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Sarah Maslin Nir the American Journalist and staff reporter for The New York Times has published an article titled ‘Storm Effort Causes a Rift in a Shifting Occupy Movement’ in which she states “Not long ago, the Occupy Wall Street movement seemed poised to largely fade from the national conversation with few concrete accomplishments beyond introducing its hallmark phrase, “We are the 99 percent.” Then Hurricane Sandy struck. In its aftermath, Occupy Wall Street protesters rushed to apply their rabble-rousing hustle to cleaning out houses, clearing debris and raising more than $1.5 million for relief efforts. In some minds, Occupy members had become less a collection of disaffected class warriors than a group of efficient community volunteers. Occupy Sandy, as the effort came to be known, became one of the most widely praised groups working on the storm recovery. As Occupy members around the country plan the movement’s annual May Day protests, a central question has emerged: whether Occupy Sandy represents a betrayal of the Occupy movement, or its future. …So far Occupy Sandy has spent $670,000, according to information the group makes public online, disbursed for essentials like medical supplies ($5,000) and tools for mold remediation ($93,454). But as immediate needs for relief have died down, the group has begun programs reflective of a shift in tactics and a broad interpretation of “rebuilding,” like “Wildfire,” a series of political action classes in the Rockaways, which so far has received $10,600. That shift, toward what one storm volunteer called “indoctrination,” has caused some discomfort among donors and recipients alike. Some Occupiers say that they are simply seeking to stay true to the movement’s goals, which drove them to the storm-ravaged region in the first place. “No one was being tricked into donating to Occupy Sandy,” said Daniele Kohn, who is part of the team managing Occupy Sandy’s finances. “ ‘Occupy’ is part of the name.”  Inspired by Sarah Maslin Nir, New York Times ow.ly/l32bf Image source Facebook ow.ly/l32Ie Rift in a Shifting Occupy Movement (June 3 2013)

 

Sarah Maslin Nir the American Journalist and staff reporter for The New York Times has published an article titled ‘Storm Effort Causes a Rift in a Shifting Occupy Movement’ in which she states “Not long ago, the Occupy Wall Street movement seemed poised to largely fade from the national conversation with few concrete accomplishments beyond introducing its hallmark phrase, “We are the 99 percent.” Then Hurricane Sandy struck. In its aftermath, Occupy Wall Street protesters rushed to apply their rabble-rousing hustle to cleaning out houses, clearing debris and raising more than $1.5 million for relief efforts. In some minds, Occupy members had become less a collection of disaffected class warriors than a group of efficient community volunteers. Occupy Sandy, as the effort came to be known, became one of the most widely praised groups working on the storm recovery. As Occupy members around the country plan the movement’s annual May Day protests, a central question has emerged: whether Occupy Sandy represents a betrayal of the Occupy movement, or its future. …So far Occupy Sandy has spent $670,000, according to information the group makes public online, disbursed for essentials like medical supplies ($5,000) and tools for mold remediation ($93,454). But as immediate needs for relief have died down, the group has begun programs reflective of a shift in tactics and a broad interpretation of “rebuilding,” like “Wildfire,” a series of political action classes in the Rockaways, which so far has received $10,600. That shift, toward what one storm volunteer called “indoctrination,” has caused some discomfort among donors and recipients alike. Some Occupiers say that they are simply seeking to stay true to the movement’s goals, which drove them to the storm-ravaged region in the first place. “No one was being tricked into donating to Occupy Sandy,” said Daniele Kohn, who is part of the team managing Occupy Sandy’s finances. “ ‘Occupy’ is part of the name.”

 

Inspired by Sarah Maslin Nir, New York Times ow.ly/l32bf Image source Facebook ow.ly/l32Ie

Roberto Guillermo Pizarro Hofer the 68 year old Chilean economist , academic, socialist and former Minister of State has published an article in the America Economia titled ‘The 1% has enough 99%’ referring to the Occupy Wall Street Movement. In a Worldcrunch translation of the article, Pizarro is quoted as stating “...difference in incomes is the consequence of an elevated concentration of property and wealth in a few hands. The most powerful economic groups have multiplied their actions in the last 20 years in a rhythm that simply excludes the rest of Chile. They accumulated with the dictatorship and kept going when it ended and the coalition governments were formed. …In the last decade, the wealth of the five most powerful economic groups has expanded in an unprecedented way, from $5.6 million in 2002 to $48.3 million in 2010. In addition, the Chilean tax regime has been extremely generous to large corporations and wealthy sectors of the population, while, on the other hand, the unprecedented expansion of the credit system through high rises and supermarkets has provided huge profits to these groups. Finally,the expansion of trade and financial openness of the Chilean economy, through the Free Trade Agreement (TLC), the central component of the country's foreign policy, has allowed a global scale reproduction of Chilean investors abroad. Consequently, it is no exaggeration to say that the State has been captured by an economic minority who use it in their favor. Instead of using it as a tool to compensate for the inequalities of the market economy, it has become an instrument for economic expansion of a few. Under such conditions, the nation's sense of community has weakened by the presence of a fragile State, serving a minority considered an ideological nuisance.”  Inspired by Roberto Pizarro, America Economia ow.ly/hMJRH Image source elperiodista ow.ly/hMJOq The State captured by an economic minority (March 3 2013)

