OCCUPYWALLSTREET REINFORCEMENTS!

[Kinetik V]

What the politicians fail to realize is these forced removals and the press coverage they generate has helped Occupy grow even stronger.

[cowboyangel]

now all they have to do is organize..join IWW, the street protests will fade. They could make something of this if they organized.

[Bob]

In other news, Oakland Unified voted tonight to close five grammar schools.

Remember "Ebonics"? Same school board.

[Bob]

Oh, and they're closing Barack Obama Academy. Sheesh, they could have waited until the election.

[Elderberry]

now all they have to do is organize..join IWW, the street protests will fade. They could make something of this if they organized.

Industrial Workers of the World?

[ygmir]

Oh, and they're closing Barack Obama Academy. Sheesh, they could have waited until the election.

I wonder if you had to be a resident to attend?...........

[Bob]

Hey, that earthquake last night rattle anything loose?

[ygmir]

shook stuff a lot......it seemed to last quite a while, but then again, I was on the third level of my house.

Seems to have been centered, about where the last few moderate quakes we've had in the area.
I'm waiting for a new lake.

[Bob]

[ygmir]

hahahaa........yeah, can't we have an executive order?

Bob: not your ordinary Chesterfield..........

[FIGJAM]

50 best ows signs!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/fjelstud/the-be ... all-street

[Ugly Dougly]

Is it okay to fall in love at this point?

[Bob]

[theCryptofishist]

The Oakland PD response is over the top excessive. If that Iraqi Vet they hit with the beanbags and is now in critical condition dies, I hope the officers involved are indicted and charged with murder.

I thought he was hit by a tear gas grenade/canister. But I agree, but let's hope he doesn't die and they prosecute the officers for excessive use of force.

OPD is always over the top excessive. (okay that's a smidgeon of hyperbole, but nothing really untruthful.) Yesterday it was because of rats. Today the excuse is that the lawn that they were camped on has nasty chemicals in it. Should I expect something different tomorrow?

[theCryptofishist]

now all they have to do is organize..join IWW, the street protests will fade. They could make something of this if they organized.

Industrial Workers of the World?

The Wobblies? My mind just boggled...

(Note: Not the Weebles.)

[Elderberry]

I heard OPD was going to treat the incident as an officer involved shooting; so it looks like they are taking it serious. Not to mention the attorney that sued them awhile back and won the case is also now involved in this. (wish I had more specifics, but just caught the news story in passing)

[theCryptofishist]

Do we even know that the shot was actually by OPD? (I think it was something like 27 different LE agencies present. Not that that gets OPD off the hook in my view.)
The problem with them treating it as a shooting--which they probably should do--is that OPD doesn't learn from its mistakes, and is condemned to repeat them over and over and over...

...and over and over an....

...and ov....

ad nauseum.


Maybe they should be taken over by the us army for a couple of years and completely reorganized from top to bottom. Because whatever culture it is that they have in that department, it's not healthy...

[Sola Gangsta]

While OWS is at it, maybe they can add to the list:

Make spam email a punishable offense...

[cowboyangel]

now all they have to do is organize..join IWW, the street protests will fade. They could make something of this if they organized.

Industrial Workers of the World?

Yep! The Wobblies. They're having some success organizing Starbucks workers now they gotta expand their organizing drive.
The Occupy Oakland folks are calling for a General Strike...then city- wide general strike....did they contact union leadership which is pretty damn strong in Oakland?
In 2007 I attended a meeting at ILWU Local10 attended by Cindy Sheehan. She was calling for a general strike to protest Bush's illegal wars and ILWU spokesperson Jack Heyman got up and asked her if she had any idea what was involved in pulling off a successful general strike and that asking only the most militant of the unions- the ILWU was not going anywhere unless many more unions joined in. Taft-Hartley laws make many strike activities illegal and proscribe jail terms for strike leaders.

I've been blogging elsewhere that the occupy movement aside from drawing attention to corporate greed, corporate crime and gross inequality of wealth distribution in the US won't matter ultimately unless these folks organize. The only way to punch back at power IS to punch back and strikes do that real fine...only problem is, the unions are weak now...this is a great time to join one and strengthen the only movement that has a very long track record of knowing how to kick capitalism in the teeth.

