[Peace] Maybe all is not completely hopeless ....

Wed Sep 21 15:28:41 CDT 2011

 Greece, Spain, France, England, Italy, Portugal .... Now NYC! Too early to tell though

davep spotted this on the guardian.co.uk site and thought you should see it.

To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/19/occupy-wall-street-financial-system

The call to occupy Wall Street resonates around the world

We need deeper changes to our financial system, or tent cities of people angry 

at corporate greed will keep appearing

Micah White and Kalle Lasn

Tuesday September 20 2011

guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/19/occupy-wall-street-financial-system

On Saturday 17 September, many of us watched [http://livestream.com/globalrevolution" 

title="Global Revolution: Occupy Wall Street $eptember 17th] in awe as 5,000 

Americans [http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/09/wall-st-protesters-say-theyre-settled-in/" 

title="ABC: Wall St. Protesters Say Theyre Settled In] descended on to the 

financial district of lower Manhattan, waved signs, unfurled banners 

[http://understory.ran.org/2008/10/01/activists-raise-a-150-square-foot-foreclosed-sign-behind-iconic-wall-street-bull/" 

title="The Understory: Activists raise a 150 square foot FORECLOSED? sign behind 

iconic Wall Street bull], beat drums, chanted slogans and proceeded to walk 

towards the "financial Gomorrah [http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html" 

title="Adbusters: Occupy Wall Street]" of the nation. They vowed to "occupy Wall 

Street" and to "bring justice to the bankers", but the New York police thwarted 

their efforts temporarily, locking down the symbolic street with barricades and 

checkpoints.

Undeterred, protesters walked laps around the area before holding a people's 

assembly and setting up a semi-permanent protest encampment in a park on Liberty 

Street [http://local.google.com/maps?q=Zuccotti+Park,+New+York,+NY&hl=en&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=44.069599,88.154297&vpsrc=0&t=h&z=15" 

title="Google Maps: Liberty Street], a stone's throw from Wall Street and a 

block from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Three hundred spent the night [https://twitter.com/#!/jeffrae/status/115404228549296129" 

title="Twitter: Jeffrae], several hundred reinforcements arrived the next day 

and as we write this article, the encampment is rolling out sleeping bags once 

again. When they tweeted to the world that they were hungry, a nearby pizzeria 

received $2,800 in orders [https://twitter.com/#!/anonops/status/115580388214194176" 

title="Twitter: @anonops] for delivery in a single hour. Emboldened by an 

outpouring of international solidarity, these American indignados said they'd be 

there to greet the bankers when the stock market opened on Monday. It looks 

like, for now, the police don't think they can stop them. ABC News reports 

[http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/09/wall-st-protesters-say-theyre-settled-in/" 

title="ABC: Wall St. Protesters Say Theyre Settled In] that "even though the 

demonstrators don't have a permit for the protest, [the New York police 

department says that] they have no plans to remove those protesters who seem 

determined to stay on the streets." Organisers on the ground say, "we're digging 

in for a long-term occupation [http://www.salon.com/news/politics/feature/2011/09/18/wallstreet/index.html" 

title="]".

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET [http://www.occupywallstreet.org/" title="] was inspired by 

the people's assemblies of Spain [http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/97/manuel-castells.html" 

title="] and floated as a concept by a double-page poster in the 97th issue of 

Adbusters magazine, but it was spearheaded, orchestrated and accomplished by 

independent activists. It all started when Adbusters asked its network of 

culture jammers to flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens and 

peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. The idea caught on 

immediately on social networks and unaffiliated activists seized the meme and 

built an open-source organising site. A few days later, a general assembly was 

held in New York City and 150 people showed up. These activists became the core 

organisers of the occupation. The mystique of Anonymous pushed the meme into the 

mainstream media. Their video [http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/anonymous-joins-occupywallstreet.html" 

title="] communique endorsing the action garnered 100,000 views and a warning 

from the Department of Homeland Security [https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219711/DHS_warns_of_planned_Anonymous_attacks" 

title="] addressed to the nation's bankers. When, in August, the indignados of 

Spain sent word that they would be holding a solidarity event in Madrid's 

financial district, activists in Milan, Valencia, London, Lisbon, Athens, San 

Francisco, Madison, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Israel and beyond vowed to do the 

same [http://takethesquare.net/17s" title="].

There is a shared feeling on the streets around the world that the global 

economy is a Ponzi scheme run by and for Big Finance. People everywhere are 

waking up to the realisation that there is something fundamentally wrong with a 

system in which speculative financial transactions add up, each day, to $1.3tn 

(50 times more than the sum of all the commercial transactions). Meanwhile, 

according to a United Nations report, "in the 35 countries for which data exist, 

nearly 40% of jobseekers have been without work for more than one year".

"CEOs, the biggest corporations, and the wealthy are taking too much from our 

country and I think it's time for us to take back," said one activist 

[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44564317/ns/us_news-life/" title="] who joined the 

protests last Saturday. Jason Ahmadi, who travelled in from Oakland, California 

explained that "a lot of us feel there is a large crisis in our economy and a 

lot of it is caused by the folks who do business here". Bill Steyerd, a Vietnam 

veteran from Queens, said "it's a worthy cause because people on Wall Street are 

blood-sucking warmongers".

There is not just anger. There is also a sense that the standard solutions to 

the economic crisis proposed by our politicians and mainstream economists ? 

stimulus, cuts, debt, low interest rates, encouraging consumption ? are false 

options that will not work. Deeper changes are needed, such as a "Robin Hood 

[http://robinhoodtax.org/" title="]" tax on financial transactions; reinstating 

the Glass-Steagall Act [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act" 

title="] in the US; implementing a ban on high-frequency "flash" trading 

[http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1914724,00.html" 

title="">high-frequency "flash]. The "too big to fail" banks must be broken up, 

downsized and made to serve the people, the economy and society again. The 

financial fraudsters responsible for the 2008 meltdown must be brought to 

justice. Then there is the long-term mother of all solutions: a total rethinking 

of western consumerism that throws into question how we measure progress.

If the current economic woes in Europe and the US spiral into a prolonged global 

recession, people's encampments will become a permanent fixtures at financial 

districts and outside stock markets around the world. Until our demands are met 

and the global economic regime is fundamentally reformed, our tent cities will 

keep popping up.

Bravo to those courageous souls in the encampment on New York's Liberty Street. 

Every night that #OCCUPYWALLSTREET continues will escalate the possibility of a 

full-fledged global uprising against business as usual.

Now Back to our regularly scheduled mindless programming and other habits....

========================
“The struggle is for life…. For a real LIFE. You must fight foul, because LIFE IS REAL! … And, this struggle is for HOPE. So, Fucking Fight!!”—@ltazor, Autonome v.1, #1

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/attachments/20110921/68878213/attachment.html>