Jason Adams: Occupy Time

Occupy Time
by Jason Adams
Critical Inquiry

“Time and I, against any two” – Baltasar Gracián

[Author’s Note: this piece was composed while Occupy Oakland, Portland, Denver, and other cities were under attack, prior to the eviction of the epicenter, NYC’s Zuccotti Park. The events of the past weekend, it would seem, render the already developing shift from space to time necessary, as well as inevitable.]

Until recently, a casual observer might have thought that Occupy had developed a time management problem, that it was increasingly managed by a static image of space. While it initially began with the declaration that September 17th would be the starting date and that it would continue for an unspecified period, the focus soon shifted to a general strategy of occupying public space. While this produced many victories, a certain ossification also emerged. What should have been one tactic amongst others began to harden into an increasingly homogenous strategy. For many of those involved, maintaining this spatial focus became the sine qua non of the movement, even in the face, for instance, of the changing of the seasons and ongoing police evictions. In nearly every history-altering moment of the past however, from the Paris Commune to the antiglobalization movement, it was the element of time that proved most decisive. There is a reason, for instance, that the clock towers were the first target chosen by the French communards. Occupy is no exception: as the Jesuit thinker Baltasar Gracián held, beyond all other considerations, it is time rather than space that best positions one to win. Indeed, even those events of the past that are currently narrated as failures can always be renarrated as successes, in that they have left behind possible successes that remain to be actualized. The recently viral image of police surrounding the 2012 Olympic Countdown Clock in London is evidence enough that the primacy of time is well understood in some quarters.

Rather than maintaining this spatial strategy at all costs, what is most interesting about Occupy now is that it is increasingly complicating static images of space: it is, in short, occupying time. This has meant a shift to a more fluid, tactical approach, one not only appropriate to the specifics of constantly changing situations deployed from above, but one that more importantly, allows it to bring forth new ones, from below. Indeed, the initial introduction of an open duration for the Occupy events already oriented the subsequent events primarily towards the temporal and the tactical rather than the spatial and strategic. This was truly its greatest strength and is the major reason the spatial strategy did as well as it did. While Ken Knabb and others have linked Occupy to the Situationists’ promotion of factory and university occupations during the French Events of May 1968, what was most central for the latter was once again not space but time. What they called for and what Occupy is increasing calling for was the “creation of situations.” Already this approach has made it impossible for the actions to be declared a failure once and for all, since it was the temporal focus that enabled the creation of hundreds of new “situations” nationwide and worldwide.

For instance, when one occupation was evicted by police, more often than not, several more have simply appeared elsewhere. Or, if laws governing public parks were cited as an excuse, existing occupations simply moved to private rather than public space, such as abandoned buildings or foreclosed homes. As one online commenter put it, while Rome wasn’t built in a day, it wasn’t dismantled in a day either. The tactical innovation the open timeframe enabled also allowed the coordinates of each situation to be produced by the enactors themselves, on their own, distinct terms. Thus, while the originally spatially-oriented events in lower Manhattan gave birth to Occupy Wall Street, it was the temporal structure that enabled the emergence of Occupy the Hood in Queens several weeks later. Had it simply been billed as a conventional one-day protest confined to a single space, the few hundred who initially showed up in the streets near the New York Stock Exchange would not have even registered in the media, let alone countless peoples’ affective attachments, as is now the case.

Perhaps then, if transforming the collective situation remains the primary concern, some consideration of the space/time as well as strategy/tactics relationships is in order. For instance, consider the temporal quality of the moment in which Occupy has emerged. Today, the experience of time has become greatly accelerated, much more so than just one decade ago. Whether or not one has access to the social media sites or smartphones that are increasingly turning the old, spatially-defined continents into new, temporally-defined telecontinents, trillions of dollars in financial transactions still speed around the globe daily. Beyond the rhetoric of the “digital divide”, this continually creates new realities that everyone is faced with. The most recent example is the economic crisis. It was not only attributable to unsustainable, individually-purchased mortgages, but more importantly, to what brought them to market in the first place: the massively increased pace at which global financial transactions occur. This is one reason, perhaps, that the spatial strategy is evolving into a temporal tactics. As Karl Marx argued in the Grundrisse, economics is ultimately a matter of time. The less time required to accumulate money in the first place, he held, the more time available to mobilize other forces to produce more of it. Thus ever-increasing speed is a primary basis for the contemporary mode of production. Today it is not time is money but money is time.

To Read the Rest of the Essay

Chomsky On Corporate Personhood

[8 minute clip in which he answers a question and gets to the heart of the matter]

Hardcore History: The Death Throes of the Roman Republic, Pts 1-6

[An addition to our current readings of "libertarian municipalism" -- A major gap in our initial reading seems to be between the Greek conception of democracy and the Roman bastardization of it into a state republic (although it may touch on it more directly, as hinted) -- this doesn't really focus the discussion toward our goals, but it is a necessary history to understand as this is an important history to know because our nation's founders and succeeding generations of elites looked to the Roman model as their example for governmentality (They learned Latin and the histories of the Roman Republic as model) -- with that in mind this history might prove useful -- unlike Howard Zinn, this is a top down history.]

Show 34 - Death Throes of the Republic I

The wars which elevate Rome to superpower status also sow the seed for the downfall of its political system. Money, slaves, ambition, political stalemate and class warfare prove to be a toxic, bloody mix.

Show 35 - Death Throes of the Republic II

Disaster threatens the Republic, but the cure might be worse than the disease. "The Dan Carlin version" of this story continues with ambition-addict Marius dominating the story and Plutarch dominating the sources.

