CIO HEROES!!
Edward Snowden!
Edward Snowden is an American hero who has significantly raised public awareness about the United States' government's threat to global freedom by using extreme and illegal measures of surveillance.
Occupy stands firm – solidarity with Longview continues!
OCCUPY THE EGT!
Don’t stop mobilizing until the workers declare victory!
As you may have heard, EGT and ILWU are back at the bargaining table and scab work at the Longview grain terminal has stopped. Did EGT come back to the bargaining table because Washington Governor Christine Gregoire asked them to? NOPE! It was you. The determination of the workers in Longview, ILWU ranks in other locals, and the thousands of people in the Occupy Movement threatening to mobilize on an exploitative and union-busting boss have forced EGT into negotiations. The strength we demonstrated on December 12th during the coordinated West Coast port shutdown showed that the Occupy Movement is capable of disrupting profit-making and affecting the means of production–the only thing the 1% really cares about.
While a contract with ILWU will not change the fact that EGT and its parent companies, specifically Bunge Ltd., are “Wall Street on the Waterfront,” witnessed by their record of despicable practices that destroy communities here and abroad, Occupy absolutely supports Local 21 in determining the terms and conditions of their labor. Our movement remains committed to fighting economic systems that pit worker against worker for the benefit of corporations that exploit our natural resources and destroy the fabric of our communities.
As confidential negotiations between the ILWU and EGT continue, we will continue to stand beside the workers of Longview. West Coast Occupations will not stop organizing and preparing to mobilize until the Longshore workers claim victory. If members of Local 21 vote to approve the contract, we will go celebrate with them. If negotiations stall or if the results are not satisfactory to the Local 21 rank and file, our caravan will be ready to go.
Solidarity Sunday – Occupiers Everywhere Stand With Occupy Oakland
TODAY IS SOLIDARITY SUNDAY!
In response to brutal police repression in Oakland this evening (including tear-gas, “flash” grenades, projectiles, mass arrests, and a pregnant woman hit in the belly by a policeman’s baton) direct action working groups from at least Occupy Wall St, Occupy Boston, and Occupy Philly, have stayed up late to craft a massive coordinated response. Here are the initial results:
In Philly, we will converge at LOVE Park, at 7pm EST.
In NYC, we will converge at Washington Square, at 7pm EST.
In Boston, we will converge at Copley Square, at 7pm. EST.
If your Occupy can come to a snap consensus on a place, email the location to solidarity@occupywallst.org so OWS can tell the world just how massively this movement responds to such brutality.
Tweet about it with #solidaritysunday and/or #J29.
Here’s a draft messaging statement prepared by Occupiers from these various cities (working collaboratively on etherpad, of course):
Yesterday, Occupy Oakland moved to convert a vacant building into a community center to provide education, medical, and housing services for the 99%. Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbag rounds, and mass arrests. The state has compounded its policy of callous indifference with a ruthless display of violent repression. The Occupy movement will respond, as we have always responded: with an overwhelming show of collective resistance.
Today, January 29, we take to the streets. J29. Across the country, we will demonstrate our resolve to overcome repression and continue to build a better world grounded in love and solidarity for one another. We will the our country, the world, and our cities, another world is possible and we will not stand for violent repression from the state and the police.
All eyes on all Occupies.
Be creative! Be agile! BE ORGANIZED!
Solidarity,
Nate
Occupy Philly
Committee of Correspondence
Posted in OCCUPY ALL STREETS!, OCCUPY OAKLAND!, OCCUPY!
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Capitalism Haiku
On a shelf in my kitchen since 2003: A haiku on capitalism, written upon my request by Lindasusan Ulrich, at Winterfest SOMarts.
Posted in CAPITALISM
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Corporations Are Not People
This week marks the second anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC. In a nutshell, Citizens United declared that corporations are people, and money is speech. This opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate cash in U.S. elections. You can read more about the disastrous effects we’ve already seen from this HERE and HERE.
Corporations can contribute unlimited funds to independent campaign expenditure groups as the law stands now, and still, the RNC is unhappy with anything short of being able to sell votes directly. According to the New York Times, they want a return to the days of the robber barons.
What’s at stake here is the American democracy as we know it, and the way to take it back is through a constitutional amendment reversing Citizens United. There are already nine amendments floating around Congress and a groundswell of public activism spearheaded by a coalition of organizations including MoveOn, Move to Amend, Common Cause, Public Citizen, the Other 98%, and many others.
Also, a number of states and local governments have passed resolutions in support of an end to corporate personhood.
