Occupy: There’s An App For That, What is the OWS Agenda?, Busted For The Cause

October 31st, 2011 - by: danny

Read and Rage: Occupied Raids Nationwide

Essay: Occupy: There is an App For That!

Al Jazeera English: Occupy Protests: There’s an App For that

When Apple introduced the iPad, most of its advertising focused on the applications it could showcase. Their most popular ads ended with the catchy slogan, “There’s an App For That”.

Now there’s an App for Occupy Wall Street, as up to date and tech savvy as any of the top of the line offerings available through Apple stores. This one not only aggregates news – or at least some of it – in the world press, but offers access to social media to Twitter feeds and Facebook….

“Media hypocrisy is pervasive in outlets that relentlessly attack Occupy Wall Street with biased and snarky reporting while taking ads from the financial institutions that deserve to be investigated.

So there are more good reasons for the protest to sharpen its own media that also includes its own newspaper and a live stream so anyone can watch online as the occupations unfold.

As a media person, I know how powerful and seductive media attention can be – and it is essential to communicate, in however flawed a manner, with the public at large.

But this movement is more than its image, more than its media impact. It’s appeal is an opportunity for direct participation, not as a spectacle for others to watch from a distance…

See the full essay on the Al Jazeera English Website

I also wrote this essay on the question of the OWS agenda for the News Dissector blog and US websites:

The Question OWS Hears Most: “What’s Your Agenda?”

One of the most frequently repeated, recycled and dismissive questions about Occupy Wall Street is its supposed lack of an “agenda.”

The “what do you people want” question has featured in media interviews almost to the exclusion of all others.

It’s as if the movement won’t be taken seriously by some, unless and until, it enunciates list of “demands” and defines itself in a way that can allow others, especially a cynical media, to label and pigeonhole it.

Many are just frothing at the mouth for some political positions they can expose as shallow or absurd. Teams of pundits are being primed to go on the attack once they have some bullet points to refute.

(Many police departments don’t need bullet points to go on the attack. They have been having a field day arresting occupiers in many cities, while collecting overtime and readying their own bullets as needed.)

Some on Wall Street already denounce these adversaries as “unsophisticated” for their formulation of the 99% versus the 1%. You’d expect the 1 % to reject this way of seeing the world.

On the right, there is no factual inaccuracy or bizarre incident they won’t invoke to dismiss a movement they lack the mental tools to understand.

The Drudge Report was delighted to expose an incident involving public masturbation in one city. A group of gun nuts blasted away a group of people who in their majority are deeply disappointed with President Obama’s non-leadership on economic issues.

They write: “Don’t be mistaken. The Wall Street protestors aren’t peaceful hippies congregating about greed or social inequality. They are uniting to destroy America and everything we stand for. Their model is the “Arab Spring” which discharged their Governments in favor of anti-Israel agitators and Muslim fundamentalists. …They are NOT about freedom, but about World domination and total control. And Obama is supporting them……….fully.”

Hmm.

Others like Reverend Jesse Jackson want more engagement with legislative issues and even the backing of candidates. Democratic Candidates, even progressive ones like Elizabeth Warren, seem ambivalent about backing the occupations. Most are taking their cue from President Obama who only say he understands their “frustrations.”)

Some on the left, including friends of mine, seem to suffer from undisguised vanguardism and want the Movement to raise the red flag right away, despite all the anarchists, libertarians and Democrats among them. Here’s Bill Bowles writing from London:

“Although many on the established Left are claiming OWS as their own, latching on to the anti-capitalist theme that figures prominently, at least in some locations, it’s clear that the focus of the OWS ‘movement’ varies greatly from place to place. Thus where it all started, in downtown Manhattan, the focus is very much on capitalist criminals rather than criminal capitalism. But little or no mention of the dreaded word- socialism, ironically for fear of alienating even those who occupy, never mind what the rabid corporate/state media does with that which shall remain nameless.”

These are old and, in many instances, predictable debates but what they miss is what’s new and so vital about this decentralized, mostly leaderless movement that has captured the worlds imagination.

Judging by the media attention it has received and polls that show large numbers of supportive Americans. it is touching a global nerve and changing the national, even international conversation. It seems to be doing a lot that’s right!

Not only have they survived mass arrests and continuing harassment, they showed they could brave what Mother Nature threw their way. They are in the best tradition of the post office which still projects this creed despite the spectre of cutbacks:”

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”

Occupy’s “couriers” have self-appointed rounds in self managed occupations run by work groups and guided by participation in a daily General assembly where activists listen to each other and disagree without being disagreeable.

They have raised a war chest of several hundred thousand dollars. They keep their sites clean with their own sanitation department. In New York, they feed their own with their own kitchen that also serves homeless people in the neighborhood. They even have their own “people’s library.”