Show 36 - Death Throes of the Republic III

Rome's political violence expands in intensity from riots and assassinations to outright war as the hyper-ambitious generals Marius and Sulla tear the Republic and its constitution apart vying for power and glory.

Show 37 - Death Throes of the Republic IV

Sulla returns to Rome to show the Republic what REAL political violence looks like. Civil war and deadly partisan payback will pave the way for reforms pushed at sword point. Lots of heads will roll...literally.

Show 38 - Death Throes of the Republic V

The last great generation of the Roman Republic emerges from the historical mists. The dynamic between Caesar, Cato, Cicero, Crassus and Pompey forms the axis around which the rest of this tale revolves.

Show 39 - Death Throes of the Republic VI

In a massive finish to the "Dan Carlin version" of the fall of the Roman Republic, conspiracies, civil wars, beatniks of antiquity and a guy named Caesar figure prominently. Virtually everyone dies.

Vicky Pelaez: The prison industry in the United States -- big business or a new form of slavery?

The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery?
by Vicky Pelaez
Global Research

...

HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES

Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of "hiring out prisoners" was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else's land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery - which were almost never proven - and were then "hired out" for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of "hired-out" miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972.

During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. "Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex," comments the Left Business Observer.

Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.

Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.

[Former] Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won't be any transportation costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor (here)."

PRIVATE PRISONS

The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton's program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates.

Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, "the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners." The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for "good behavior," but for any infraction, they get 30 days added - which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost "good behavior time" at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.

IMPORTING AND EXPORTING INMATES

Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state's governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.

After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 - ending court supervision and decisions - caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering "rent-a-cell" services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.

STATISTICS

Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country's 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness.

To Read the Entire Article

David Graeber: Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots -- The 'Occupy' movement is one of several in American history to be based on anarchist principles.

Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots: The 'Occupy' movement is one of several in American history to be based on anarchist principles.
by David Graeber
Al Jazeera

Almost every time I'm interviewed by a mainstream journalist about Occupy Wall Street I get some variation of the same lecture:

"How are you going to get anywhere if you refuse to create a leadership structure or make a practical list of demands? And what's with all this anarchist nonsense - the consensus, the sparkly fingers? Don't you realise all this radical language is going to alienate people? You're never going to be able to reach regular, mainstream Americans with this sort of thing!"

If one were compiling a scrapbook of worst advice ever given, this sort of thing might well merit an honourable place. After all, since the financial crash of 2007, there have been dozens of attempts to kick-off a national movement against the depredations of the United States' financial elites taking the approach such journalists recommended. All failed. It was only on August 2, when a small group of anarchists and other anti-authoritarians showed up at a meeting called by one such group and effectively wooed everyone away from the planned march and rally to create a genuine democratic assembly, on basically anarchist principles, that the stage was set for a movement that Americans from Portland to Tuscaloosa were willing to embrace.

I should be clear here what I mean by "anarchist principles". The easiest way to explain anarchism is to say that it is a political movement that aims to bring about a genuinely free society - that is, one where humans only enter those kinds of relations with one another that would not have to be enforced by the constant threat of violence. History has shown that vast inequalities of wealth, institutions like slavery, debt peonage or wage labour, can only exist if backed up by armies, prisons, and police. Anarchists wish to see human relations that would not have to be backed up by armies, prisons and police. Anarchism envisions a society based on equality and solidarity, which could exist solely on the free consent of participants.

Anarchism versus Marxism

Traditional Marxism, of course, aspired to the same ultimate goal but there was a key difference. Most Marxists insisted that it was necessary first to seize state power, and all the mechanisms of bureaucratic violence that come with it, and use them to transform society - to the point where, they argued such mechanisms would, ultimately, become redundant and fade away. Even back in the 19th century, anarchists argued that this was a pipe dream. One cannot, they argued, create peace by training for war, equality by creating top-down chains of command, or, for that matter, human happiness by becoming grim joyless revolutionaries who sacrifice all personal self-realisation or self-fulfillment to the cause.

It's not just that the ends do not justify the means (though they don't), you will never achieve the ends at all unless the means are themselves a model for the world you wish to create. Hence the famous anarchist call to begin "building the new society in the shell of the old" with egalitarian experiments ranging from free schools to radical labour unions to rural communes.

Anarchism was also a revolutionary ideology, and its emphasis on individual conscience and individual initiative meant that during the first heyday of revolutionary anarchism between roughly 1875 and 1914, many took the fight directly to heads of state and capitalists, with bombings and assassinations. Hence the popular image of the anarchist bomb-thrower. It's worthy of note that anarchists were perhaps the first political movement to realise that terrorism, even if not directed at innocents, doesn't work. For nearly a century now, in fact, anarchism has been one of the very few political philosophies whose exponents never blow anyone up (indeed, the 20th-century political leader who drew most from the anarchist tradition was Mohandas K Gandhi.)

Yet for the period of roughly 1914 to 1989, a period during which the world was continually either fighting or preparing for world wars, anarchism went into something of an eclipse for precisely that reason: To seem "realistic", in such violent times, a political movement had to be capable of organising armies, navies and ballistic missile systems, and that was one thing at which Marxists could often excel. But everyone recognised that anarchists - rather to their credit - would never be able to pull it off. It was only after 1989, when the age of great war mobilisations seemed to have ended, that a global revolutionary movement based on anarchist principles - the global justice movement - promptly reappeared.