Bloody revolution won't work unless you can convince members of the military to join on. That is unlikely. Better to organize and democratize unions and use what the ruling elite can't live without----our Goddamn labor.

cowboyangel CWA Local 39521 Freelancers Unit

[cowboyangel]

Heyo...listen to this great talk by one of America's great Wobblies- the late Utah Phillips

http://truthphalanx.com/join-a-labor-un ... e-america/

[Kinetik V]

Cowboyangel... for once I don't agree with you. I went to the IWW page last night and the first thing I saw was something about preserving the postal service. And I had a thermonuclear post ready to go until I walked away and decided to let it cool. So 24 hours later I'm trying this again from scratch.

I want to see the Postal Service dead. As in a silver stake through it, and when my son starts school I hope he learns about it in his HISTORY class. As I sit here typing this I think back to my experience with the USPS in rural Nebraska, where by political fiat post offices that should have been closed long ago are kept open. They suck up resources that could be handled more efficently by a NDBCU - Neighborhood Delivery Collection Box Unit. Do you really need a post office in a town of 216 people? No you don't. And going even further 6 day mail service? Please. 5 days is plenty, every other day would be better still, or deep sixing the operation that only brings me junk mail or the occasional bill I forgot to convert to online billing would be preferred.

The IWW wants to not only take this byzantine anachronism off of life support but breathe new life into it. I'm sorry but I strongly disagree. While I don't like the idea of good people losing jobs, this is about business, and this business needs to go the hell away. And the sooner the better in my book.

In short I choked on Page 1 of the IWW site...and if that's their mindset I see no need to go any further. But I am open to reasonable and logical counterarguments.

[Elderberry]

Don't know about USPS and rural delivery, but I certainly don't think they should be shuttered. For those old enough to remember the start of "Equal Opportunity Employment" know what that did to the customer service at post offices. But service has improved greatly again over the years. And considering the number of pieces of mail they deliver, it's amazing that I can't recall the last time I heard of a mail piece being lost.

[lemur]

i for one like the postal service..

it allows me to send flammable shit across the land cheaply.. for example.. in 2011 i flew in to reno for burning man and couldnt bring my camp stove fuel with me.. and wouldnt have the opportunity to get some in reno..

so i mailed it to myself in BRC.. using the proper way to send such items.. I got it on the playa and cooked many meals with it.


thanks USPS!!!

[Lassen Forge]

I do too... Without them I couldn't write my family, I couldn't get my Amazon dot com deliveries, hell, I wouldn't have free bird cage lining! And, by god, it EMPLOYS people. F'n jobs are a good thing! Plus - someone's gotta deliver shit. DHL? UPS? FedEx? Yep, I love pumping my $$$ into those big corporations.

And... While everything is all rosey while the grid is up and the WWW isn't dead, and the phones keep working and the cellphones get at least 2 bars... What if it dies? Then where's your ability to communicate?

People forget that it wasn't that long ago that instead of instant communications like this is, it used to take 2 days to get a message from you to your friend. I used to have penpals back when I was a kid - 2 weeks, here to Auckland, and return was another 2 weeks. Same to Western Europe. Add a couple weeks for Eastern Europe...

No www. No cellphone. Hell, an international call was - then - $15.00. A minute. Remember inflation (a postage stamp then was, what 8 cents?), so what's $15x5... modern money $75 a minute. A stamp overseas was... damn... something like 24 cents.

Your mail drop may work fine for a community of 216 people, but the world is a lot bigger than your community. Otherwise I wouldn't be out here half a continent away writing this!!! Because, what when you want to send a letter to the county assessor to pay your taxes? Better - what when you want to mail your bill payments at the end of the month?

--shrug--

[ygmir]

I like the way CA used "kick capitalism in the teeth" and, "democratize unions" in the same post.

[lemur]

posted without permission from a 2008 speech...

REVEREND BILLY..

change. change. change!!!!!!