 

Roberto Guillermo Pizarro Hofer the 68 year old Chilean economist , academic, socialist and former Minister of State has published an article in the America Economia titled ‘The 1% has enough 99%’ referring to the Occupy Wall Street Movement. In a Worldcrunch translation of the article, Pizarro is quoted as stating “…difference in incomes is the consequence of an elevated concentration of property and wealth in a few hands. The most powerful economic groups have multiplied their actions in the last 20 years in a rhythm that simply excludes the rest of Chile. They accumulated with the dictatorship and kept going when it ended and the coalition governments were formed. …In the last decade, the wealth of the five most powerful economic groups has expanded in an unprecedented way, from $5.6 million in 2002 to $48.3 million in 2010. In addition, the Chilean tax regime has been extremely generous to large corporations and wealthy sectors of the population, while, on the other hand, the unprecedented expansion of the credit system through high rises and supermarkets has provided huge profits to these groups. Finally,the expansion of trade and financial openness of the Chilean economy, through the Free Trade Agreement (TLC), the central component of the country’s foreign policy, has allowed a global scale reproduction of Chilean investors abroad. Consequently, it is no exaggeration to say that the State has been captured by an economic minority who use it in their favor. Instead of using it as a tool to compensate for the inequalities of the market economy, it has become an instrument for economic expansion of a few. Under such conditions, the nation’s sense of community has weakened by the presence of a fragile State, serving a minority considered an ideological nuisance.”

 

Inspired by Roberto Pizarro, America Economia ow.ly/hMJRH Image source elperiodista ow.ly/hMJOq

Michael Lewis the 51 year old USA non-fiction author and financial journalist has published an article on The Daily Beast interviewing himself ‘about how to make the Occupy Wall Street movement better – His strategy: boycott the banks!’ In the article Lewis states, “The big complaint about the movement is that it doesn’t know what it wants. If someone put you in charge of the movement, what would you have it do? I’m not certain that they’re wrong to be as woolly-minded about their goals as they seem to be. By not being too explicit about what they want, they attract anyone who is upset about anything. But if I were in charge I would probably reorganize the movement around a single, achievable goal: a financial boycott of the six “ too big to fail ” Wall Street firms: Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo. We would encourage people who had deposits in these firms to withdraw them, and put them in smaller, not “too big to fail” banks. We would stigmatize anyone who invested, in any way, in any of these banks. I’d try to organize college students to protest on campuses. Their first goal would be to force the university endowments to divest themselves of shares in these banks.”

 

Inspired by The Daily Beast http://ow.ly/awNlr image source Justin Hoch http://ow.ly/awNjr

Allison Margaret Kilkenny the 28 year old USA social critic has published an article on The Nation speaking to the ‘Spring Awakening’ resurgence of the Occupy Wall Street movement and Tax Day protesters taking to the streets in New York City. In the article, Kilkenny states ”It’s time for the big banks and corporations to pay their share of taxes like the rest of us do. …the major corporations and 1 percenters pay little to nothing in taxes. Though the right’s favorite talking point is that America has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world at 35 percent, this doesn’t take into account corporations’ tax-evading practices. The S&P is home to 115 companies that receive more in credits than they pay out. It is this unbalanced system—where extremely wealthy individuals and corporations reap the rewards of rigging the US political system and tax code, while poor people are forced to sacrifice their already meager means… Meanwhile, it seems as though the financial elite simply don’t understand what this chatter about loopholes and tax-dodging is all about.”

 

Inspired by Allison Kilkenny http://ow.ly/anD9h image source netrootsny http://ow.ly/anD1L

Michel Bauwens the 53 year old Belgian Peer-to-Peer theorist and founder of the P2P Foundation claims in an article published on Aljazeera that “The Occupy Wall Street movement is a model for a new economic paradigm, in which value is first created by communities [an emerging open-source civilization – as a business model].” Bauwens states, “Occupy and open-source models illuminate a new possible reality, in which the democratic civic sphere, productive commons and a vibrant market can co-exist for mutual benefit: At the core of value creation are various commons, where innovations are open for all to share and to build upon; These commons are protected through non-profit civic associations, which empower that social production; Around the commons emerges a vibrant commons-oriented economy comprised of ethical companies… Where these three circles intersect, citizens decide on the optimal shape of their provisioning systems. This model can exist as a submodel within capitalism, and to some extent already does so in the present system, as the open-source software business ecology. It could also become, with some necessary hacks, the core logic of a new civilisation. Occupy has not just shown us prefigurative politics, but prefigurative economics as well.”