How, then, did OWS embody anarchist principles? It might be helpful to go over this point by point:

To Read the Rest of the Essay

Common Sense with Dan Carlin: Shows 207 - 212 -- Reflecting on a Time of Civil Unrest

[Dan Carlin is one of my favorite independent, conservative thinkers and I appreciate his insights -- in these series of episodes he reflects on current events, including the Occupy Movement]

Show 207 - Stirring The Pot

Bringing people together is on Dan's mind today as he looks at Truth, protests, Pan-National anger and the theoretical idea of a Goldman-Sachs-like entity outing itself as the global overlord.

Notes:
1. “Tony Bennett Changes His Tune on 9/11 Remarks” by Brian Canova for ABC News (The Note), September 21, 2011.

2. “Trader Alessio Rastani To BBC: 'Governments Don't Rule The World, Goldman Sachs Rules The World' ”

3. “As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe” by Nicholas Kulish for The New York Times, September 27, 2011.

Show 208 - The Fruits of Disillusionment

Dan unveils a new streamlined show format while tackling an issue he dealt with in the last episode...the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Notes:
1. “The Tea Party loses another round” by Dana Milbank for The Washington Post, October 15, 2011.

Show 209 - A Show in Pieces

What happens when Dan meanders too far down an intellectual tangent to find his way back to the point? You get "A show in pieces"

Show 210 - Second Guessing the Navigator

Who is setting the national agenda and how do we feel about their choices? Dan discusses everything from the conflict between liberty and democracy to the ability of governments to solve social problems.

Notes:
1. “The Wrong Inequality” by David Brooks for The New York Times, October 31, 2011.

Show 211 - Tyranny of the Unwise

Is it possible that a political system based on voting and elections has less of a chance of producing wise leadership than a monarchy or dictatorship? Dan tries to look at this heretical idea with an open mind.

Notes:
1. “China mocks U.S. political model” by Patrice Hill for The Washington Times, November 9, 2011.

Show 212 - The Very Velvet Fist

What if pepper spray or other modern crowd control tools had been available during the Civil Rights era? Dan looks at the challenges the protest tactic of civil disobedience faces in a 21st Century world.

The Trials of Henry Kissinger (USA/UK/Denmark/France/Canada/Australia: Eugene Jarecki, 2002)

scott crow: Black Flags and Windmills -- Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective

PM Press link for the book

'Black Flags and Windmills' TRAILER from Louisiana Lucy on Vimeo.

also a full presentation by scott crow on the ideas and experiences in the book



This is a response by Michael B. to Sara P. on the Edu email list. Sara asked him to define in greater detail his understanding of Anarchism (I will proofread and link the addresses when I have more time). There is a lot of confusion about what anarchism is, mostly because of the disnformation propagated by the corporate media--so I wanted to provide an explanation here:

Sara, :) remember this all on the fly here (no revisions) and I can explain in more detail.....

First, "libertarian" has many meanings -- are you talking about right - libertarian (think of tea party or Rand Paul: traditional american version that wants to remove drown government and privatize everything) or left - libertarian (these are traditional anarchists: earlier european version that branched off from cadre socialism and sought to bring more autonomy into individual/collective lives while realizing the potential of liberated communities). There are also many, many types of anarchism, but let me lay out some basics (I would also encourage you to watch scott crow's presentation in the video I provided http://olkyeducation.blogspot.com/2011/12/scott-crow-black-flags-and-windmills.html -- he/Common Grounds is a great example of anarchist direct action ... also notice he doesn't cap his name (why would that be?). Also I would suggest going to see April Browning's screening of Howard Zinn's The People Speaks at Natasha's. For the record Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky both claim they are left-libertarians

Short descriptions:

Anarchists do not seek complete absence of government. There is a need for basic communal structures to facilitate needed materials -- water for a large community is a good example. What anarchists do want is leadership, not leaders -- in other words a society in which we cultivate the ability of all to step up and work for the greater collective good. They also demand, yes demand, transparency of actions/processes (our occupy movement processes are coming out of anarchist collective principles) and that leadership always be held accountable. They are also opposed to privatization of basic necessities (at the least) and corporate oligarchies -- basically these types of relations rest upon infantilization and dependence of target populations, as well as the creation of elite syncophants in the government. We believe democracy doesn't come from the top, that it can only come from the people. That democracy demands the resistance to illegitimate authority (like our current two part, coroporate capitalist oligarchy)

Anarchists do not believe in complete freedom for the individual. In fact we have a lot of problem with the word "freedom" which has its origins in slave societies. Also consider what is means to be free in our consumer society -- freedom is often an illusion. Anarchists seek "liberty", for individuals and communities. They rests upon the development of "autonomy". For me, I think of autonomy in this way: autonomy = individual liberty + collective responsibility + creative learning + participatory economics. At every step of this formula is the development of individual liberty in tandem with collective responsibility. Anarchists believe that communities are best served by autonomous individuals (and this is the polar opposite of the "radical individualism" of consumer capitalism) and that autonomous individuals are best cultivated in liberated, participatory collectives/communities. If anything, Anarchists are truly the most concerned with community and the individual's role is those communities. Responsibility = ability to respond (why we hold such much value on the creative development of individuals). Capitalism seeks fragmented, alienated, anxious individuals/communities because these are people that are the most easily exploited for profits.

Anarchists are not opposed to profits. There is nothing wrong with co-ops, local markets, exchange of goods with ones neighbors. We just don't want to worship at the altar of profits or genuflect to a mythical corporate free market (we should do some readings sometime on this term).

