"We Are the 99 Percent" - A Photo Diary That Will Bring Tears. 36+ Images:I AM THE 99%! We Are the 99.9% Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters | Journal of the mental environment. Kalle Lasn and Micah White, the Creators of Occupy Wall Street. Kalle Lasn spends most nights shuffling clippings into a binder of plastic sleeves, each of which represents one page of an issue of Adbusters, a bimonthly magazine that he founded and edits. It is a tactile process, like making a collage, and occasionally Lasn will run a page with his own looped cursive scrawl on it. From this absorbing work, Lasn acquired the habit of avoiding the news after dark.
So it was not until the morning of Tuesday, November 15th, that he learned that hundreds of police officers had massed in lower Manhattan at 1 A.M. and cleared the camp at Zuccotti Park. If anyone could claim responsibility for the Zuccotti situation, it was Lasn: Adbusters had come up with the idea of an encampment, the date the initial occupation would start, and the name of the protest—Occupy Wall Street. Now the epicenter of the movement had been raided. Lasn began thinking of reasons that this might be a good thing. “Eerie timing!” White reached Lasn by telephone shortly before nine. Occupy Wall Street: The story of the first night. 20 November 2011Last updated at 00:17 By Brian Wheeler BBC News, Washington The Occupy Wall Street camp in New York spawned others across the world before it was broken up this week, just short of its two-month anniversary.
But, as those who bedded down in Zuccotti Park on the first night explain, it very nearly didn't happen. There was much excited talk on Twitter and Facebook in the weeks leading up to Saturday 17 September. Plans were being hatched for an "extraordinary uprising", a Day of Rage, a tented city to rank alongside that seen in Egypt's Tahrir Square. But direct democracy campaigners responsible for organising the Occupy Wall Street protest, going under the name of the New York General Assembly, were secretly worried it could turn out to be a flop. Their attempt in June to set up a similar protest against Mayor Michael Bloomberg's budget cuts, the so-called "Bloombergville" camp, had failed due to lack of support. 'On the fly' Continue reading the main story “Start Quote.
Rachel Maddow on Occupy. Updates on the Clearing of Zuccotti Park. The latest crackdown threat to hit 'Occupy' Mayor Michael Bloomberg is talking tough again, darkly hinting that he may have to take action to shut down Occupy Wall Street. He now claims that the community in Lower Manhattan is upset by the occupation of Zuccotti Park and he must heed their wishes. The problems: there have been cases of urination and defecation. The drumming is too loud. There is a seeming fear of violence from the street people and homeless the park seems to be attracting. So it appears that his honour has found a new pretext to send the police in to clear the park. He has already sent his cops to arrest alleged law breakers in the encampment, accompanied by headlines urging "get tough". In the eyes of much of the press, the endgame is in sight because the protesters just don't know how to act, how to be responsible.
As in many stories, however, what's not said is often what's most important. Sanitation issues So two of the most cited problems have solutions that officials reject. Forced to take drastic 'action' Occupy Wall Street: Judge backs city, ends camping in park. Hours after New York officials raided Zuccotti Park, emptying it of the nation’s first Occupy Wall Street protest camp, a New York judge ruled in favor of the city and said that protesters may not return to the area with their tents.
The ruling was handed down by State Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman. The judge held that the city could indeed block protesters from returning to their full-time protest, which included tents and generators, and that the public should be able to use the site. Early Tuesday, police in riot gear had cleared the park, the spiritual home of the Occupy movement that brought a populist message into the political arena. Within weeks of that camp's creation, dozens of U.S. cities had their own encampments, each loosely based on the idea that the richest 1% of the nation should do more to help the other 99% deal with debt, lack of jobs and a poor economy.
PHOTOS: Police clear out Zuccotti Park FULL COVERAGE: Occupy protests Witnesses describe Zuccotti Park raid. Noam Chomsky Speaks to Occupy: If We Want a Chance at a Decent Future, the Movement Here and Around the World Must Grow. November 1, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. It's a little hard to give a Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture at an Occupy meeting.
There are mixed feelings that go along with it. First of all, regret that Howard is not here to take part and invigorate it in his particular way, something that would have been the dream of his life, and secondly, excitement that the dream is actually being fulfilled. It’s a dream for which he laid a lot of the groundwork. The Occupy movement really is an exciting development. The fact that the demonstrations are unprecedented is quite appropriate. I'm just old enough to remember the Great Depression. It’s quite different now. Before the '70s, banks were banks. Thomas Ferguson: How to Take Back Our Political System From the 1% | Economy.
November 3, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. The following has been adapted from a version of a speech delivered to Occupy Boston by Thomas Ferguson, the father of the "Investment Theory of Politics. " I’m honored to speak to you today about money and politics, but it’s not the first time I’ve been here.
I’m a social scientist, so I actually counted: about a third of all the signs that day had money and politics as their themes. So I begin by thanking you for reminding the rest of us about what really matters: That our problem right now is not “the government.” It is to force government to take account of the interests of the 99% of Americans who have been left holding the bag for bank bailouts, bonuses, and corporate welfare as they scramble to find jobs and dig themselves out of debt.
I know that you’re getting all kinds of advice about programs and what to do next. Firstly, the rot is very deep. Now about remedies. Occupy Los Angeles faces Monday eviction deadline | World news. Reflections on the Age of Anxiety. Perhaps more than any other chapter in history, the past hundred years have shown us how incredibly intelligent we are.
We have glimpsed just a flash of our collective potential. We have cured diseases. We have learned to fly, even to put a man on the moon. We have constructed great societies. It would be hard to call our fear of each other irrational. When I walk down the street I see people who are different from me. And yet every single one of us are part of the same creation. I personally feel that this country some of us live in, the United States of America, is a pretty amazing place - in spite of all our faults. Your neighbor, the one you really don’t like, may be the most important teacher you will ever have. Separateness is a complete illusion. What makes a family strong is that one thing that often seems most impossible and that is love. Wouldn’t it be amazing if, over the next hundred years, we learned from the past hundred years?
Thank you for taking the time to read this.