Student creates 'bootstrap' houses for homeless. PORTLAND - Part camper, part sleeping bag with a hint of food cart flare. The "Bootstrap home" could be described as many things, except for one, if you ask designer Sarah Cloutier. Cloutier is a senior at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She said the idea of the small mailbox-shaped camper with a sink, stove, storage and sleeping space, was inspired by her desire to help the homeless.
"This is definitely not just my senior project," she said. "If you help people in a real way, you put that good out into the world and it increases. " Cloutier's hand-drawn designs were akin to the story boards she hopes to create for a living when she graduates. The Bootstrap home prototype took Cloutier six weeks and $300 to build and has many on campus buzzing. "It makes me really excited that art has a function in society and that we're helping people through art," said Dean of Student Services, Michael Hall. "I'm really happy (Gilbert) was able to join the project in the way he has," said Cloutier. I’m breaking up with you, Occupy. 8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance. The ruling elite has created social institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance.Bruce E.
LevineAlterNet Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination. Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it.
A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans “Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?” Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. How exactly has American society subdued young Americans? 1. Today in the United States, two-thirds of graduating seniors at four-year colleges have student-loan debt, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Small Occupy Movements Across the Country Accumulate Victories | Truthout. In a recent San Francisco Chronicle piece, "Occupy movement must move toward the center," Tony Fels, associate professor of history at the University of San Francisco, writes that the Occupy "movement has reached a tactical dead end.
" Demonstrators don't have nicely packaged sound bites; there's no go-to spokesperson; Occupy DC is one of the last camps standing. But the movement is far from dead. Here in California, the movement is exploding. In a recent study called "Diffusion of the Occupy Movement in California," UC Riverside researchers surveyed 482 incorporated towns and cities in California and found that 143 - nearly 30 percent - had Occupy sites on Facebook between December 1 and December 8.
According to the study, many of the small and medium-sized towns are active with likes, posts and events on their Facebook pages. "The Occupy Barstow website proclaimed that Barstow is 'about as far from Wall Street as you can get.' "They don't want to be here to listen to us. A note on Rep. I See What Occupy Vancouver Did There...And It's Brilliant. The media’s latest attempt to undercut the message of Occupy movements all across the globe is by touting the “cost” of these protests. Many sources are reporting that Occupy movements are costing cities hundreds of thousands of dollars in police overtime because apparently it takes an entire precinct to make sure that 50 people don't sleep through the night.
When an internal city memorandum stated that Occupy Vancouver had cost its city nearly a million dollars in taxpayer money, the organizers did something brilliant: they broke down the cost of what they were doing for the city of Vancouver. Citing a recent press release from Occupy Vancouver, member Eric Hamilton-Smith noted, “…over 37,000 meals were served, $672,000 of primary medical care was provided, and 30 people were housed for 37 days at a time when beds at primary shelters were not available.” This is absolutely brilliant, and I suggest that all other Occupy movements take note of this. No. Two points:
This Is What Bureaucracy Looks Like! | City. A CROWD GATHERED in the dark at city hall on the night of Saturday, November 19, braving the cold to hold a candlelight vigil marking one week since Mayor Sam Adams and the Portland Police Bureau evicted Occupy Portland's five-week-old encampment. But a few blocks away, a second five-week-old tent city remained: The residents of Right 2 Dream Too (R2D2) say they expect to continue occupying a vacant lot on NW 4th and Burnside for a full year. An unlikely friend is aiding their mission: city bureaucracy.
While Occupy took over public parks for their protest, the homeless residents of R2D2 are staying on private property, with the owner's consent. Occupy movements across the country have had to scrabble with police and politicians for each extra day at their sites. Occupy Portland media volunteer Jordan LeDoux says the Occupy protesters considered occupying private property, but opted to stay in public parks because their free-speech rights were not guaranteed on private land. Homeless feeding: 3 members of Orlando Food Not Bombs arrested for feeding homeless at Lake Eola. August 2011: Mayor Dyer drops charges in homeless-feeding arrests Members of Orlando Food Not Bombs were arrested Wednesday when police said they violated a city ordinance by feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park. Jessica Cross, 24, Benjamin Markeson, 49, and Jonathan "Keith" McHenry, 54, were arrested at 6:10 p.m. on a charge of violating the ordinance restricting group feedings in public parks.
McHenry is a co-founder of the international Food Not Bombs movement, which began in the early 1980s. The group lost a court battle in April, clearing the way for the city to enforce the ordinance. It requires groups to obtain a permit and limits each group to two permits per year for each park within a 2-mile radius of City Hall.
Arrest papers state that Cross, Markeson and McHenry helped feed 40 people Wednesday night. "They intentionally violated the statute," said Lt. Police waited until everyone was served to make the arrests, said Douglas Coleman, speaking for Orlando Food Not Bombs. Meet the Financial Wizards Working With Occupy Wall Street. Cathy O'Neil, a participant in the Alternative Banking GroupJosh Harkinson High up in a Manhattan conference room on Sunday, a group of investment gurus discussed Occupy Wall Street. Should they support a set of tough-sounding financial reforms just proposed on the campaign trail by presidential candidate Jon Huntsman?