While Chomsky http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm and Zinn would call themselves left-libertarians/anarcho-syndicalists and I call myself an anarchist -- we are talking about the same thing (and there are videos of both claiminbg themselves as anarchists) -- and we can see what Zinn thought of anarchists in the People Speak http://youtu.be/6hUQ657XR7Y

I also view anarchism as a personal philosophy. Here is my take on it:

Anarchism is a person-centered philosophy. Its focus is on autonomy amidst the social and economic pressures of mass society for superficiality and conformism. It is our responsibility, as free and conscious beings, to create meaning out of life and to develop an authentic existence. It is also, in my opinion, in this regard, our duty to help others develop their response-ability to do the same (for me as a teacher this is the core of an anarchist pedagogy). In this anarchism is radically collective in orientation. We are cultivating autonomous, ethical and responsible individuals who care about their community. Anarchism does not discount other beings in this world... it is holistic, in the sense of recognizing that humans are just one set of beings that live and share in the development and continuation of the broader environment.

Freedom = Responsibility. Anarchism is a philosophy of freedom. It requires that we step back and reflect/reassess on what we have been doing and what effect our thoughts/actions have on the world. In this sense we are more than just individuals, we are members of larger collectives and our personal ethics always extend beyond ourselves (anarchism is not vulgar egotism). In this we can only be as "responsible" as we are "free." Response-ability, the ability for people to respond to the problems of their society and the impetus for them to care beyond themselves, is only realized by free, authentic and ethical beings. Where there is mindless conformism, shallow consumerism, or brutal oppression, you will see a breakdown in the development of response-ability (both in the ruled/rulers... or, manipulated/manipulators).

Ethical considerations are the primary questions. We all understand ethics and freedom differently, this is a given, and thus we must bring each of our understandings into play and sharpen our ideas through open/free public discourse. In this we, as individuals, as a community, as a society, and as a global ecosystem, should consider ethical questions as primary steps to building a better world. An autonomous individual is responsible to develop and consider the authenticity of their own personal lives in relation to their society. My authenticity should not be at the expense of your opportunity to realize yourself (for example, we are not bloated ticks that feed off the misery of others in order to realize some twisted sense of self).

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I realize I am a deeply flawed and difficult person. This is always a work in progress and I struggle as an individual.

To realize true liberty, autonomous citizens, participatory economics, and liberated communities .... that is all I have ever dreamed of since I was a little kid.... seriously -- it is all summed up in the usage of the word: "solidarity"

Here is a great discussion of current anarchist thought (esp. cindy milstein) in relation to the Occupy Movement http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/493/id/451547/mon-11-07-11-anarchism-thought-and-streets

and once again to circle back again to scott crow -- why does the government/media/corporations fear anarchist so much?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/us/29surveillance.html?_r=1

The End of Poverty (USA: Philippe Diaz, 2008: 106 mins)

Best of the Left: Compilations of Reports on the Occupy Movement, Pts. 1-7 (September - November)

[A great collection of reports on the Occupy Movement -- thanks Jay Tomlinson! Check back at Best of the Left for future reports and for compilations on other subjects/themes]

#538 The 99 Percent Wakes Up (Occupy Wall St Part 1)
Act 1: Congrats to Wall St. Protesters – The Progressive Air Date: 9-27-11 Song 1: Hi – The Only Thing I Ever Wanted
Act 2: Irony of Police Attacks on Protestors – Jimmy Dore Air Date: 9-27-11
Song 2: Pumped Up Kicks – Torches
Act 3: World Economy Going to Hell – Dan Carlin Air Date: 9-28-11
Song 3: Eleanor Rigby (Strings Only) – Anthology 2
Act 4: Fox News Gives Wall Street Protesters the “Fair & Balanced” Treatment – Media Matters Air Date: 10-3-11
Act 5: Keith Olbermann reads first collective statement of Occupy Wall Street – Countdown
Song 5: The Times They Are A-Changin’ – The Essential Bob Dylan
Act 6: Protesting is a Priviledge? – Majority Report Air Date: 9-28-11
Song 6: Turtle (Bonobo Mix) – One Offs… Remixes & B Sides
Act 7: Fox Host says Tea Party was Organic, Occupy Wall Street is Not – Media Matters Air Date: 10-5-11
Act 8: Michael Moore says We oppose the way our economy is structured – Countdown

#539 We are the other 99 percent (Occupy Wall St Part 2)
Act 1: Police Are On The Wrong Side At The Occupy Wall Street Protests – Lee Camp Air Date: 9-25-11
Song 1: All These Things That I’ve Done – Hot Fuss
Act 2: Romney Would Complain About Class Warfare – The Progressive Air Date: 10-5-11
Song 2: Revolution – I Am Sam (Music from and Inspired By the Motion Picture)
Act 3: The Screaming Majority song on Occupy Wall St – Majority Report Air Date: 10-7-11
Song 3: Up nights – Amsterband
Act 4: The TRUTH About The Occupy Wall Street Protests – Lee Camp Air Date: 9-27-11
Song 4: Free to Decide – Stars – The Best of 1992-2002
Act 5: Panic of the plutocrats – Green News Report Air Date: 10-11-11
Song 5: Take ‘Em Down – Going Out In Style
Act 6: CNNs Erin Burnett informs viewers about protesters – Counterspin Air Date: 10-06-11
Song 6: I’m a Worried Man – Countryman
Act 7: Erin Burnett’s horrible Occupy Wall St report – Majority Report Air Date: 10-7-11
Song 7: We’re Simple Minds – Spring Came, Rain Fell
Act 8: Occupy DC Event Infiltrated By Conservative from American Spectator –Young Turks Air Date: 10-10-11
Song 8: Solidarity Forever – If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope and Struggle
Act 9: Purge the agitators at Occupy Wall St – David Feldman Show Air Date: 10-9-11
Song 9: The World Has Turned and Left Me Here – Weezer
Act 10: How staying peaceful means we will win – Citizen Radio Air Date: 10-11-11

