The triumph of civilisation lacks nothing. Neither political terror nor affective poverty. Nor universal sterility. The desert cannot grow anymore: it is everywhere. But it can still deepen. Faced with the evidence of the catastrophe, there are those who get indignant and those who take note, those who denounce and those who get organised. We are among those who get organised. continue… http://bloom0101.org/ 19745
http://international.democraciarealya.es/2012/02/14/saturday-18th-of-february-international-mobilization-day-we-are-all-greeks/ When one people is attacked, all people are attacked. The 10th of February, the non elected Greece Government adopted a new hideous and destructive austerity plan, passed by the parliament (MPs voted 199-101 in favour) on the 12th of February. The new austerity measures impose a 22% reduction in the minimum wage, which will remain frozen for the next three years; collective bargaining is simply cut; 15000 public sector workers are laid off and 150000 jobs will be destroyed due to the non-renewal of the contract… The people of … Continued
In 1939, the British government designed the poster on the right. As Wikipedia explains, the poster was “intended to raise the morale of the British public in the event of invasion.” The ‘keep calm’ theme has since taken on a life of its own: from ‘keep calm and Cary Grant’ to ‘now panic and freak out’, the clean lines, simple design, and telephone box red of the original poster has been a source of apparently endless inspiration for artists, tricksters, and political activists. Of course, my favourite variation is ‘keep … Continued
An open letter of celebration & recrimination to OO, a collective I find myself still distant from but still very much connected to & loving of: Cheers to all of us/any of us that are still working towards inclusive, collective action arising from horizontal decision making. It’s really fucking hard. Cheers to all of us/any of us that are actively weighing our personal involvement & commitment to OO, as a single instance of the ongoing work to experiment, discover, learn & grow these methods & tactics & moments of functioning … Continued
A Globe of Villages: Interview Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington, D.C. by Willi Paul http://planetshifter.com/node/1990 excerpt: “We believe in the ARC of community: Authority, Responsibility, Capacity. Without authority, democracy is meaningless. Without responsibility, chaos ensues. Without a productive capacity we are helpless to manage our affairs and determine our economic future. International, national, state and local policies should be evaluated on the basis of how it strengthens all three cornerstones of strong communities.” NS 19475
reposted from the Daily Kos Mon Feb 13, 2012 at 09:21 AM PST EGT Bets. Occupy Raises. EGT Folds. by jpmassar For months EGT, a wholly owned subsidiary of multinational corporation Bunge, Inc, kept ILWU Local 21 members from working the Port of Longview, WA. They had been replaced by other grain elevator operators in violation — as claimed by the ILWU — of a contract EGT had signed with the Port. On December 12th, the Occupy Movement again demonstrated its ability to mobilize by shutting down the Port of … Continued
I lived in Seattle during the WTO protests. There too a percentage of attendees were interested in mayhem rather than issues, particularly, by vandalizing the property of people and businesses that had nothing to do with the WTO. I think that it is inevitable that troublemakers will show up. Whether that is entirely bad or good I won’t say. Let me change direction for a moment. To effect change, OO needs a carrot or a stick to go with its demands. So far OO has gained national attention, by making … Continued
http://rt.com/usa/news/chicago-police-city-law-035/ It’s nice to see city governments have to pay for violating their citizens rights- even if it is 9 years after the fact. Hmm…… how am I going to spend my $15 grand from the Jan28 lawsuits? Guess I have 9 years to think about it. 19360
from Nihilo Zero Often, when describing the inevitable scenes of major protests in the United States, I evoke the image of a person who has lost a brother in Iraq, a person who has also lost a sister to the trumped up drug war, whose father had his job outsourced, whose mother had her pension gambled away by speculators, whose grandmother lost her home of 50 years because she missed a mortgage payment, and whose grandfather died of industrial poisoning and couldn’t afford health care. And make no mistake… variants … Continued
from n+1 An open letter to Chris Hedges I am writing this on the premise that you are a well-meaning person who wishes Occupy Wall Street to succeed. I am also writing as someone who was deeply involved in the early stages of planning Occupy in New York. I am also an anarchist who has participated in many Black Blocs. While I have never personally engaged in acts of property destruction, I have on more than one occasion taken part in Blocs where property damage has occurred. (I have taken … Continued