In many ways, they are creating ways of cooperative living that they want society to be like. The key to it all is commitment and engagement on the individual level. This way of fusing pragmatism and idealism is what makes it so impressive.

Movements that function from the top-down are more controlled but not necessarily more effective.
At this point, the Occupy movements is still growing, and still spreading its aura more than its message. When you think of how many unemployed people there are and how many others are coping with foreclosures or student debt you can see its potential for organizing and outreach.

Already activists in Oakland where attacks by police from 19 different jurisdictions has galvanized a mass reaction, are calling for November 2 “general strike.”

Are they well organized enough to pull this off and to shut down a whole city?

This may be a case of overreaching in reaction to a brutal police action. But, bear in mind that since it occurred, no one is cheering. The City’s Mayor says she now supports Occupy. The Police are now supposedly investigating their own conduct, and the occupiers are back in the plaza they were forced to abandon.

Thee police attacks often boomerang with the public siding with citizens, not cops.
There is a lot to be optimistic about.

Slavoj Zijek writes in In These Times, “The Western Left has come full circle: After abandoning the so-called ‘class struggle essentialism’ for the plurality of anti-racist, feminist, gay rights etc., struggles, ‘capitalism’ is now re-emerging as the name of THE problem.’

Let’s put the emphasis on words like “emerging” and “awakening,” Politics is always a process. Give people time to distinguish their friends from their enemies. Let’s trust the wisdom of the people. They seem to “get it” much more than the media or the pols.

It is significant that there has been talk of National Convention in Philadelphia on July 4th next year.

Right now, as for a definitive agenda, action always speaks louder than words.

Your comments on these essays to dissector@medachannel.org

NY Times Conforms Occupy’s Analysis of the One Percent

Alternet, Barbara Schneider Reilly, Busted for the Cause; Occupy Wall Street Protester, Arrested and Jailed for 30 Hours, Tells Her Story for the First Time

I spent a weekend in jail.

On Saturday, October 15, I went to Washington Square
Park to take a closer look at the Occupy Wall Street
movement. There were many young people who could be my
children or rather grandchildren, but many older people,
too, all generations united, it seemed, under the
banner: “We are the 99 percent.”

Different groups decided to go to a bank. I joined one
that went to Citibank at La Guardia Place and Bleecker
Street. As we entered, there were a couple of customers
and a few banktellers inside. A teach-in ensued. The
story the students told, surprisingly calmly and
politely, was shocking.

“I am $100,000 in debt. The costs Citibank charges me go
up and up. I do not know how I can repay it. I find it
deeply irresponsible that Citibank makes the kind of
profit they do from our indebtedness.”

Another student said, “I’m not $100,000 in debt, only
$30,000. So far. And I still have two years to go. This
kind of profit-taking cannot go on. We are here to say
we will not tolerate it. We need fundamental change.”

And so it went. After we were told to take our action
outside, some people stayed and continued to tell their
stories.

Read the Rest:

Occupy Ft Lauderdale at The Boat Show

Occupy That Yacht

In Fort Lauderdale, a good-natured movement takes the
fight to the decks of the one percent.

If America’s ultra-rich are feeling unappreciated, a
trip to this weekend’s Fort Lauderdale International
Boat Show seemed to offer some solace. After all, it’s
the world’s premier annual showcase for yachts, and the
city bills itself unabashedly as the “Yachting Capital
of the World.”

But this year, not all the residents were in a welcoming.
Occupy Ft Lauderdale was there.

And, Now, Occupy The Rose Bowl Parade

We are a one day affinity project of the international “Occupy Wall Street” movement . Please share the URL for the site with other 99%ers via Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms.

6 am Dec. 31, 2011 to 2 pm, Jan. 2, 2012: We are striving for 40,000 national & international occupiers converging at Pasadena’s Norton Simon (by Orange Grove Blvd & Colorado Blvd). . Further details pending (see website also). (Note: If you can purchase tickets for the event in front of the Norton Simon for Jan, 2, 2012, please strive to do so. We will have costumed viewer “stand” actions as well. Details will provided listserve in two weeks regarding OWS/OLA “Human Float” , Banner Drops and other actions).

Primary Goals: (1) Legislate real Wall Street Accountability; & (2) Mobilize “We Are the 99%” support for real and truly systemic reform.

Facebook Page (please share w/ others & ‘Like’): http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-the-Rose-Parade-Mon-Jan-2-2012/27976381205556

Pat Buchanan, Occupy Wall Street Will End Badly

OWS at Valley Forge?