#541 Unite like an Egyptian (Occupy Wall St Part 3)
Act 1: A Detailed Plan On How To Decrease Corporate Power – Lee Camp Air Date: 9-21-11
Song 1: What we’ve got (Live) – Emilyn Brodsky & Anthony da Costa
Act 2: News Coverage Numbers of the Occupy Protests vs Tea Party protests – On the Media
Song 2: Fake Plastic Trees – The Best of Radiohead
Act 3: Bill O’Reilly Rips Occupy Wall Street Protesters – Young Turks
Song 3: You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Glee Cast Version) – Glee: The Music, Vol. 2
Act 4: What the Occupy Wall St movement wants Part 1 – Planet Money
Song 4: Union strike song – Lisa Simpson
Act 5: What the Occupy Wall St movement wants Part 2 – Planet Money
Song 5: Rinse Me Down – Flaws
Act 6: President’s Approval Rating Soars After Punching Wall Street Banker in Face – The Onion
Song 6: Fighting Song (feat. Tom Morello) – Eyes On Fire – EP
Act 7: Chris Hedges speech at Occupy DC – Chris Hedges
Song 7: You’re The Best (Theme From The Karate Kid) [Originally Performed by Joe Esposito] – You’re The Best
Act 8: Are We The Modern Day Pompeii – Lee Camp Air Date: 10-02-11
Song 8: Golden Slumbers – I Am Sam (Music from and Inspired By the Motion Picture)
Act 9: Then Meets Now – Mark Fiore Air Date 10-19-11

#542 Greed is no longer good (Occupy Wall St Part 4)
Act 1: Occupy Wall Street Is A Thought Revolution – And It Won’t Be Minimized – Lee Camp Air Date: 10-10-11
Song 1: Bathroom Girl – Virgin Suicides (Original Motion Picture Score)
Act 2: The Occupation – Mumia Abu-Jamal Air Date: 10-10-11
Song 2: Late Afternoon (Live) – Theo Bard
Act 3: False reporting about Soros connection to Occupy Wall St – Counterspin
Song 3: Run Screaming (Live) – Stockdale and Shapiro
Act 4: Round-table discussion of Occupy Wall St. – Jimmy Dore Air Date: 10-13-11
Song 4: The Walls Are Coming Down – Reservoir
Act 5: Tom Hayden offers extraordinary insight into evolution of Occupy Wall Street movement – Countdown Air Date: 10-13-11
Song 5: Cat Faces – Sharpen Your Teeth
Act 6: The Numbers Behind Occupy Wall Street – Lee Camp Air Date 10-20-11
Song 6: Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand
Act 7: This Is the Movement We’ve Been Waiting For – The Progressive Air Date: 10-14-11
Song 7: I Shall Not Be Moved – The Gospel Album
Act 8: Round up of Sunday morning news on Occupy Wall St – Counterspin Air Date: 10-13-11
Song 8: Serre-moi – Tryö
Act 9: Obama, Occupy Wall Street, 2012 Campaign – Young Turks Air Date: 10-17-11
Song 9: Never Again – Fourth Circle
Act 10: Knee jerks defend Wall Street – Jim Hightower Air Date: 10-17-11
Song 10: United We Stand – Sing the 70′s
Act 11: Tonight at Liberty Plaza ‘The American People Agree with Us’ – Michael Moore Air Date: 10-20-11
Song 11: Stand by me – Playing For Change
Act 12: Wall Street Is Dirtier Than Occupy Wall Street – Lee Camp Air Date: 10-17-11
Song 12: Clean Up – Clean Up EP
Act 13: OWS-Hating CBC Anchor Destroyed By Chris Hedges – Young Turks Air Date 10-17-11

#546 The whole world is, in fact, watching and taking part (Occupy Wall St Part 5)
Act 1: Thanks for Nothin’ – Mark Fiore Air Date 10-27-11
Song 1: I’m Looking Through You – I Am Sam (Music from and Inspired By the Motion Picture)
Act 2: Erroneous reporting on the Occupation – Counterspin Air Date: 10-27-11
Song 2: Down the Line – Down the Line – Single
Act 3: Prophetic article calling for the occupation Part 1 – Majority Report 10-25-11
Song 3: Generation – Emerson Hart
Act 4: Why Don’t The Occupy Protesters Stop Whining, Just Work Hard – Lee Camp Air Date: 10-28-11
Song 4: Have you had enough? – Rickie Lee Jones & The Squirrel Nut Zippers
Act 5: Prophetic article calling for the occupation Part 2 – Majority Report 10-25-11
Song 5: I Can Help – The Best of Billy Swan
Act 6: Comparing the Occupation to the Bonus Army encampment – Rachel Maddow Air Date: 10-26-11
Song 6: Down the Drain – Torrent, Vol. 1 & 2: Will Dailey
Act 7: Protest update and thoughts on tear gas – The Bugle Air Date: 11-3-11
Song 7: Touch of Grey – The Very Best of Grateful Dead
Act 8: Poll Americans Distrust Government – Young Turks Air Date: 10-26-11
Song 8: I didn’t fuck it up – Katie Goodman
Act 9: Missing Howard Zinn, Oracle of OWS – The Progressive Air Date: 10-31-11
Song 9: Back to Life – Keep On Movin’
Act 10: Shockupy Wall Street Fad – Colbert Report Air Date: 10-27-11
Song 10: Ave Maria (Pavarotti / O’Riordan) – To the Faithful Departed (The Complete Sessions 1996-1997)
Act 11: The world is, in fact, watching the Oakland Occupation – Matthew Filipowicz Air Date: 10-27-11

