Category: American Empire

Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue

By Barbara Ehrenreich / TomDispatch.com

As anyone knows who has ever had to set up a military encampment or build a village from the ground up, occupations pose staggering logistical problems. Large numbers of people must be fed and kept reasonably warm and dry. Trash has to be removed; medical care and rudimentary security provided — to which ends a dozen or more committees may toil night and day. But for the individual occupier, one problem often overshadows everything else, including job loss, the destruction of the middle class, and the reign of the 1%. And that is the single question: Where am I going to pee?

Why should you move your money?

Moving your money out of the big Wall Street banks to small community banks and credit unions is a great idea for a number of reasons: you will get better rates and fewer fees, your community banker will learn your name and provide you with more personal service, and you will be keeping money in your local community which increases economic development and eventually, creates more jobs. Yet the most important reason to move your money is to make your voice heard, to stand strong and no longer help a banking system that has run amok

INVEST IN MAIN STREET, NOT WALL STREET

On September 17, 2011, several thousand New Yorkers took over a small park in lower Manhattan, a block from Wall Street itself. Wall Street itself had been blocked from the demonstrators by New York’s finest.

The protesters took over Zucotti Park, a private space, and set up their encampment – and the Occupy Wall Street movement took off. This past weekend, there were over 100 Occupy actions in this country, and over a thousand around the world. A thousand. Get your mind around that.

Soon after Occupy Wall Street took hold, others followed: Occupy Boston, Occupy Denver, Occupy San Francisco, Los Angeles, and even Occupy San Diego, which had its first over-night “occupation” on Friday, October 7th.

But look at this – in one month, in exactly one month, this movement has changed our world. For how long – it remains to be seen. One month. This is incredible.

While it remains to be seen whether the Occupation of America, from Wall Street to San Diego, will be able to sustain its amazing initial momentum, it has unquestionably struck a nerve and sparked a national discussion about class, power, and politics. The heavy weights at the New York Times have recently staked out an interesting range of opinion on the occupation movement.

You have Paul Krugman, the paper’s reliable progressive, observing the panic of the plutocrats and astutely noting that, “The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.”

This past weekend witnessed a dramatic increase of Occupy Wall Street type actions across this country and around the globe. Something like 1500 cities and towns across planet Earth had actions and events on Saturday, October 15th. There were over 100 in the United States. This weekend’s events were also supplemented by the Anti-Austerity and Anti-War demonstrations that coincided with many Occupy actions, as they did here in San Diego.

The Occupy Movement is growing so quickly that activists within can hardly stay up on its developments. So, we’ve put a little something together. This is not an all-inclusive summary but an attempt to hit the high-points.

By Brad Johnson / ThinkProgress.org

In one of the largest mass arrests in recent Boston history, the Boston Police Department cleared a park of over 100 activists with the 99 Percent Movement in the early hours of Tuesday morning, dismantling and destroying tents that had been set up on Monday. Startling footage shot by an onlooker shows members of Veterans for Peace, an organization of U.S. military veterans who oppose war, being arrested by members of the Boston Police Department, their flags — including the American flag — being thrown to the ground…

See video inside…

Update: Day #21 of Occupy America – the movement that began on September 17th at Wall Street.

The following is a summary of very recent Occupy actions around the country, over the last 24 hours. We counted 74 arrests from around the country of demonstrators by police.

By Tom Engelhardt / AlterNet / October 6, 2011

In some ways, Zuccotti Park, the campsite, the Ground Zero, for the Occupy Wall Street protests couldn’t be more modest. It’s no Tahrir Square, but a postage-stamp-sized plaza at the bottom of Manhattan only blocks from Wall Street.

And if you arrive before noon, you’re greeted not by vast crowds, but by air mattresses, a sea of blue and green tarps, a couple of information tables, some enthusiastic drummers, enough signs with slogans for anything you care to support (“Too big to fail is too big to allow,” “The American Dream: You have to be asleep to believe it,” “There’s no state like no state,” etc.), and small groups of polite, eager, well-organized young people, wandering, cleaning, doling out contributed food, dealing with the press, or sitting in circles on the concrete, backpacks strewn about, discussing. If it were the 1960s, it might easily be a hippie encampment.

I simply don’t have the energy to produce a flowery perspective on what today’s action means to me or to the diverse group of people who make up the 99%. Today I was witness to something that was commonplace in the 60’s and 70’s but had, for the most part, escaped my own eyes through years of activism. Today I was brought to tears by the magnitude of a collective voice; today I was forced to reconcile my practicality with the sheer power of numbers. Today, I believe I witnessed the metamorphosis of a revolution.

Everybody freak out! Occupy Wall Street is now in its eighteenth day and the swelling ranks in Liberty Park and tandem actions that have spread to 148 other cities have not provided the rest of us with their goals/DEMANDS/solutions. By God, they owe us an explanation so that we can decide whether we’re for it or against it. Do they really expect us to watch raw unedited footage on the internet and make up our own minds? Exactly how soon is the blood going to start flowing in the streets- I need to take my car in Friday for an oil change.

The Occupy Wall Street solidarity actions are indeed spreading across America.

As of today (Oct 4th) there are currently Occupy actions being planned – or are in process – in 148 cities across the U.S. Yes, that’s right, 148. Twenty-one are being planned in California alone. That’s 5 more than there was two days ago.

That’s actions in 46 states plus DC!

For every word I write, there are five on my mind. The sadness associated with the failures of a once promising President has at times crippled my faith in the collective will. My enrollment in a public policy program that focuses – rightly so – on analytical and practical approaches to policy change has forced me to question the usefulness of radical activism and political theater as tools of change. We live at a time when young radicals have been stifled by the apathy brought on by overwhelming wealth inequality, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ridiculous favoritism granted banks and corporate interests, and the efforts of law enforcement and government agencies to quell the movement for change by any means necessary. Consider the murder of Troy Davis the cherry on top of a disenchantment sundae.

Come inside for video of day 16…