The revolution begins at home
What is occurring on Wall Street right now is truly remarkable. For more than two weeks, in the sanctum of the great cathedral of global capitalism, the dispossessed have liberated territory from the financial overlords and their police army. They have created a unique opportunity to shift the tides of history in the tradition of other great peaceful occupations from the sit-down strikes of the 1930s to the lunch-counter sit-ins of the 1960s to the democratic uprisings across the Arab world and Europe today. While the Wall Street occupation is growing, it needs an all-out commitment from everyone who cheered the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, said “We are all Wisconsin”, and stood in solidarity with the Greeks and Spaniards. This is a movement for anyone who lacks a job, housing or healthcare, or thinks they have no future. Our system is broken at every level.
The Dill Pickle Club
On Monday, November 14, the Dill Pickle Club hosted The 99%: A Teach-in on Occupy Portland to objectively bring together various perspectives on the economic, political and social factors that have led to the emergence of occupations throughout the country, and more specifically the movement’s impact on a localized level. As part of our mission to make this information freely available, we are posting the entirety of the talks online. Special thanks to Bernardo Pantoja and NW Documentary for making this video documentation possible.
99% (The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film) by Audrey Ewell & Aaron Aites
PLEASE KEEP CONTRIBUTING! We don't have any corporate sponsorship or institutional funding! We only have YOU, and your support has been amazing! You have our tremendous gratitude, and this money will pay for hard drive storage space for our footage and expenses we've already incurred. The more money we get, the more expenses we can continue to cover, and the further we can go down the path of completing this film! Please keep contributing and encouraging all your friends, family and colleagues to do likewise!
On the Verge of Chaos
The core outlook of the righteously angry is strongly anti-banker, anti-rich and anti-corruption; it expresses a powerful sentiment against the system and the market. People are proclaiming that they are not commodities to be bought and sold. Theirs is a quest for change and transformation.
Black Friday is Buy Nothing Day (Here are 10 Films to Spread the Shopping-Free Cheer!)
By Tim Hjersted Since 1997, the biggest shopping day of the year in North America has also been known as Buy Nothing Day - a playful protest against the cultural and commercial pressures that compel us to consume more every year, grow more in debt to prove our love to our loved ones and find temporary happiness in that euphoric moment of purchase. It's a movement that has been growing internationally every year, despite the commercial pressures now enveloping even Thanksgiving in the holiday madness. More and more people have had enough and are choosing to celebrate with their loved ones a different way - by not buying anything! In the spirit of the shopping-free holiday, here are 10 of the best documentaries that give inspiration to the day (click the links to watch online): Explore more films on consumerism here.
‘The Bank Is Messing With Us’: The Enduring Legacy of Occupy Homes
I was having dinner over the weekend with a relative, who innocently asked, "Is Occupy around anymore?" Now that the big camps are gone –Occupy DC, one of the last major camps was raided over the weekend– some individuals erroneously assume the group has disbanded. The truth is that in addition to planning a spring resurgence, many Occupiers are now involved in smaller cells that branched off from the mother movement.
Wither Wall Street: Challenge of the Occupy Movement
Over the last three months New York City has been electrified by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Prachi Patankar and I have been participating in some of the actions. We have also been part of a number of discussions within the South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI) on how an organisation like ours can bring an internationalist perspective to this movement. Prachi is also on the board of the War Resisters League (WRL). Through such discussions SASI and WRL organised Empire on Wall Street actions.
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Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots
New York, NY - Almost every time I'm interviewed by a mainstream journalist about Occupy Wall Street I get some variation of the same lecture: "How are you going to get anywhere if you refuse to create a leadership structure or make a practical list of demands? And what's with all this anarchist nonsense - the consensus, the sparkly fingers? Don't you realise all this radical language is going to alienate people? You're never going to be able to reach regular, mainstream Americans with this sort of thing!"
Robert Reich: Occupiers Occupied: The Hijacking of the First Amendment
A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they're treated as public nuisances and evicted.