#547 Then they fight you (Occupy Wall St Part 6)
Act 1: The Top 1 percent Vs YOU – Young Turks Air Date 10-31-11
Song 1: Give a Damn – Greatest Hits
Act 2: Occupy Wall Street Says “Stop, Thief!” – The Progressive Air Date: 10-28-11
Song 2: Stop Thief – Fabian’s 16 Fabulous Hits
Act 3: What’s in a name at Occupy Wall St? – Jim Hightower Air Date: 10-31-11
Song 3: Liberty Square – Liberty Square
Act 4: NYPD Reportedly Sending Drunks Criminals to Occupy Wall Street – Majority Report Air Date: 11-2-11
Song 4: Out of My Mind – Back to Bedlam
Act 5: The general strike in Oakland – Rachel Maddow Air Date: 11-2-11
Song 5: If it weren’t for the union – Robin Roberts
Act 6: Occupy Wall Street and Amend the Constitution to Overturn Citizens United – The Progressive Air Date: 11-2-11
Song 6: Ride of the Valkyries – Classical For The New Age
Act 7: The dignity of the Occupation and the coverage of it – Matthew Filipowicz Air Date: 11-3-11
Song 7: Dignified and Old – The Modern Lovers
Act 8: Occupation teach-ins on environmental issues – Green News Report Air Date: 11-3-11
Song 8: Return to Sender – The Essential Elvis Presley (Remastered)
Act 9: Giant Protest Puppet Kills Dozens Of Peace Drummers – The Onion
Song 9: Night of the Dancing Flame – Ruby Blue
Act 10: Who Are The 1 Percent? – Young Turks Air Date: 11-9-11
Song 10: What Are Their Names – If I Could Only Remember My Name
Act 11: Economics inequality and journalism ethics called into question – Counterspin Air Date: 11-4-11
Song 11: The Sound of Silence – Sounds of Silence
Act 12: What Do They Want? – Mumia Abu-Jamal Air Date: 11-6-11
Song 12: Too Much Information – The Singles Box 1986-1995
Act 13: Occupy Oakland Protester Shot With Rubber Bullet – Young Turks Air Date: 11-9-11
Song 13: Still Fighting It – Rockin’ the Suburbs
Act 14: Adam Gabbatt on second U.S. veteran injured by Oakland police – Countdown Air Date: 11-8-11
Song 14: Sorrow – The Process of Belief
Act 15: Occupy Wall Street Has Proven We Don’t Have Free Speech – Lee Camp Air Date: 10-31-11

#551 The police are the 99 percent too (Occupy Wall St Part 7)
Act 1: Police Let Vehicular Assault Slide at Occupy Oakland General Strike –Majority Report Air Date: 11-4-11
Song 1: Go Your Own Way (Box Set Bonus Track) – The Treasure Box for Boys and Girls
Act 2: Who are the one percent – Robert Greenwald – Thom Hartmann Air Date: 11-3-11
Song 2: We are the many – Makana
Act 3: Don’t just salute veterans, rally with them – Jim Hightower Air Date: 11-14-11
Song 3: Veterans – The Clips
Act 4: Kim Kardashian, Occupy Wall Street, Credit Default Swaps – Lee Camp Air Date 11-14-11
Song 4: Clowns (Can You See Me Now?) – 200 KM/H in the Wrong Lane
Act 5: Police Need to Back Off on Occupy Wall Street – The Progressive Air Date: 11-14-11
Song 5: Stop the Madness – Versatile Roots
Act 6: Protesting at Berkley, past and present – Rachel Maddow Air Date: 11-15-11
Song 6: This fickle world – Theo Bard
Act 7: Shooting and clubbing veterans is not a solution – Jim Hightower Air Date: 11-15-11
Song 7: Shake It Out – Ceremonials (Deluxe Version)
Act 8: Workers Protest Over-Ventilation Of U.S. Factories – The Onion
Song 8: Seasons In the Sun – Have a Ball
Act 9: Occupy Wall Street Brings on a “Which Side Are You On” Moment – The Progressive Air Date: 11-15-11
Song 9: All You Fascists – Mermaid Avenue, Vol. II
Act 10: Keith’s Special Comment: Why OWS needs Michael Bloomberg – Countdown Air Date: 11-16-11
Song 10: So I Need You – The Better Life
Act 11: Occupy Wall St protest has been hosed – The Bugle Air Date: 11-17-11
Song 11: A Change Is Gonna Come – Learning to Bend
Act 12: Occupy Wall Street Media Blackout, Police State – Young Turks Air Date: 11-15-11

Occupy! Gazette

N + 1 magazine's history of the second month of the Occupy Movement:

Occupy! Gazette #2

The End of Poverty (USA: Philippe Diaz, 2008: 106 mins)

The aphorism "The poor are always with us" dates back to the New Testament, but while the phrase is still sadly apt in the 21st century, few seem to be able to explain why poverty is so widespread. Activist filmmaker Philippe Diaz examines the history and impact of economic inequality in the third world in the documentary The End of Poverty?, and makes the compelling argument that it's not an accident or simple bad luck that has created a growing underclass around the world.

