The fact is: we won’t free ourselves from a dysfunctional and unfair economic order until we begin to see ourselves as communities, not commodities. That is one clear message from Zuccotti Park.
What we are witnessing is a change in the collective consciousness. The shedding of fear and the demise of the invisible dictator inside our heads. This is the awakening from a long and lonesome slumber. Something has changed in our perception of the world. When we see the images of people mobilizing in solidarity around the globe, we realize we are no longer alone. We are part of something infinitely greater than the mere sum of its parts. Each and every single one of us is a magnificent being worthy of dignity and respect. But it is only when we come together that the true essence of our humanity is revealed for what it always already was. At last, we are reclaiming our true nature. We are a social animal. And love and solidarity are the glue that binds us together.The masters of the present governing system of capitalism will do everything they can to crush, co-opt, or tame the movement that has been born in the Squares and Wall Street occupations, but they cannot succeed against the life affirming nature of the human soul. Everyday it is becoming clearer for more people that the governing class and their system are destructive of both human life and a planet that can support human and other life forms.
...rein in the power of finance...and win so much support that governments are more scared of the people's sheer numbers than of the markets.Because, after all, "there is no alternative" (to capitalism). [sarcasm]
Recovery can only happen in the delusional world created for us by the concentrated media. No longer permitted to utter one word of truth, the presstitutes proclaim non-existent recoveries and weapons of mass destruction and demonize Washington's chosen opponents.Note: "presstitutes" is a word the author has coined to combine the words prostitute and press (media), similar to "bankster".
About NYTX
The NYTimes eXaminer (NYTX) was launched October 2011. The idea was proposed to a number of leading media critics, intellectuals, and alternative media activists, organizers, and producers earlier in the year. Many of these people expressed their support for the project and have since joined NYTX’s “Advisory Council.” The project’s mission statement and list of Advisory Council members can be found below. NYTX staff information can be found at the bottom of the page.
What exactly is it that will last? Direct, horizontal, and leaderless democracy? For those involved with 15-M—the number continues to grow, according to Lara and Juan Miguel—the feeling is that this year’s experiments in confrontation and horizontal democracy will not soon be forgotten. This is a lesson politicians and bureaucrats may soon shudder to learn: it’s not easy to placate a demographic whose greatest public pleasure thus far has been shutting you out of the conversation.
Clearly, if progressive change was not possible through electoral means in 2008, it simply isn’t going to [be] possible at all. And that is exactly what very large numbers of Americans appear to have concluded.
I have been mightily diverted by technological and personal matters recently and so am struggling to catch up. As I do so one theme has stood out: exhaustion. We are exhausted. Morally, intellectually, politically, and every other way. We seem to have fought our way into a state of enforced lassitude within which we can no longer even imagine progress. We are suffering from a form of trench warfare. Our leaders are exposed as inept. Brilliantly educated, earnest, well informed, and well intentioned. They are inept. So much for all those advanced degrees and professional qualifications. In our hour of need they amount to not much more than paper. Those achievements are nice to hang on walls to remind us of the hours spent poring over books in the library, or yawning through interminable, and marginal, classes on subjects no one but the professors were interested in, but they don’t appear to guarantee solutions to actual economic problems.
The state of everything is a mess.
...one of the near-constant criticisms of these sorts of ideas [anarchist] goes something like this:Many people have been so indoctrinated in the faith-based religion of capitalism with its mantra, "there is no alternative", that they can't think straight anymore.
“That kind of system would never work [the implication being that the current system, although faulty, does work] because of human nature. We’re just wired to be greedy. It’s evolution, survival of the fittest, and all that.”
With the rise of the Occupy Wall Street, a new generation of mostly middle class Americans is learning for the first time about the militarization of their local police forces. And they are learning the hard way, through confrontations with phalanxes of riot cops armed with the latest in “non-lethal” crowd control weaponry. Yesterday’s protests in Oakland, California were the site of perhaps the harshest police violence leveled against the Occupy movement so far.As the global ruling class attempts to deal with the OWS protesters, they are clearly experimenting with the methods of inflecting as much harm on protesters as possible stopping just short lethal weapons. The intent, of course, is to terrorize participants in these occupations and others who might be thinking about joining them. You can be sure that they are carefully studying these terrorist methods to measure their effectiveness in places such as Oakland, California, Athens, Greece and Melbourne, Australia in order to improve their chances of winning the class war that is being waged throughout much of the world.