Or was it reasonable to demand even deeper reforms? "This isn't enough," argued Cathy O'Neil, a former hedge fund quant who organizes the group, a branch of Occupy Wall Street known as the Alternative Banking Group. She proposed that the gathering of financial experts come up with improvements to Huntsman's plan and present them to Occupy Wall Street's General Assembly.
As unlikely as it may have seemed when protesters first descended on New York's financial center this fall, an increasing number of Wall Street insiders are now returning the favor, you might say, by occupying Occupy Wall Street. The Alternative Banking Group's meetings can get contentious. End of America: The 10 steps have been taken for fascism - National Human Rights. In her book, The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf provides historical documention of the rise of Fascism.
Wolf outlines 10 steps necessary for a fascistic group (or government) to destroy the democratic character of a nation-state and subvert the social/political liberty previously exercised by its citizens. These ten steps, each of which has been taken at the time of this writing, are: Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.' (Eg. Wolf details how this pattern was implemented in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and elsewhere. From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows these same steps of a blueprint as Wolf calls is, are those any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. On August 9th, 2009, Wolf published an editorial in which she compared Obama's "Guantanimo Promise" with the hard facts created by Bush-era policies, New Boss Same as Old.
How Goldman Sachs and Other Companies Exploit Port Truck Drivers — Occupy Protesters Plan to Shut Down West Coast Ports in Protest | Economy. Photo Credit: Michael @ NW Lens via Flickr December 9, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. It's the time of year when lights are strung, trees are decorated, and holiday cheer is spread. Astute consumers may know that the rock bottom we see advertised on endless TV and internet commercials are often the result of companies manufacturing their goods overseas, using sweatshop labor where poorly paid workers often toil in dangerous and unhealthy conditions so that we can enjoy the latest electronics, the coolest pair of jeans.
But what many people may not know is that these sweatshop conditions don't end when those goods hit American soil. Drivers, along with clergy and their union, environmental and community allies have been fighting for years for better working conditions and wages, but their plight has recently caught the attention of the Occupy movement.
The Fascinating History of How Corporations Became "People" -- Thanks to Corrupt Courts Working for the 1% November 23, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Perhaps there were truly free markets before the industrial revolution, where townspeople and farmers gathered in a square to exchange livestock, produce and handmade tools. In our modern world, such a market does not exist. In 2007, the year of the crash, the top 1 percent of American households took in almost two-and-a-half times the share of our nation's pre-tax income that they had grabbed in the 40 years folliwing World War Two. The Supreme Court, with a right-wing majority under Chief Justice John Roberts, has become a body that leans too far toward the “1 percent” to be considered a neutral arbiter. While conservatives constantly rail against judges "legislating from the bench," it is far more common for right-leaning jurists to engage in “judicial activism” than those of a liberal bent.
A 2007 study by University of Chicago law professor Thomas J. Yasha Levine Released From Jail, Exposes LAPD’s Appalling Treatment of Detained Occupy LA Protesters… Yasha Levine was forced to surrender his freedom, as well as his shoe laces…for his own protection I finally got home Thursday afternoon after spending two nights in jail, and have had a hard time getting my bearings. On top of severe dehydration and sleep deprivation, I’ve got one hell of pounding migraine. So I’ll have to keep this brief for now. But I wanted to write down a few things that I witnessed and heard while locked up by LA’s finest… First off, don’t believe the PR bullshit. While people are now beginning to learn that the police attack on Occupy LA was much more violent than previously reported, few actually realize that much—if not most—of the abuse happened while the protesters were in police custody, completely outside the range of the press and news media.
. * The bus that I was shoved into didn’t move for at least an hour. . * Everyone on my bus felt her pain–literally felt it. . * There were two vegetarians and one vegan in my cell. Yasha Levine is an editor of The eXiled. Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now. Published in The Nation. I was honored to be invited to speak at Occupy Wall Street on Thursday night.
Since amplification is (disgracefully) banned, and everything I said had to be repeated by hundreds of people so others could hear (a.k.a. “the human microphone”), what I actually said at Liberty Plaza had to be very short. With that in mind, here is the longer, uncut version of the speech. I love you. And I didn’t just say that so that hundreds of you would shout “I love you” back, though that is obviously a bonus feature of the human microphone.
Yesterday, one of the speakers at the labor rally said: “We found each other.” If there is one thing I know, it is that the 1 percent loves a crisis. And there is only one thing that can block this tactic, and fortunately, it’s a very big thing: the 99 percent. That slogan began in Italy in 2008. “Why are they protesting?” But there are important differences too. Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, has chosen a fixed target. . - What we wear. The Protester - Person of the Year 2011. Once upon a time, when major news events were chronicled strictly by professionals and printed on paper or transmitted through the air by the few for the masses, protesters were prime makers of history. Back then, when citizen multitudes took to the streets without weapons to declare themselves opposed, it was the very definition of news — vivid, important, often consequential.
In the 1960s in America they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War; in the '70s, they rose up in Iran and Portugal; in the '80s, they spoke out against nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Europe, against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, against communist tyranny in Tiananmen Square and Eastern Europe. Protest was the natural continuation of politics by other means. And then came the End of History, summed up by Francis Fukuyama's influential 1989 essay declaring that mankind had arrived at the "end point of ... ideological evolution" in globally triumphant "Western liberalism. " Occupy Wall Street protesters demand proof they broke the law.