Occupy Wall Street 3: Now What?

totes. I'd never heard of him either

i knew people in austin that knew him before he went turncoat, and while people definitely felt betrayed no one was really shocked to see his movement to the other side. he always had a reputation for being an authoritarian misogynist jerk, and being buddy buddy with breitbart was right in line with his character.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/opinion/will-wall-street-ever-face-justice.html?_r=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/opinion/no.html?_r=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/opinion/otm.html?_r=1

national notes

Occupy Las Vegas Packs Up Their Tents
After four months, the Occupy Las Vegas encampment is no more. The last of the protesters left peacefully yesterday afternoon, after their permit to camp out near Tropicana and Paradise expired. Clark County officials allowed the group to take over the land in October. The Vegas offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement protested what they saw as corporate greed and economic equality in the valley, including the high rate of foreclosures.
http://cbsloc.al/yU5FBq

Occupy London: Stay or Go?
This Wednesday (22 February) sees Occupy London at the Court of Appeal to hear whether any of the five applications to appeal made on 13 February will be successful.
Occupy London expects to receive the decision of Lord Neuberger, Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Lord Justice McFarlane.early Wednesday morning. Should these be denied, it is understood the City of London Corporation will seek to enforce the posession order granted by the High Court last month and evict the camp.
http://occupylsx.org/?p=3638

Occupy Continues to Declare Victories
Recent raids on the Occupy movement’s major camps have led some mainstream media outlets to declare that all the camps are “gone,” a claim easily disproven by visiting any one of the dozens of cells still operating in smaller towns and cities all across the country.
Not only are many camps still in operation, but the offshoots of Occupy are not only surviving, but securing real, meaningful victories, which should interest media players who bemoaned that Occupy was too ideologically scattered and too flighty to fight for lasting policy changes. Occupy oftentimes plays a supportive, inspirational role in ongoing protests. For example, parents and students occupied Brian Piccolo Specialty School on Chicago’s West Side for nearly twenty-four hours in opposition to a proposal that would result in the firings of Piccolo’s entire staff under the tutelage of a private operator, a dramatic gutting process the city refers to as a “turn-around.”
http://tinyurl.com/7dv79j6

Occupy the SEC: Moving From the Campsite to the Weeds of Regulatory Reform
The reaction in the media was generally positive, if not a little condescending. Felix Salmon of Reuters, in an article headlined “Occupy’s Amazing Volcker Rule Letter,” concluded with the proclamation, “This letter is many things, but inchoate it is not,” which, of course, implies one should expect a less-than-sophisticated document from Occupiers. But why should such an intelligent, sober response to a serious issue come as such a shock? The Occupy Movement is arguably one of the most successful political forces of the last decade. It has undoubtedly changed the trajectory of the national discourse since September, and a movement like that doesn’t achieve such momentum without having some serious intellectual horsepower behind it.
http://tinyurl.com/6qsvrmg

Unions fight cuts with rally at Oregon Capitol
Hundreds of public employees asked the Oregon Legislature maintain funding for schools, prisons and workers who provide in-home care to seniors, using the Presidents Day holiday to rally at the state Capitol on Monday. Public employee unions were joined by environmental groups, Occupy organizations and other activists in a demonstration that was more a general display of liberal discontent than a show of solidarity behind specific demands.
http://tinyurl.com/76hohba

Occupy Maine starts own TV show
Less than 10 days after being evicted, Occupy Maine is using its own television show to get its message out. OccupyME TV, on its website, http://www.occupymetv.org/, features young and old supporters championing the movement. In the latest episdode, the panelists show footage of the group’s final general assembly, where the group decides to heed the judge’s decision and leave the park.
http://tinyurl.com/7687sco

Occupy Petaluma to Urge County to Conduct Audit of Foreclosed Properties
Councilwoman Tiffany Renee and members of Occupy Petaluma are meeting with Sonoma County Recorder-Assessor Tuesday to urge the office to conduct an audit of foreclosed residential properties which they hope will keep local families from losing their homes. The group was inspired to hold a meeting with County Assessor Janice Atkinson after learning that San Francisco Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting had ordered an audit of mortgages of all foreclosed properties in his county. That investigation, conducted by an outside firm, found that 80 percent of loan applications were missing owners’ signatures or showed that lenders had not contacted borrowers to discuss their options before issuing a notice of default, as required by law.
http://tinyurl.com/82lh8gk