 

Inspired by Aljazeera http://ow.ly/9FzaN image source Jane Mejdahl http://ow.ly/9Fz52

Timothy Zick the US Constitutional Lawyer, specializing in Federalism and  the 1st Amendment (freedom of speech) has published an article on Aljazeera stating “…some element of the Occupy Wall Street movement may continue to engage in public protests in order to raise public awareness and to remind fellow citizens and officials of their central claims. Democratic protests help the people to continually keep their rulers in check, to hold officials accountable and to remind governors that sovereign power lies not in the institutions of government or public officialdom, but with the governed… At some point, if a democratic protest is to become an effective democratic movement, its members will need to engage in indoor politics. They will need to occupy legislatures, agencies and boards. This will be a unique challenge for the Occupy Wall Street participants, who generally eschew formal hierarchies and engage in non-traditional forms of communication and political decision-making. The challenge for Occupy Wall Street, as for any democratic protest, is to remain true to its core principles while seeking systemic changes from within. The American occupation teaches us that in any democracy, public protest is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for systemic change.”           

 

Inspired by Timothy Zick http://ow.ly/9AU7F image source W&M Law School http://ow.ly/9AUcH

Maurice Benayoun the 54 year old Algerian born French new-media artist and theorist whose recent works comprise large-scale urban installations and interactive exhibitions “hopes his recent work will in fact aid and engage the Occupy Wall Street movement, which he says is still more potent in the U.S. than in Europe — though not for long” according to Michael Kurcfeld in his recent article published on Huffington Post. Benayoun arrives in Manhattan to unveil the latest in an ongoing multimedia series called “The Mechanics of Emotion” — a 15-part opus which grew out of the idea that the Internet is the world’s nervous system, and that messages sent between users crossed “zones of pain and pleasure” near and far. Using various analytic and graphic tools in his ever-evolving tech arsenal, he set out to map the world’s emotions. In one part, he created a series of “frozen feelings” — machine-made sculptures of digitally carved disks in various materials. Each disk bore a topographic pattern that corresponded to real-time Web data which inventoried emotional states in the 3,200 biggest cities on the planet, by tracking word clusters …”

 

Inspired by Michael Kurcfeld http://ow.ly/9v94d image source MoBen http://ow.ly/9v8Zx

Arundhati Roy the 50 year old Indian novelist and Booker Prize winner has explained in an interview with Arun Gupta her sense of comfort from the Occupy Wall Street movement, stating “…it seems to me, intellectually and theoretically, quite predictable this was going to happen here at some point. But still I cannot deny myself the surprise and delight that it has happened.” In the interview Roy states, “I don’t think the whole protest is only about occupying physical territory, but about reigniting a new political imagination. I don’t think the state will allow people to occupy a particular space unless it feels that allowing that will end up in a kind of complacency, and the effectiveness and urgency of the protest will be lost… I think the movement will, or at least should, become a protean movement of ideas, as well as action, where the element of surprise remains with the protesters.”

 

Inspired by Arun Gupta http://ow.ly/82M2G image source Jean-Baptiste Labrune http://ow.ly/82Ma9

Steve Fraser the US labor and economic historian and co-founder of the American Empire Project has put forward a modest proposal for the Occupy Wall Street Movement to consider in an Aljazeera publication. Premised on a famous essay from Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public”. Swift’s simple idea was “the starving Irish should sell their own children to the rich as food”. Fraser states, “The basic idea is that we offer ourselves up, 99% of us anyway, on the altar of high finance as a sacrifice to the bond markets.  It was Karl Marx who first observed that high finance is ‘the Vatican of capitalism’ … Anticipating Swift, we are already eating our own children or, at least, the futures available to them.”

 

Inspired by Steve Fraser http://ow.ly/82L9t image source facebook http://ow.ly/82Luc

James George Janos (Jesse Ventura) the 60 year old US former Governor and TV personality continues to call for increased government transparency and accountability. In an Aljazeera stream Ventura discussed issues of “government transparency, the Occupy Wall Street movement and domestic anger toward the U.S. political system.” Ventura has published recently a book titled ‘American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies That the Government Tells Us’. In the book Ventura discusses many alleged government conspiracies and cover ups including 9/11, the assassination of President John F Kennedy and various U.S. government programs. Ventura had filed a suit against the Homeland Security and the TSA challenging security pat-downs and full-body scans as a constitutional violation of unreasonable search and seizure, however was blocked by a federal judge citing a lack of jurisdiction. Ventura also visited the Occupy Minneapolis protesters stating he wished to be the first political face to support the Occupy Movement.