....but somethings wrong.

change has become a kind of rhetorical pause button. it's a way of saying it's opposite. "NO i cant change quite yet!". we are reciting it to each other but we are waiting. but what are we waiting for? maybe we are waiting for the election.. or maybe the problem of our waiting is much deeper than that... amen

maybe we don't remember what change is. when was the last time we really had a critical mass social shifting change that changed all our lives?.. some people go back to the civil rights movement... thats 40 years ago.. thats a long time ago.

whichever way you cut it we are having trouble remembering what change is. its become sentimental. it's a hallmark card. its a new age music from the heart of space. its made us slower and slower, a kind of unconscious slow motion.. THATS our sin right now! we are victims that we have willed upon ourselves. a kind of deadly gradualism .. does anyone know what the rev. is talking about here? am i all alone up here?!


in the church of the 1st amendment we know that when we change, REALLY change, we wont be remembering the word we will be out at the silent e at the end of change. we will be elated with freedom and we don't know what that is so we call it changealujah... and the alujah is waiting for us and when we change thats where it will be.. amen.

the action of change is why we are here today.

children.

we are all saying change we are singing change but lets stop for a second and ask ourselves why. do we need to change? the level of need to change right now in this place right now right here is so mysteriously great. isn't it true? we are facing an unprecedented emergency that we cant even describe to each other? do we call it the general attack on life itself? how do we even talk about it.. maybe why, so traumatized, why we retreat to this word we agree on... change.

isn't it true that the nation state we are citizens of has been involved in illegal colonial wars? there's 700 american military bases outside of the USA. isn't it true we are attacking the earth? we are attacking life generally? such that we don't even know the future of our species? we are also caught in these habitual illegal constant perma-wars.

oh yeah!! we are shouting change for a reason! let's forgive ourselves!! OF COURSE!!! we are shouting change!!! we want to save ourselves and we want to be LIFE CARING FOR LIFE!! because something in us knows thats why we are here!! SOMEBODY give me a lifealujah!!!.. lifealujah!

We have had times of extreme emergency in our nation state. it was started by a bunch of people who had an idea of the alujah beyond the silent e of change that they could quit the british empire. excuse me? the king was a god monarchy! now THAT'S change! THAT'S changealujah! That's radical American. we decided to abolish slavery. when fort sumpter was bombed tens of thousands signed up immediately and most of them died. thats how devoted they were to ending slavery. thats changealujah. at the height of ww2 when our fathers and grandfathers fought fascism 1000 americans were dying every day! That's changealujah! thats over the top into the bullets.. thats risking your life, for what?.......... changealujah.

we today we have to do something that is so counterintuitive. and god bless us. what are we trying to do in this room. we are trying to imagine doing that thing that is sufficiently counterintuitive, the alujah beyond the silent e. so strange. so brave and yes risking our lives. we suspect it can't be done with corporate sponsored art. but what we are doing here is practicing. we are getting ready. we are gonna walk out that door and we are gonna walk into public space, and the change we have been witnessing through time has always involved public space, parks plazas streets sidewalks! OH! thats where creative time has been. it's brought us there.

but now i would say its time to be creative with your time. its time to let the first amendment to be your permit! it doesn't have to be the city of new york or the NYPD or Altria. it doesn't have to be some child saying " im the government you have to ask me first".

the 1st amendment was invented by tommy jeff and jimmy mad!.. and what they were saying is if you had those 5 freedoms in the first amendment you have a force field around you and you are guaranteed these freedoms.. and people can go into this forcefield like a portable commons.. and in that force field with king george the god monarch kept out and yes who are todays god monarchs? coca cola, mcdonalds, altria, the citi, NYPD... the fundamentalists are kept out! and tommy jeff and jimmy mad said if the people are left to their own devices protected from the fundamentalists that they will come up with something safe that they will know how to change... that they will discover their own changealujah! I have that faith. I believe that that is true.