French steel workers occupy ArcelorMittal plant
Workers at an idled ArcelorMittal steel plant in north-east France occupied the site on Monday, seeking to put their plight on the political map ahead of a presidential election where industrial decline is a central theme. Some 200 workers invaded management offices at the factory in Florange, in the Moselle region close to Belgium and Germany, after ArcelorMittal announced last week it was prolonging the temporary shutdown of its two blast furnaces.
http://tinyurl.com/77yg2sv

Occupy London was peacefully evicted from St. Pauls Cathedral and has moved to a smaller, less flashier site at Finsbury Square btw.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/03/147830104/occupy-may-seem-to-be-receding-but-look-closer

"we out, Chi-town"

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-g8-summit-to-be-held-at-camp-david-not-chicago-20120305,0,2787373.story

whoa

that was my response to the link in the Chicago thread

i'm surprised they don't schedule all these meetings in inaccessible [to protesters] locations.

this is great, now Occupy can go after the G8 and, oh, someone who regularly stays at Camp David simultaneously.

david?

For protesters hoping to picket outside the grounds — a mass demonstration would be unlikely.
Coincidently, a new bill drafted by Congress, HR 347, will make it a federal offense to trespass on the grounds of any place granted Secret Service. If approved, the NATO Summit in Chicago will fall into this jurisdiction, as will the presidential retreat at Camp David. What does that mean for protesters? Even if you’re in the proximity of the premises, you could be considered a criminal for engaging in any activity that disrupts a governmental event.
http://rt.com/usa/news/chicago-g8-capm-david-921/

I went to this restaurant once:

Located near Camp David, the Cozy Restaurant showcases pictures, autographs and other memorabilia of the Presidents of the United States, news media and political dignitaries that Cozy Restaurant has hosted over the years.

Location(s)
103 Frederick Rd.
Thurmont, MD 21788

Contact Information
Local: (301) 271-4301

yeah we've been trying to agitate about 347

totally caught off guard by the movement of G8

wind from sails, removed

in nyc visiting a friend. sat off to the side and observed an ows spokes council meeting. something special. met all the expectations i had.

really!

haven't been to an ows spokes, but haven't heard great things. fulfilling to a visitor, though?

(oof i didn't mean "fulfilling to a visitor" to sound dickish or whatever its all <3 )

inter-movement divisions and snobbery right there. it's may '68 all over again. big fucking grin with no cat in sight.

j/k

(this is a jumble cuz i was pretty out of the loop at the meeting)

xp it was good (novel even) to see people making a good faith effort to direct the will of the movement while at the same time reworking the democratic process. i don't think the process is at fault for whatever misgivings people have about the spokes council. my impression from the conversation at the meeting is that it's more that the process is sooo slow and that there's sooo much to do and consensus is a bitch anyway. for my part, i don't think the movement should rush at all for any reason. i got the impression that everyone was aware of the 'unknown territory' aspect of building something stable from the ground up and human epistemological fallibility — and those factors kinda forced things to move slowly and to be considerate and nimble enough to take a step back.

interesting tidbit: someone interjected after report-backs and before the main discussion got underway. i don't know the context for it, but he stated that there was no policy for dealing with violence at a meeting, and that until that was resolved he wasn't comfortable facilitating/taking stack/etc. he said that he'd taken it to the GA and some of the working groups but that there was no movement on it. on the one hand that struck me as less of a priority given the rarity of such a thing but on the other i couldn't argue that it wasn't a legitimate concern - one that whatever brave new world is emerging should lock down. there was a report-back from the 'grievance' group (they don't like the name but that's what everyone's calling them). they'd just gotten started and had been researching disciplinary measures for transgressors within the community. it was amazing to see that they were so worried about it but also so in the dark too. they were questioning ideals of criminal justice to come up with something new that would work.

the main discussion was mostly consolidating what resources the movement had, human/financial/otherwise. this was the most constructive aspect i saw. facilitators who had been working on ways to get the most of the discussion presented, then there were break-outs then discussion, rinse, repeat. a lot of really good ideas came out of it.

really looking forward to the summer.