Tom Englehardt Speaks To Occupy Wall Street: One book editor’s personal view of just why Zuccotti Park offers us hope in a tarnished century —

Tom Engelhardt, “OWS at Valley Forge, A (Self-) Graduation Speech for the Occupiers of Zuccotti Park” http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175460/ To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Engelhardt discusses the Occupy Wall Street movement and what hope means in our time visit http://tomdispatch.blogspot.com/2011/10/whats-your-occupation.html

My latest post offers a personal view of what the Occupy Wall Street movement means (and specifically what it means to me) as the winter of all our discontents bears down on us. It’s written in the form of a (self-) graduation speech from a 67-year-old book editor (and sometime activist) to the young occupiers of Zuccotti Park and particularly the “librarians” there who have made the book with paper pages a central icon of their movement. (“Who would have expected that the old-fashioned, retro book would be at the heart of this country’s great protest movement of a tarnished new century?”)

FT: Calls for EU lead on Tobin tax….When Will US Adopt This Reform?

Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, wants the European Union to take the global lead in introducing a financial transaction tax to curb speculative trading, along with tougher regulation of big banks and the “shadow” banking sector, such as hedge funds. If the UK blocked agreement on such a tax in the full EU, he said in an interview with the Financial Times, the eurozone should press ahead on its own

CLG: U.S. Planning Troop Buildup in Gulf After ‘Exit’ From Iraq

Plans under discussion for months…The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. After unsuccessfully pressing both the Obama administration and the Iraqi government to permit as many as 20,000 American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2011, the Pentagon is now drawing up an alternative. In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States is considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the regio

666–LBN: HERMAN CAIN TO CUT BACK ON 2012 CAMPAIGN EVENTS TO AVOID GAFFES :

Presidential candidate Herman Cain is full of confidence about his 2012 prospects. Its been weeks since hes set foot in first-voting Iowa or New Hampshire, yet he said Saturday he said expects to finish first or second in each state. The latest Des Moines Register poll out Saturday showed Cain statistically tied with Mitt Romney for the lead in the GOP primary. Cains also predicting victory in South Carolina, which will hold the Souths first presidential contest in 2012. And then, look out, Cain said Saturday before plunging into a crowd of football tailgaters at Samford University, a Baptist-affiliated school in Alabama. That win, he says, will set the stage for him to capture the GOP nomination.

Cains campaign, however, said he plans to dial back his campaign and media appearances in order to avoid missteps. Since climbing in the polls, he has had a series of fumbles, forcing him to clarify comments on abortion, immigration and terrorism suspects.

His campaign also is dealing with (and denying) charges of inappropriate conduct on his part in a past job toward two women.

Obama Discloses “Bundlers”

President Barack Obama’s policy of fully disclosing the list of his top supporters who bundle campaign cash is ironically responsible for a recent New York Times story hitting him for taking contributions from people who are effectively lobbyists, despite a campaign pledge to shun such money.

“At least 15 of Mr. Obama’s ‘bundlers’ — supporters who contribute their own money to his campaign and solicit it from others — are involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies. They have raised more than $5 million so far for the campaign,” the Times reported on Friday.

The story noted that the 15 are not registered lobbyists.

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, told CNN on Sunday that it was the president’s own practice of disclosing his bundlers’ names that made the story possible. Republican candidates, who have not sworn off cash from registered lobbyists, are likely signing up bundlers from the same crowd, but voters won’t be able to find out as long as they decline to disclose the

Fluent News, ‘U.S. warned about Afghan prison abuse, officials now say’ :

Letters

Alan Tobias writes:

Did you see today’s NY Times Review section back pages? The idea of the OWS that has caught on most around the world is that of the 99% … because it is true. In the US, the top 1% earners earn more annually than the bottom 50+%.

There are many economists who appear on TV to poo-poo the effect of these numbers, arguing that entrepreneurship means inequality and inequality incentivizes hard work and progress, but to the man in the street, as to many leading (to call them Nobel laureates is for me hoaxster stuff) vocally agree. The TV economists are a mirror of the TV evangelists, and the understanding on the street is that what they have in common is their hand in the jar.

A corollary to the greed mystique at CITI and Goldman is that the fed prosecutors have asked the SEC why no finding and no settlement with admission of guilt for fraudulent entrapment?

