Wall Street Protest « Tikkunista!

1. Why Occupy Wall Street?

Oct-14-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: “But what do they want?” moans the right-wing media, hoping that if they don’t listen, the public won’t hear. A few eloquent answers, and a few detailed ones. We start with two very short films, as Allan Grayson and Chris Hedges eloquently say what OWS (Occupy Wall Street) wants (and Kevin O’Leary makes me embarrassed to ever have defended the CBC against cuts!) Business Insider gives an extensive set of charts that lay out how the US financial sector has been changing, for the worse. Dissident voice highlights some of the same issues, James McMurtry (“The songwriting conscience of America”) sings a song that could be the OWS anthem, and the New York Times’ Krugman looks at why the powers that be claim not to understand the protests. For some groups, denial is so much more than just a river in Egypt.

* The Best 2 Minutes On Why We Should Occupy Wall Street MoveOn.Org (Thanks, Gabe and Kyla!)

On Friday’s ‘Real Time With Bill Maher,’ former Rep. Alan Grayson (D – FL) sums it up so well, the crowd ends up on their feet. Watch:

* CBC’s Kevin O’Leary Smacked Down by Chris Hedges Creekside

“I’m putting the vid and a transcript up here because Hedges’ argument bears repeating and also because, as appalling as O’Leary’s behavior certainly was, even more appalling is that O’Leary affects to be completely unable to follow Hedges’ logic as to what exactly went wrong that caused OWS to happen.”

* CHARTS: Here’s What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About… Business Insider

If America cannot figure out a way to address these gripes, the country will likely become increasingly “de-stabilized,” as sociologists might say. And in that scenario, the current protests will likely be only the beginning. The problem in a nutshell is this: Inequality in this country has hit a level that has been seen only once in the nation’s history—at the end of the 1920s–and unemployment has reached a level that has been seen only once since the Great Depression. And corporate profits are at a record high.

* Austerity is Euphemism for Class War Waged by Rich Dissident Voice (Thanks, Amy)

We live in an age of the superlatives as well, ironically being touted as the Age of Austerity by the state-capitalist oligarchs. But the superlative qualities of our age mark a world in decline. Consider some of our superlative achievements:

•The US financial “crisis” of 2008 was the largest private sector theft of public money in history, an estimated $16 trillion, followed by an aggressive global “austerity” push that targets the poor, the middle class, and people of colour to pay for the systemic fraud that caused the crisis.
•The US income disparity gap between rich and poor is the greatest of any industrialized country.
•For the first time in US history, student debt exceeds consumer debt. Never has a young generation of Americans seen this much debt, and consequently they await a life of serfdom in the capitalist order.
•The global 2011 Billionaires List recorded a record number of billionaires and combined wealth.
•There are more slaves today than at any time in human history.
•Worldwide military spending reached a record high in 2011.

Notice a trend?

* We Can’t Make it Here James McMurtry, youtube

“The bar’s still open but man it’s slow

The tip jar’s light and the register’s low

The bartender don’t have much to say

The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards

Some are working two jobs and living in cars

Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof,

Won’t pay for a drink, if you gotta have proof

Just try it yourself Mr. C.E.O.

See how far $5.15 an hour will go

Take a part time job at one of your stores

Bet you can’t make it here anymore”

* Panic of the Plutocrats Paul Krugman New York Times

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.

… What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens…. This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

2. Watch Occupying Wall Street

Oct-14-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: “The revolution will not be televised,” sang Gil Scott-Heron, 40 years ago. But it will be photographed, tweeted, twittered, and streamed. You can watch OWS in real time (or any of 30 other occupations). An artist draws the faces she sees as OWS goes into its 29th day. And In Focus has a stunning photo collection of the occupy movements across the world.

* All Occupy Wall Street Streams and IRC Live Revolution

All “occupy” movements, including Toronto and Vancouver as of 10/15/11 on live video stream.

* Faces of Occupied Wall Streetmollycrabapple.com

I live half a block from Liberty Park, the homebase and nerve center of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I’ve been going down almost every day I’ve been in town to drop off books, tarps, and blankets for the protesters. While the media caricatures the protesters as a group of ne’er do well hippies, its actually hundreds of people of all ages, colors and walks of life.

* Occupy Wall Street Spreads Beyond NYC Alan Taylor In Focus

2. Inside Wall Street

Oct-07-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: This was the week that the pendulum swung, and the Occupy Wall Street movement began to be taken seriously. Part of that was either caused (or proven) when support started to come from groups such as the steel workers union and climate activists 350.org. (“If Wall Street is occupying President Obama’s State Department and the halls of Congress, it’s time for the people to occupy Wall Street,”). Part of that was the intelligent non-confrontational tactics the group is using. And part of that was the word finally getting into the main-stream media of what the group stood for. We offer a link to Avaaz, where you can sign and show your support. In the centre of occupied Wall Street, a giant live counter shows the numbers and names of people signing (from 50,000 up to 100,000 in the last 12 hours). And the final proof that this movement matters is that the Democratic party is trying to co-opt it, as Salon magazine explores.

* Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

* Occupy Wall Street Rediscovers The Radical Imagination David Graeber Guardian

Why are people occupying Wall Street? Why has the occupation –despite the latest police crackdown – sent out sparks across America, within days, inspiring hundreds of people to send pizzas, money, equipment and, now, to start their own movements called OccupyChicago, OccupyFlorida, in OccupyDenver or OccupyLA?

There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. … Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?

Just as in Europe, we are seeing the results of colossal social failure. The occupiers are the very sort of people, brimming with ideas, whose energies a healthy society would be marshaling to improve life for everyone. Instead, they are using it to envision ways to bring the whole system down.

*Unions, Democrats and Occupy Wall Street Salon

But what happens when the liberal establishment begins to reach out to this amorphous collection of anarchists, libertarians, Ron Paul fans, sectarian lefties – plus many, many ordinary people turned activists, drawn by the call to protest the power of Wall Street? How will they relate to “a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system with roots in anarchist thought,” as the Occupy Wall Street folks describe their decision-making process? Can a leaderless movement get along with liberals and Democratic Party poobahs, who are essentially leaders without a movement? It looks like we’re going to find out.

* The World vs Wall Street Avaaz

Thousands of Americans have non-violently occupied Wall St — an epicentre of global financial power and corruption. They are the latest ray of light in a new movement for social justice that is spreading like wildfire from Madrid to Jerusalem to 146 other cities and counting, but they need our help to succeed. If millions of us from across the world stand with them, we’ll boost their resolve and show the media and leaders that the protests are part of a massive mainstream movement for change.

Click to join the call for real democracy – a giant live counter of every one of us who signs the petition will be erected in the centre of the occupation in New York,, and live webcasted on this web page. Sign up now

2. The Wall Street Spring

Sep-30-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: This is really three stories: the story of the protest and what they’re protesting; the story of the egregious police reaction (video of pepper-spraying non-violent demonstrators); and the story of the media coverage.

* Occupy Wall Street is ‘where the hope of America lies’ Chris Hedges Raw Replay

Journalist Chris Hedges put in an appearance at the Occupy Wall Street protest on Sunday morning and engaged in a lengthy interview, during which he described the protest as “really where the hope of America lies.”

…Hedges went on to say that the protesters should be seen as “conservatives” because “they call for the restoration of the rule of law. The real radicals have seized power,” he asserted, “and they are decimating all impediments to the creation of a neo-feudalistic corporate state, one in which there is a rapacious oligarchic class, a thin managerial elite, and two-thirds of this country live in conditions that increasingly push families to subsistence level.”

* What do We Want? (via Reddit)

1. Campaign Finance Reform

All votes are no longer equal in our Democracy. Money must be put outside of politics, or politicians will continue to pander to those who contribute the most to their campaigns, rather than their own constituencies. Specifically, we abhor the decision by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC. Corporations are NOT people.

2. True Shared Sacrifice

While corporate profits have been skyrocketing and the wealthy have been getting wealthier, the average worker’s income has dramatically dropped. While the cost of living has exponentially increased, wages have not followed. It has been shown time and time again that tax cuts for the wealthy are NOT effective. Taxes on those who practice greed should be raised.

* A Burst of Pepper Spray Like a Punch In the Face The New York Times

“It got kind of weird around Union Square,” Ms. Elliott said. “That’s when they tried to corral us into those nets. The march had ended. I was exhausted — I just wanted to walk back to Wall Street.” She was standing in one of the nets, occasionally screaming when someone was arrested.

Then a deputy inspector, a senior rank in the Police Department, walked up to the corral, quickly doused several people standing there with pepper spray, and just walked off. It stunned the protesters and police officers standing around them….In the video, the deputy inspector, Anthony Bologna, looked as if he were spraying cockroaches. When asked about the matter, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, Paul J. Browne, said it had been used “appropriately.”

* What’s Behind The Scorn For The Wall Street Protests? Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

It’s unsurprising that establishment media outlets have been condescending,dismissive and scornfulof the ongoing protests on Wall Street. Any entity that declares itself an adversary of prevailing institutional power is going to be viewed with hostility by establishment-serving institutions and their loyalists. That’s just the nature of protests that take place outside approved channels, an inevitable by-product of disruptive dissent: those who are most vested in safeguarding and legitimizing establishment prerogatives (which, by definition, includes establishment media outlets) are going to be hostile to those challenges. As the virtually universal disdain in these same circles for WikiLeaks (and, before that, for the Iraq War protests) demonstrated: the more effectively adversarial it is, the more establishment hostility it’s going to provoke.

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1. Why Occupy Wall Street?

2. Watch Occupying Wall Street

2. Inside Wall Street

2. The Wall Street Spring

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