Street 9/25/11. Reawakening The Radical Imagination: The Origins Of Occupy Wall Street.
Three months ago, a loosely organized group of activists concerned about growing income inequality, corporate greed and the global influence of powerful financial institutions decided to make Lower Manhattan its home, setting in motion a movement known as Occupy Wall Street. Since then, tens of thousands of people who share Occupy Wall Street's concerns have taken to the streets throughout the United States and around the globe, shifting the national discourse away from the federal deficit and toward financial woes of a more personal nature, like student debt. Now Occupy Wall Street is much larger than its initial small group of organizers. President Barack Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have given it a nod. Many among its now-broad base of supporters hold conventional political views. Some 64 percent call themselves Democrats, according to a recent AP-GfK poll.
"I was worried about whether it would come off. "Are you ready for a Tahrir Moment? " It didn't work. So what the fuck has occupy done so far? In a 325-Page SEC Letter, Occupy's Finance Gurus Take on Wall Street Lobbyists. Yesterday, a group affiliated with Occupy Wall Street submitted an astounding comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Point by point, it methodically challenges the arguments of finance industry lobbyists who want to water down last year's historic Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. The lobbyists have been using the law's official public comment period to try to kneecap the reforms, and given how arcane financial regulation can be, they might get away with it. But Occupy the SEC is fighting fire with fire, and in so doing, defying stereotypes of the Occupy movement. Its letter explains: Occupy the SEC is a group of concerned citizens, activists, and professionals with decades of collective experience working at many of the largest financial firms in the industry.
Proprietary trading by large-scale banks was a principal cause of the recent financial crisis, and, if left unchecked, it has the potential to cause even worse crises in the future. An ‘excess of democracy’: what two generations of radicals can learn from each other | Red Papper. Hilary Wainwright examines the possibility of forging a new kind of political economy by learning from the best of both today’s radical movements and those of the 60s and 70s Photo: Sven Loach The ability of the Occupy movement to create platforms outside our closed political system to force open a debate on inequality, the taboo at the heart of the financial crisis, is impressive.
It is a new source of political creativity from which we all have much to learn. At the same time, no veteran of the movements of the late 1960s and 1970s can help but be struck by similarities. And the same hoary problems reappear: informal and unaccountable leaderships, the tensions between inclusion and effectiveness. But that was 40 years ago – even before the widespread use of faxes, let alone personal computers and mobile phones!
From social rebellion to capitalist renewal The fate of the energies and aspirations of that rebellious decade is a long and complex cluster of stories. A fundamental break. Black Bloc: The Cancer in Occupy. The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement. The presence of Black Bloc anarchists—so named because they dress in black, obscure their faces, move as a unified mass, seek physical confrontations with police and destroy property—is a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state. The Occupy encampments in various cities were shut down precisely because they were nonviolent. They were shut down because the state realized the potential of their broad appeal even to those within the systems of power.
They were shut down because they articulated a truth about our economic and political system that cut across political and cultural lines. And they were shut down because they were places mothers and fathers with strollers felt safe. Click here to support news free of corporate influence by making a tax-deductible donation to Truthout. There is a word for this—“criminal.” Auctioneer: Stop All The Sales Right Now!