Diaz traces the growth of global poverty back to colonization in the 15th century, and features interviews with a number of economists, sociologists, and historians who explain how poverty is the clear consequence of free-market economic policies that allow powerful nations to exploit poorer countries for their assets and keep money in the hands of the wealthy rather than distributing it more equitably to the people who have helped them gain their fortunes.

Diaz also explores how wealthy nations (especially the United States) seize a disproportionate share of the world's natural resources, and how this imbalance is having a dire impact on the environment as well as the economy. The End of Poverty? was an official selection at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

Kevin Seal: Occupiers Past and Present – Oakland Union of the Homeless

News of the Occupation: Occupiers Past and Present – Oakland Union of the Homeless
by Kevin Seal
The Occupied Oakland Journal

(Kevin is a member of the Occupy Oakland Media Committee as well as a freelance journalist)

Several new proposals for action are underway in Occupy Oakland. As these initiatives take root, occupiers are careful to note that this movement happens in the context of a lengthy history of protest in Oakland. From the Black Panthers to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights to Color of Change, there is a rich legacy of civil disobedience in Alameda County, and Occupy Oakland is helping bring these varied and long-standing communities together in action.

The occupation is looking at reclaiming foreclosed homes and preventing at-risk homeowners from losing their properties to predatory lenders and fraudulent banking institutions. As this movement evolves and strengthens, it is instructive to study the Oakland Union of the Homeless, and the many successes this group had in the reclamation of abandoned houses.

On December 15, 1987, a homeless man named James Lee was killed by gunshot, prompting a Christmas Eve protest in which activists broke into and occupied an abandoned house. Oakland police evicted the activists two days later, but the seeds were sown for a national movement. With that action, Andrew Jackson, Glenna Jackson, Terry Messman (now the editor and layout designer of the newspaper Street Spirit) and several other activists founded the Oakland Union of the Homeless.

Over the following few years, this group reclaimed Victorian houses in Oakland, demanded low-income housing from then-Senator Pete Wilson, and staged a high-profile act of civil disobedience in which the Union’s members refused to leave Wilson’s office. In 1990, the Union took over three more houses, and successfully petitioned California for an allocation of $1 million to the building of Dignity Housing West, an Oakland low-income housing development. The 26-unit James Lee Court Apartments, just three blocks from Frank Ogawa Plaza at 15th Street and Castro, came from this demand, as did 46 other units in Oakland. Dignity Housing West is in negotiation to acquire 1,000 more units in California and Nevada, and is working to establish a downtown Oakland office building for non-profit clients.

On the national level, 1990 also saw big steps forward from this movement. The National Union of the Homeless got the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development at that time, Jack Kemp, to commit 10% of the agency’s vacant housing stock for the purpose of homeless housing. Kemp ultimately broke his promise, and in response, poor and homeless people in Oakland as well as New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and other cities began breaking in and taking over these houses.

To Read the Rest

George Katsiaficas: The Subversion of Politics -- European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life

[Michael Benton -- This is an important book for Occupiers because it explores non-hierarchical, autonomous social movements, the politics of occupying spaces/places, the repercussions of various protester/occupier tactics, and the tactics/policies of police/state violence.]

The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life
by George Katsiaficas

Overview:George Katsiaficas's account covers the period 1968-1996 and pays special attention to the role of autonomous feminist movements, the effects of squatters and feminists on the disarmament movement and on efforts to shut down nuclear power, and the antifascist social movements developed in response to the neo-Nazi upsurge.

In addition to providing a rare depiction of these often overlooked movements, Katsiaficas develops a specific notion of autonomy from the statements and aspirations of these movements. Drawing from the practical actions of social movements, his analysis is extended into a universal standpoint of the species, a perspective he develops by uncovering the partiality of Antonio Negri's workerism, Seyla Benhabib's feminism and notions of uniqueness of the German nation.

Reviews: "As a long-term and perceptive observer of the autonomous scene in Europe, George Katsiaficas provides a comprehensive and well-informed narrative history of the autonomous movements in Europe. This elegantly written and lively account has been meticulously researched and reveals startling insights. Katsiaficas focuses on the movement in Germany and traces back the sources of autonomous politics as far back as the 1960s to the SDS, sponti and women movements.

But his book goes beyond just accounting the history of European movements (which has been largely ignored by the US audience). His book is at the same time a sophisticated analysis of postmodern and postfordist capitalism which - by discussing theories of modern scholars such as Antonio Negri and Sheila Benhabib - makes us understand that any analysis which is limited to focusing exclusively on gender, ethnic, or workerist categories fails to unravel the goal of the autonomous movements: to find new antisystemic forms of participating democracy for achieving a greater control of individuals and communities over everyday life. Thus the book’s most notable value is to acknowledge the important role of the autonomous movements by offering us some perspective on how to limit the damaging effects of global capitalism on our lives."

--Professor Susanne Peters, University of Giessen

"At a time when the dominant trends in politics and culture are toward the right, it is important to be aware that there are also counter-trends. With the knowledge and understanding of an insider, George Katsiaficas describes the Autonomen, the loose network of European young people who live collectively on the margins of society, and who combine the pursuit of a communal life with social action against racism and repressive politices of the right. This book is an important corrective to the all-too-common view that global capitalism is triumphant, that there is no basis for opposing the values that it promotes."