They don’t get it that the absence of leaders in this movement is not a weakness but a strength, testifying to our collective determination, to our refusal to remain followers. They don’t get it that the absence of a narrow set of demands that can be recuperated by this or that institution, results from our understanding that the problem lies much deeper. That there are no quick fixes for a system that produces growing inequality, mass unemployment and misery, wars and ecological disasters.There are so many gems in this article that I have tagged it as a "best post".
...creates new legal liabilities for sites like Twitter, YouTube, and others that rely on user-generated content -- exposing the sites' proprietors to prosecution for certain acts taken by their users.This, of course, would cause these internet services to act as policeman over content that might incur the wrath of the ruling class. As it becomes clear that an unintended consequence of the creation of internet-access gadgets and services is to enable activists to organize and collaborate better, we can expect more such attacks in the future.
Pushed through Congress without debate, the massive surveillance bill was hastily passed just 45 days after 9/11, and was the first of many changes to surveillance laws over the past decade that made it easier for the government to spy on innocent Americans.
Back in the UK, after several months spent in Libya covering NATO war crimes and uncovering mainstream media lies, freelance journalist Lizzie Phelan continues to fight for truth and justice on behalf of the Libyan people. Her testimony below is a gripping example of her commitment.
Lizzie Phelan spent her last days in Libya - where she was reporting for PressTV - trapped in the Rixos Hotel, together with Thierry Meyssan, Mahdi Nazemroaya and two other members of the Voltaire Network team.
She said a Western-backed genocide is taking place in Libya and there are no independent journalists left on the ground to cover the story.
In particular, the connections between organized labor and the OWS continue to deepen--with ongoing protests against the Sotheby's auction house where Teamsters have been locked out of their jobs, a big rally in support of Verizon workers who are fighting for a fair contract, and a planned action against the Department of Education in support of teachers.
More than a month old, OWS feels like a town of its own, one governed intentionally by institutions and actions based on empathetic, egalitarian principles. As a protest, the occupation tactic is successful because of its constant presence and as a base for organising actions.
But at least as important to participants is the opportunity the occupied space provides to organise a microcosm of the society they want to live in. As the movement continues to grow, it is clear that this new society resonates with many people disaffected with the failures of society at large. [my emphasis]
"We're dismantling capitalism and building something better right here,"....
...to be homeless in America is to live like a fugitive. The destitute are our own native-born “illegals,” facing prohibitions on the most basic activities of survival. They are not supposed to soil public space with their urine, their feces, or their exhausted bodies. Nor are they supposed to spoil the landscape with their unusual wardrobe choices or body odors. They are, in fact, supposed to die, and preferably to do so without leaving a corpse for the dwindling public sector to transport, process, and burn.
The window to limit global warming to less than two degrees C is closing so fast it can be measured in months, a new scientific analysis revealed Sunday.
After marching from Oscar Grant Plaza and around Lake Merritt on October 22nd, Occupy Oakland occupiers and supporters stopped in front of the Chase Bank branch on Lakeshore Avenue. Demonstrators began to stream into the bank, filling the branch and chanting, "Chase got bailed out, we got sold out." Bank withdrawal and deposit slips were thrown into the air and within a few minutes demonstrators exited the bank and returned to the thousand-plus marchers in the street. Several protesters remained behind to pick up bank slips from the floor and were locked inside when police moved in to secure the bank. With loud chants of "Let them go, let them go" from the street, those inside were allowed to leave and the march continued on to shut down a Wells Fargo Bank branch by surrounding it before returning to Oscar Grant Plaza.
IN 2008, both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president, Barack Obama and John McCain, warned about man-made global warming and supported legislation to curb emissions. After he was elected, President Obama promised “a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change,” and arrived cavalry-like at the 2009 United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen to broker a global pact.Some people think it's worse than that:
But two years later, now that nearly every other nation accepts climate change as a pressing problem, America has turned agnostic on the issue.
“In Washington, ‘climate change’ has become a lightning rod, it’s a four-letter word,” said Andrew J. Hoffman, director of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Sustainable Development.It is clear to me that because capitalism cannot deal with global warming, it simply won't. Are we going to let them destroy our habitat? I know of no other creature that does that deliberately.
“We are seeing doubts in the U.S. largely because the issue has become a partisan one, with Democrats” — 75 percent of whom say they believe there is strong evidence of climate change — “seeing one thing and Republicans another.”The responses in the Pew pool were from people who vote in elections as Democrats or Republicans. There is no other choice. The leadership of these parties are controlled by the same class of people who have the same interests. The fact that Democratic party leaders sometimes mouth empty phrases reflecting environmental concerns never translates into action.
Kyoto's Carbon Offsetting Moves from Tragedy to Farce
A Grim Outlook for Emissions As Climate Talks Limp Forward