I cant think of anymore powerful thing to do with the arts than to take the 1st amendment, those 5 freedoms, and to take them to public space and expect and demand.. with what you're willing to offer for the demand you're making. risking your life and risking your freedom.. that you be defended there by your passers by.. by the government by people who are approaching you with cross looks on their faces, in uniforms, saying "you need 7 permits to do that, child."

children. we have a wonderful gift that has been given to us.

all the people that have filled public space with their bodies that have made changealujah that we have witnessed.. i'm thinking of that boy with the flowers in front of the tank in tienamen square..and after he kept switching his positions until it was clear that the man driving that tank wouldn't kill him that he was in such a state of elation that he jumped on the tank and gave the flowers to the driver through his little porthole. And we have seen that time and time again around the world.

people. ordinary people like you or i who are willing to jump up and run down the street to some open area, some commons, some open area of the city, and they demanded what we have given to us! which we are squandering!

but they demanded. and every time they did that they were illegal and they knew that they would get shot! but they were elated with freedom! they had the changealujah!!! OH WE'VE GOT TO HAVE THAT CHILDREN!! It's the spirit!!! it's the holy spirit! it's sex! it's an orgasm! it's evolution!!! IT'S US!!! WE HAVE to get back to that!!! WHAT HAPPENED TO CHANGE!? were we hit with thousands of advertisements every day that used change to sell the products so it began to be so dulled inside us that we couldn't even recognize it anymore? "NEW AND IMPROVED: Change".

I dont know what it was... but we are forgetting it, children!! and thats a sin! we have a job here.

the history of this country has always been, from the revolution on, been swinging back and forth between a police state and the 1st amendment... back and forth back and forth.. well now its been 7 years since 9/11 and those guys and those thugs have been running things and now we must take the 1st amendment to public space and what we do there must be so dramatic that we do that thing together that is beyond the silent e at the end of the word change.

amen.

[Simon of the Playa]

with Rappin'...

[youtube][/youtube]

[Ugly Dougly]

I am wondering if we are on the verge of a new American revolution here. We've seen various protests and love-ins over the years, but this one seems different. Are we in for a Valley Forge this winter? I'll bet a cold winter will only strengthen the resolve of the protesters.

The fact that any revolt is "leaderless" should get the attention of any intelligent observer. A discontent so ingrained and widespread that people of all walks of life stampede into the street all over the nation without much prodding... well, this is serious stuff, guys.

It's not long before most of us remark, "what do they want?" The lack of a core message seems to be the most obvious thing that's missing from this movement. They're stampeding wildebeest; they're hurting, that's all they know right now.

But I'd say one thing that would get things moving in the right direction, and which I think we could agree on, is public election financing, since the chief complaint looks to be that big money has too much influence in Washington.

[Simon of the Playa]

what the duck said...

[cowboyangel]

Cowboyangel... for once I don't agree with you. I went to the IWW page last night and the first thing I saw was something about preserving the postal service. And I had a thermonuclear post ready to go until I walked away and decided to let it cool. So 24 hours later I'm trying this again from scratch.

I want to see the Postal Service dead. As in a silver stake through it, and when my son starts school I hope he learns about it in his HISTORY class. As I sit here typing this I think back to my experience with the USPS in rural Nebraska, where by political fiat post offices that should have been closed long ago are kept open. They suck up resources that could be handled more efficently by a NDBCU - Neighborhood Delivery Collection Box Unit. Do you really need a post office in a town of 216 people? No you don't. And going even further 6 day mail service? Please. 5 days is plenty, every other day would be better still, or deep sixing the operation that only brings me junk mail or the occasional bill I forgot to convert to online billing would be preferred.

The IWW wants to not only take this byzantine anachronism off of life support but breathe new life into it. I'm sorry but I strongly disagree. While I don't like the idea of good people losing jobs, this is about business, and this business needs to go the hell away. And the sooner the better in my book.

In short I choked on Page 1 of the IWW site...and if that's their mindset I see no need to go any further. But I am open to reasonable and logical counterarguments.

Kinetic, you're a great guy and I'll never forget our meeting on the playa. Here's an article from truth-out.org to ponder:

http://www.truth-out.org/three-big-lies ... 1317221455