 

Inspired by Aljazeera http://ow.ly/7Vovt image source chuckpalahniuk http://ow.ly/7VoMG

Lee Felsenstein the 66 year old US computer engineer and free speech advocate, renowned for his key role in the development of the personal computer, believes the current Occupy Wall Street movement could bring about generational change. In an article written by Quinn Norton, Felsenstein states “One of the effects of the Free Speech Movement [1964], and that outbreak of freedom really, was manifested in the development of the internet … We see the structure of the internet being an open structure, and open structure is what we were fighting for … There is no unified vision of what Occupy wants, besides a general feeling that the system is rigged in favor of the privileged…” Felsenstein while an engineer for the Community Memory Project, pioneered an early attempt prior to the internet, at networking publically accessible computer terminals to assess the social impact of technology.

 

Inspired by Quinn Norton http://ow.ly/7A1Mg image source http://ow.ly/7A24G

Frances Fox Piven the 78 year old US sociologist and political scientist has published an article on Aljazeera supportive of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Piven states “… (OWS) movement has already made the concentration of wealth at the top of this society a central issue in US politics … By making Wall Street its symbolic target and branding itself as a movement of the 99 per cent, OWS has redirected public attention to the issue of extreme inequality, which it has recast as, essentially, a moral problem … Economic policy, including tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and government protection … was shrouded in clouds of propaganda  … Now, in what seems like no time at all, the fog has lifted and the topic on the table everywhere seems to be the morality of contemporary financial capitalism.

 

Inspired by Frances Fox Piven http://ow.ly/7zk0v image source moonbattery http://ow.ly/7zk5U

Eliot Laurence Spitzer the 52 year old US former Governor of New York has put forward a series of suggestions to the Occupy Wall Street movement for consideration from an organizing perspective. “Harness the energy and passion of college students … ask some well-known musicians who might be sympathetic to the cause to participate … Schedule OWS rallies and events at the various State of the State addresses delivered by governors …  Recognize that there is insufficient diversity on the ranks of OWS … Call for a full rollback of the Bush tax cuts for all those above $1 million in annual income …  Demand true accountability on Wall Street … Demand that a financial service transaction fee be imposed … Demand that the New York Fed have “public” board members who truly represent the public”.

 

Inspired by Slate http://ow.ly/7kfBt image source http://ow.ly/7kfGX

Naomi Wolf the 48 year old US author and social critic has lashed out at American politicians following her arrest in New York during a supportive visit to the Occupy Wall Street movement in Lower Manhattan. In an Aljazeera article, Wolf claims America’s politicians “have had their fill of democracy. Across the country, police, acting under orders from local officials, are breaking up protest encampments … sometimes with shocking and utterly gratuitous violence”. Wolf states, “…most commentators have not fully grasped that a world war is occurring. But it is unlike any previous war in human history: for the first time, people around the world are not identifying and organising themselves along national or religious lines, but rather in terms of a global consciousness and demands for a peaceful life, a sustainable future, economic justice and basic democracy. Their enemy is a global “corporatocracy” that has purchased governments and legislatures, created its own armed enforcers, engaged in systemic economic fraud, and plundered treasuries and ecosystems”.

 

Inspired by Naomi Wolf http://ow.ly/7kdyB image source David Shankbone http://ow.ly/7kdNy

David Rolfe Graeber the 50 year old US anthropologist and anarchist is being hailed as the anti-leader of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Graeber has been profiled by Drake Bennett  in Business Week as “a key member of a small band of activists who quietly planned, then noisily carried out, the occupation of Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, providing the focal point for what has grown into an amorphous global movement known as Occupy Wall Street.” Graeber although not the movements spokesperson, provides a favorable voice to the protests comparing them to the Arab Spring. Graeber, having an impressive history of both direct and indirect involvement in political activism, claims the contemporary Occupy Wall Street grassroots protest movement represents “the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire.”

 

Inspired by Drake Bennett http://ow.ly/7dQIO image source David Graeber http://ow.ly/7dRGs

Slavoj Žižek the 62 year old Slovenian philosopher and critical theorist has expressed concern for the future of western democratic capitalist societies. In an interview with Al Jazeera’s Tom Ackerman, Žižek analyses the contemporary mini revolutions taking place with the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the dissention in Europe with austerity issues. Žižek who is internationally recognized for his critical examination of both capitalism and socialism, states the “system [global financial and political] has lost its self-evidence, its automatic legitimacy, and now the field is open … What I’m afraid of is with this capitalism with Asian values, we get a capitalism much more efficient and dynamic than our western capitalism. But I don’t share the hope of my liberal friends – give them ten years, [and there will be] another Tiananmen Square demonstration – no, the marriage between capitalism and democracy is over.”

 

Inspired by Tom Ackerman http://ow.ly/7dfoJ image source Andy Miah http://ow.ly/7dfQO

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