--Professor Barbara Epstein, University of California, Santa Cruz

To Purchase the book or download it for free

More:

Clancy Sigal: Blair Mountain and Labor's Living History

Blair Mountain and labor's living history: Ninety years on, the coal seams of West Virginia are a battlefield once more: for working people, the struggle goes on
by Clancy Sigal
The Guardian (United Kingdom)

My first time in Westminister Abbey, London, I was taken inside by a coal miner friend who was down from South Wales for a brief London holiday. Suitably awed, we gawked at Poets' Corner, the Coronation Throne, the tombs and effigies of prelates, admirals, generals and prime ministers – England in all its majesty and pageantry. Gazing at the Gothic Revival columns, transepts and amazing fan-vaulted ceiling, my friend said, "Impressive, isn't it? Of course, it's their culture not ours."

Our culture – class conscious, bolshie, renegade – rarely lay in plaques and statues, hardly ever in school texts, but mainly in orally transmitted memories passed down generation to generation, in songs and stories. "Labor history" has become a province of passionately committed specialists and working-class autodidacts, keepers of the flame of a human drama at least as fascinating and blood-stirring as the dead royal souls in the Abbey. It belongs to all of us who claim it.

I'm lucky because my family's secular religion is union. They include cousin Charlie (shipbuilders), cousin Davie (electrical workers), cousin Bernie (printers), my mother (ladies' garment) and father (butchers and barbers), and cousin Fred (San Quentin prisoners). Establishment history may have its Battle of Trafalgar and Gallipoli; we have Haymarket Square, Ludlow, Centralia and Cripple Creek: labor's battle sites, more often slaughtering defeats than victories.

Until recently, a lot of this history casually disappeared down Orwell's "memory hole", forgotten, censored or ignored. But with the spectacular emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and fight-backs in states like Wisconsin and Ohio, young people especially seem to be regaining and reinvigorating a living history. Memory stirs.

This contest for memory is a class struggle by other means.

Half our story – the half where unions created the modern middle class – is written in the pedestrian language of contracts, negotiations, wages and hours laws … the nuts and bolts of deals. After all, unions exist to make a deal.

But the other half is inscribed in the whizzing bullets, shootouts and pistol duels of out-and-out combat. Labor has its own Lexington and Gettysburg. And none more bloodily inscribed than in the hills and hollows of the West Virginia coal fields.

To Read the Rest of the Article

David Harvey: Reading Capital

Reading Capital
by David Harvey

A close reading of the text of Karl Marx’s Capital Volume I in 13 video lectures by Professor David Harvey. Links to the complete course:

To Access Videos of the Lectures

Survival of the Fittest: People Power versus a Social Darwinist agenda (1886-1937); The Global Reserve Army of Labor and the New Imperialism

As some of you know we have a reading group working their way through Ted Nace's Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy.

I just finished chapter 11) Survival of the Fittest: People Power versus a Social Darwinist agenda (1886-1937). It is essential reading for those trying to get a handle on the historical roots of our current labor relations. We currently face a role back through austerity measures, attacks on collective bargaining, and the global flight of corporations, to the conditions described in this chapter and, correspondingly, the chapter provides a look at the way in which earlier laborers fought back to achieve better lives and opportunities.

You can find the chapter here in the PDF for the whole book.

For a deeper understanding of the exploitation of labor on a global scale in our contemporary world, check out John Bellamy Foster, Robert W. McChesney, and R. Jamil Jonna's essay "The Global Reserve Army of Labor and the New Imperialism" in this months Monthly Review.

Drones on Trial: 38 Protesters Face Charges for Disrupting Syracuse Base Used in Overseas Attacks

Drones on Trial: 38 Protesters Face Charges for Disrupting Syracuse Base Used in Overseas Attacks
Democracy Now

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the CIA has made a series of secret concessions in its drone campaign after military and diplomatic officials complained large strikes were damaging the fragile U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Meanwhile, a trial is underway in Syracuse, New York, of 38 protesters arrested in April at the New York Air National Guard base at Hancock Field. The defendants were protesting the MQ-9 Reaper drones, which the 174th Fighter Wing of the Guard has remotely flown over Afghanistan from Syracuse since late 2009. "Citizens have a responsibility to take action when they see crimes being committed," said retired Col. Ann Wright, one of the 38 on trial. "And this goes back to World War II, when German government officials knew what other parts of the German government were doing in executing six million Jews in Germany and other places, and that they took no action. And yet—and they were held responsible later, through the Nuremberg trials. And that is the theory on which we are acting, that we see that our government is committing crimes by the use of these drones, and that we, as citizens, have the responsibility to act."

Col. Ann Wright (Ret.), one of the "Hancock 38 Drone Resisters" who protested the use of MQ-9 Reaper drones at the Air National Guard base at Hancock Field in Syracuse, New York, last April. Wright is a retired U.S. Army colonel and former U.S. diplomat who spent 29 years in the military and later served as a high-ranking diplomat in the State Department. In 2001, she helped oversee the reopening of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. In 2003, she resigned her State Department post to protest the war in Iraq.

Ed Kinane, one of the "Hancock 38 Drone Resisters" who protested the use of MQ-9 Reaper drones at the Air National Guard base at Hancock Field in Syracuse, New York, last April. He is a member of the Syracuse Peace Council.

To Watch the Report