Wesley Brown:writes:

I believe this is the country whose ruler set a “first” for a full court Whitehouse “PARTY” with President Bush and all the trimmings. I think it is also the country that Hilliary Clinton immediately flew to for a week the first day that Wikileaks started publishing. (If not one and the same it is another right near with a very similar name.) There should be also a story on “Smoking Gun” or similar about this country about 2007-2008. The story will be about 10,000 or more Mercenaries guarding a “newly built complex” very similar to Ft. Knox. (Let alone what is in it. Unknown to the Guards.)
During the Bush Presidency Ft Knox GOLD was moved to a newly built complex on the North side of Dublin, Ohio both Knox & Dublin complexes still have the guards, but the contents were moved to I believe the following country to another complex that mirrors the other two. President Obama apparently checked the Dublin complex when he got and email, but found “cobwebs”. Meanwhile in the last two weeks China has demanded their GOLD that the US was storing for them returned to their country, the “STALL” is on. It gets more sticky: Former Sec of Treasury Snow sold 125% of America to other countries, all the Railroads, Panama, and the West Coast Ports to the Chinese, Then Chrysler to Cherry Motors and their bailouts. Paulson flew $ 2 Billion to China out of Fannie & Freddie, and Buffett bought a railroad(from whom or was it another payment (All of this makes the GOLD markets even more interesting, exactly what are they selling – subprime gold) If anyone has a serious reporter near they may wish to investigate this. REALIZE if all the DEBTORS realize the “KEYS TO THE CASTLE” are right beside them there will be a serious “GOLD RUSH” to retrieve their missing funds, especially by the 25% that bought a PIG IN A POKE. WWIII will immediately begin except it will be all sides against the middle. It will get even more interesting when the “BOOKRUNNERS” are found out, they repackaged the Subprime Homes each 52 times with different names and Commercial each 12 times with different names and sold them throughout the WORLD. Meanwhile

Source: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-696

FULL PDF on GAO server: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11696.pdf

$ 5 Trillion can be added to the above $ 16 Trillion since the date of the initial audit. (Suddenly why off-shore parties got particle payments start to make sense. Total within US appears to be about $ 66 Trillion to-date, not counting missing funds of other countries.) World Forensic Accountants estimate total $ 2.2 Quadrillion but that number is two years old.

Robert Simon writes:

All the discussion about an agenda for the occupy movement and the Worldwide support and engagement for the movement makes it apparent that what should form from the movement is a Multi-National Political Party or movement to confront the Multi-National Corporate hegemony that is controlling world economy and current world governments.
Establishing common principals can unite the People’s movements around the World. I list these visible People’s movements as follows: The Occupy Wall Street Movement, in America, The Economic Occupation Movement of Greece and Europe, The Arab Spring, across the Islamic Nations, The Free Speech and Democracy Movement, in China.
As common, unitingCornerstone Principals for a People’s Earth Party, I offer these broad concepts; Human Rights, Environment, Disarmament, Innovation.

Human Rights: Must promote tolerance of gender, religion, race and culture, nonviolently.
[women and sexual equality, freedom of worship, ethnic pride]
Environment: Must promote clean air, clean land, and clean water.
[no more acid rain, no more Love Canals, clean the garbage from the seas]
Disarmament: Must end the wasting of resources and capital on nuclear and heavy arms.
[the cost of 1 nuclear missile could feed 100,000 people for 1 year]
Innovation: Must promote free thinking, invention, eduction, creativity.

Adopting these principals as the cornerstones for building a united Earth with mutual respect for all our fellow World Citizens can insure that we continue to pass along a sustainable Planet for the next and future generations. Look past the current or next crisis. Take the long view to creating universal peace, common understanding, acceptance and cooperation so we can live forever with our fellow human beings.

Marcus Brandt writes:

I appreciate the thoughtful column about “agenda”.

“Agenda” has been used for 250 years in this country to pacify dissent. Not drawing OWS into bullet points is essential to the movement, because what the bullet points really are is not mollified by the rhetoric of false hope. I find what small amount of governmental faith I have left not surprisingly appalled by the absence of co-option by Presidential candidates and the President. Normally, co-option would be the bribe, but they cannot and will not address the true price to the rich elite that is inevitably coming. The contradictions of our political system have come home to roost.

Gore Vidal said (and I paraphrase hugely) that FDR was one of the most significant Presidents ever because he saved capitalism. I’m not so sure that the public has the capacity for suspension of dis-belief required for that to happen again. Occasionally cynicism becomes realized as the truth, and so here we stand.

Andreas Classens sends this must-read along”

EJC: British government and industry computer systems are facing a “disturbing” number of cyber attacks, including a recent serious assault on the Foreign Office’s network, the head of Britain’s communications spy agency said on Monday. Iain Lobban, director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), said the attacks posed a threat to Britain’s economic well being. Lobban’s GCHQ agency, a big eavesdropping operation similar to the National Security Agency in the United States….

Yuks From Britain, Another Failure: My Blackberry Is Not Working

Going, Going….

Former Goldman Sachs chief and NJ Governor, Jon S. Corzine, spent the weekend trying to unload his failing Wall Street firm, MF Global. “a powerhouse in commodities and derivatives.” The alleged problem: Europe’s debt crisis

Is This What We Need From The Citizens Online Network?

Shelly Palmer: Google announced that YouTube would become home to around 100 channels of content. Many channels will feature content by celebrities .

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