A week of cognitive dissonance and direct action
Food Bank of America
What do we do when the government shockingly proves it already has the power to do one day what we were opposing the prior day? It is more than disquieting to see the government brutally illustrating the fact that the U.S. is a society that simply does not any longer believe in due process. Glenn Greenwald reports on the cognitive dissonance produced by the SOPA/PIPA opposition, victory, and subsequent seizure of Megaupload.
And what does it mean when the only “anti-war, pro-due-process, pro-transparency, anti-Fed, anti-Wall-Street-bailout, anti-Drug-War” advocating presidential candidate is Ron Paul? Greenwald, again, makes the case for avoiding mindless partisanship and for allowing space for a real public debate, in part by countering our “inability and/or refusal to recognize that a political discussion might exist independent of the Red v. Blue Cage Match.” Read Greenwald’s nuanced analysis in “Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies”.
The answer from OccupySF has been to get down to business, by focusing on the financial district using direct action planned by a diverse horizontal hierarchy of community and affinity groups. OccupySF refused to limit the scope of specific injustices to highlight with a day long schedule of multi-faceted actions that drew global press as reporters and photographers attempted to cover and capture the variety of challenges to financial institutions and the mainstream narrative that were brought to bear publicly on Friday.
The Black Blob
Dialectical-materialist philosopher Slavoj Žižek notes the ironic fact that today the chance to be exploited in a long-term job is now experienced as a privilege. Read his analysis of the Occupy movement and of the signs we are all seeing that the capitalist system is no longer capable of self-regulated stability; as he says, it is a system that is threatening to run out of control.
Posted in ARTISTS/ACTIONS, CAPITALISM, OCCUPY SF, OCCUPY WALL ST WEST, PROTESTS, WE ARE THE 99%
Tagged #occupySF, BANKS, CAPITAL, capitalism, corporate capitalism, finacial district, financial institutions, Food Bank of America, Glenn Greenwald, government, obscene pentagon budget, occupy wall st west, Slavoj Žižek, The Black Blob, The Corporate State
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OCCUPY WALL STREET WEST!
TODAY! Check HERE for schedule of actions.
Posted in art, ARTISTS/ACTIONS, OCCUPY SF, OCCUPY!, SOLUTIONS
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Capitalism and Loneliness: Why Pornography Is a Multibillion-Dollar Industry
By: Harriet Fraad and Tess Fraad Wolff
Re-posted from Truthout | Op-Ed
Massive social changes in the US labor force and in commerce have transformed the economy and powerfully affected personal relationships. Since 1970, we have changed from being a society of people connected in groups of every kind to a society of people who are too often disconnected, detached and alienated from one another.
One is the loneliest number, and in their personal lives, Americans are increasingly alone.
What Has Happened to Us?
In the 1970s, the American dream of 150 years duration ground to a halt. From 1820 to 1970, every US generation did better than the one that preceded it. In the 1970s, computers began to replace millions of US jobs. International communication systems became so sophisticated that factories could be moved overseas, allowing the livelihoods of more millions of Americans to be outsourced. Civil rights and feminist gains had given women and minorities access to a depleted job market. Militant left trade union movements or political parties were not there to protest. Wages flattened. Profits rose with productivity and the share distributed to the top rose, rather than being distributed in wages. Wealthy banks issued credit cards with high interest rates that allowed them to make even more money on funds formerly paid out as salaries.
Men were no longer paid a family wage. Families suffered. Women poured into the labor force to make up for lost male wages. Until this point, most women’s work was primarily labor in the home: creating domestic order and cleanliness, performing childcare, and providing social and emotional services for the family. After the 1970s, the majority of women worked outside of the home as well as within it. Now, practically all women work outside the home, currently constituting almost half of the labor force.
Before the movements for racial and gender equality, the best jobs were reserved for white males who were an overwhelming majority. Within our racist and sexist labor force, white men had what ultimately amounted to two wage bonuses: one for being white and another for being male. Beginning in the 1970s, it was no longer necessary to give financial bonuses to white men. Indeed, it was not necessary to pay higher wages to any workers in the US labor force. Workers’ salaries flattened even as they increased their efficiency. This meant that ever more profit was made and accumulated at the top.
American white men lost a good deal of the male hegemony that accompanied steady jobs and wages that could support a family. When millions of manufacturing jobs were outsourced, our economy became a service economy. Neither the greater physical strength nor the higher levels of aggression associated with males are particularly welcome in a service economy. Heterosexual personal relationships that had developed on the basis of a male provider income could not hold. Those gendered roles were sexist and limiting. However, they could have been transformed politically without economically and psychologically traumatizing the American people.
Photo: Dave 77459 / Flickr
Posted in AUSTERITY, CAPITALISM, OCCUPY WALL STREET, OCCUPY!, THE 99%, UNEMPLOYMENT, Women's Rights
Tagged CAPITAL, capitalism, loneliness, pornography
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