say what you will about jensen, i lol'd @ this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eknuqWQ4-Mw

he stated that there was no policy for dealing with violence at a meeting, and that until that was resolved he wasn't comfortable facilitating/taking stack/etc. he said that he'd taken it to the GA and some of the working groups but that there was no movement on it. on the one hand that struck me as less of a priority given the rarity of such a thing

while its a rare consideration in terms of the number of incidents that would require the invocation of such a protocol, it's also something i've heard cropping up at GAs from LA to Boston, and its definitely a concern here. in terms of the difficulty of getting something actually done about the problem, there's definitely a radical individualist strain that pushes back against any attempts to regulate behavior in a formalized way here. they argue that they want community norms to effectively police undesirable behavior, but when people don't feel safe in the community i'd argue that the norms-police method isn't working.

i don't know what to do about it, though.

we had a death (through a violent fight involving alcohol) at the local site when it was up, the peacekeepers' shouts for help were drowned out by the noise of the floodlights the city had recently installed...

not specifically in regards to GAs but it is def a legit concern

we had a death (through a violent fight involving alcohol) at the local site

! where was this

Eugene OR

it was a major factor in the City Council refusing to honor their temporary camping permission (after they had said they would let them stay until January, they evicted everybody right before Xmas).

damn.

makes me think of this bit from this great interview

as far as creating a new world through mutual aid programs, or that being an echo of a world we would like to see, that idea is a little bit complicated. It’s always a direct response to the world we live in right now, and not a thing onto itself. It therefore contains the world we live in right now and doesn’t make any sense outside of that context.

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/03/meet-occupy-wall-streets-outside-agitators/

how do i shot occupy news?

OK, taking May 1 as a vacation day, which is my way of STRIKING.

how do i shot occupy news?

― all things must pass (shaane), Sunday, March 11, 2012 7:14 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

soon we're gonna have occupy.com up and running, a syndicator for news from all the locals

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-761010?hpt=hp_bn1

i will never get used to seeing my friends in the media

even if "iReport" is "media"

soon we're gonna have occupy.com up and running, a syndicator for news from all the locals

how many hours of GA's were devoted to whether the use of a .com domain is problematic

/soon we're gonna have occupy.com up and running, a syndicator for news from all the locals/

how many hours of GA's were devoted to whether the use of a .com domain is problematic
--I DIED

Ha, it got done autonomously enough (basically a buncha media team members from across the country buying in without anyone really seeking approval from their individual GAs) that nobody really bothered running it by a GA. That's as it should be, I think. GA should be a mechanism for dialogue about action, not a statement-issuing/permission-slip-signing body.

http://www.maydaynyc.org/

being unemployed, broke, not in school, and pretty lazy when it comes to housework, I could probably do this. but getting to NYC...

i hear tell there may be some surprises this weekend in zucotti btw?

well, I'll be surprised.

These cities have answered the call for a General Strike:

Atlanta, GA
Boston, MA
Brooklyn, NY
Burlington, VT
Bushwick, NY
Dayton, OH
Detroit, MI
Durango, CO
Fullerton, CA
Huntington, WV
Irvine, CA
Long Beach, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Melbourne, AU
Miami, FL
Minneapolis/Twin Cities, MN
Mira Monte, CA
Naples, FL
Oakland, CA
Oxnard, CA
Pasadena, CA
Phoenix, AZ
Portland, OR
Providence, RI
Riverside, CA
San Diego, CA
San Fernando Valley, CA
San Jose, CA
Santa Cruz, CA
Seattle, WA
St. Louis, MO
Sydney, AU
Tampa, FL
Venice, CA
Ventura, CA
Washington, D.C.
Williamsburg, NY

portland

http://occupyportlandnews.com/wp-content/plugins/rss-poster/cache/57ba3_YvAya.jpg

have i mentioned that "be the crisis you wish to see in the world" is my favorite slogan lately

rly don't get the 'general strike' obsession

i mean you recognize its historical mythos i'm sure

i think it's sorta optimistically tapping into that, though whether that's a good thing or not given the (unrealistic?) degree of buy-in required for real impact i haven't really decided

i mean the wobblies have been calling for a general strike for a hundred plus years, though tbf the idea of a gen strike makes a lot more sense in the context of "one big union" that can then administrate the meeting of demands of the strike

reeks of the French tbh

well just as you need a unionized labor force before you can have a regular strike you need a large percentage of the country to be on board w/ ows before calls for a general strike aren't just kinda....

i mean

am reminded of max's version of "the emperor has no clothes" where the kid is like 'he's naked' and everybody's like "....well, yeah"

"fuck you boss I'm not coming to work today" "I'll fire you" "...nevermind..."