Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Dangerous Minds | First ‘official’ statement from the Occupy Wall Street movement
A little strange seeing an ad for TGIFriday's at the top of the web page this lives on, but what the hell? The revolution will need chicken wings.
Dangerous Minds | First ‘official’ statement from the Occupy Wall Street movement:
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Dangerous Minds | First ‘official’ statement from the Occupy Wall Street movement:
This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. you can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycga@gmail.com.
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.
Via reddit
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Nice design: Occupy Wall Street
Organizations with good design sense have a short cut into my heart. Isn't this true with most political movements? "Yeah, those guys are scary, mean, and bad for the country, but they have great design, so what the hell? Hand me a brown shirt."
But these Occupy Wall Street folks do have some legitimate points...
But these Occupy Wall Street folks do have some legitimate points...
Occupy Wall Street on CNN iReport
Full disclosure: I haven't had a chance to look through these yet
Occupy Wall Street protests continue: News & Videos about Occupy Wall Street protests continue - CNN iReport: "The protests, dubbed "Occupy Wall Street," are a decentralized and leaderless movement begun by activist magazine AdBusters and modeled after social-media-driven demonstrations in the Middle East. The sit-in is planned to last for two months, or longer.
Are you attending or covering the protests in Wall Street? Have you witnessed the marches, sit-ins, and arrests taking place? Send us your photos and video."
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A moment of levity: Just who f***ed it up?
Spotted this on Moveon.org. Funny and fun. What is great is that it works for all sides, the left, the right, and the center, because whomever you are... Well, I am pretty sure it wasn't my side who fucked it up.
Occupy Wall Street Demonstrations & A Virtual March on Wall Street: An email from Moveon.org
 |
| From 2011-09 (Sep) |
More information, new to me, at least... But I've been in an intentional media blackout for a few days.
An email from Moveon.org:
Occupied Wall Street
Over the last two weeks, an amazing wave of protest against Wall Street and the big banks has erupted across the country.
In Seattle, San Francisco, Ohio, and Boston (where 3,000 people rallied),1 grassroots groups have shut down banks and held sit-ins to demand that giant banks pay their fair share of taxes, end the foreclosure crisis, and create jobs.
In financial centers like Chicago and Atlanta,
hundreds of people have set up encampments in front of major financial
institutions for round-the-clock demonstrations.
Outside Los Angeles, community members have been
running a 24-hour vigil around the home of Rose Gudiel, who faces eviction after
getting foreclosed on for being two weeks late on a mortgage payment after her
younger brother was murdered.2
But the biggest
protests are on Wall Street itself. "Occupy Wall Street," which began
with a brave group of young people, has swelled to thousands of students,
unemployed folks, union members, and others who have persevered through intense
police harassment and mass arrests to sustain a rolling 24-hour-a-day protest against the bankers who've
wrecked our economy and undermined our democracy.3
On Wednesday, MoveOn members will join labor and
community groups in New York City for a huge march down to the protest site—the
biggest yet.
And because we can't
all be in New York, we're going to stage a massive "Virtual March on Wall
Street" online with our friends at Rebuild the Dream. Together, we'll add
hundreds of thousands of voices of solidarity from the American Dream Movement
for the protests across the country and show just how widespread outrage at the
Wall Street banks really is.
The protests on Wall Street have been running for two
weeks straight and are only getting bigger every day. The signs, placards, and
chants focus on standing up for what the protesters are calling "the 99%" of us
who are suffering while Wall Street bankers grow richer by the day.
In a telling moment last week, a group of bankers
even went so far as to mock the protests while sipping champagne from balconies
overlooking thousands of people marching down Wall Street.4
But adding mockery to the callous disregard for our
country that we've seen from the big banks isn't slowing down the Occupy Wall
Street movement one bit. The protests on Wall
Street are set to grow even more this week and solidarity actions are already
planned in dozens more cities.
You can see what's
planned in your area by visiting the solidarity site Occupy Together: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264645&id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=3
And you can sign up to add your voice to the national "Virtual March on Wall
Street" online here: http://www.civic.moveon.org/joinvirtualwallstreet/?id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=4
Thanks for all you do.
–Justin, Robin, Peter, Elena, and the rest of the
team
Sources:
1. "BofA's Boston Building Draws Protesters; 21
Arrests Are Made," bloomberg.com, September 30, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264642&id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=5
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264642&id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=5
2. "La Puente Family Fights Eviction from Foreclosed
Home," KTLA.com, September 29, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264643&id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=6
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264643&id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=6
3. "Anti-Wall Street Protestors Vow to Keep Up
Fight," Reuters, October 2, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264644&id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=7
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264644&id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=7
4. "Occupy Wall Street Protestors Meet Champagne
Sippers," abcnews.com, September 30, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264649&id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=8
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264649&id=31654-18091177-nlUwPWx&t=8
Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, the police, and the New York Times
Spotted by Bryley on Facebook...
It is a small tweak, but it does shift the emphasis. It changes the focus from the police to the demonstrators as the actors to whom the other party was responding to.
I really haven't been paying any attention to these demonstrations yet. I plan on taking a closer look next week. But this did catch my eye and I wanted to share it.
Still, I do not think there was an intentional shift in the bias here. Another reporter was also added to the by-line and I am assuming that the story was updated with more details here during the 20 minutes between one screen capture and the other.
However, these little sorts of tweaks, when done unintentionally, can have a small effect on the readers' interpretation of events. When done somewhat intentionally, they can have a larger effect.
I would guess that the change might have come from information the second reporter had from the police that was unavailable to the first reporter, such as... "No, we didn't want to let them on the bridge, but we couldn't stop them in time."
Having not read the article, I do not know for sure. But I suspect that this change is meant to be more innocent than it looks. However, I do agree that the effect it has on the reader may be significant.
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