Graphic: Employment Trends Including Deception
Budgets & Funding, Citizen-Centered, CorruptionJohn Steiner: Mark Bitman on People Power – Beyond Elections
Collective Intelligence
Beyond Elections: People Power
By MARK BITTMAN
New York Times, 3 January 2012
The presidential election may be grabbing headlines, but the true rallying cry for 2012 is to struggle and organize around those issues that a president might take seriously, to stake out positions that would benefit what used to be called the working class (and now goes by “the 99 percent”) and to garner enough political will and power to pressure the president and Congress to move resolutely on the issues that matter.
. . . . . . .
Only if there is collective action by large numbers of citizens will politicians — even principled ones — have the support they need to resist the power of corporate lobbyists. It’s not an easy process, and it’s one that’s often met by violence.
Eagle: Jack Abramoff critiques OWS, Republicans’ media exposure in Yahoo News interview
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Jack Abramoff critiques OWS, Republicans’ media exposure in Yahoo News interview
The Ticket, 4 January 2012
EXTRACT:
Abramoff says that since his release, he's been in touch with some of Occupy's “sensible” leaders, as he calls them, via Twitter and other channels of communication.
But Abramoff, once a major conservative Republican figure in Washington, hasn't switched party allegiances. In fact, he said he's pretty certain Occupy Wall Street has no future without political involvement.
“I think the response is ‘while we're revolutionary, we're not in the power structure,' ” Abramoff said of OWS supporters. “…Well, then, in that case, law enforcement is going to come and clear you out and the elected officials will have no fealty to you.”
Owl: Have the Super-Rich Abandoned the USA?
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Have the Super-Rich Seceded from the United States?
The Joke is on the Rest of Us
by MIKE LOFGREN
EXTRACT:
There have been hundreds of books about globalization and how it would break down borders. But I am unaware of a well-developed theory from that time about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state.
I do not mean secession in terms of physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens occasionally. It means a withdrawal into enclaves, a sort of internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well-being except as a place to extract loot. Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it.
30 Statistics That Show That The Middle Class Is Dying Right In Front Of Our Eyes As We Enter 2012
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30 Statistics That Show That The Middle Class Is Dying Right In Front Of Our Eyes As We Enter 2012
Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen. Unfortunately, that is rapidly changing. The statistics that you are about to read prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the U.S. middle class is dying right in front of our eyes as we enter 2012. The decline of the middle class is not something that has happened all of a sudden. Rather, there has been a relentless grinding down of the middle class over the last several decades. Millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas, the rate of inflation has far outpaced the rate that our wages have grown, and overwhelming debt has choked the financial life out of millions of American families. Every single day, more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty. In fact, more Americans fell into poverty last year than has ever been recorded before. The number of middle class jobs and middle class neighborhoods continues to decline at a staggering pace. As I have written about previously, America as a whole is getting pooreras a nation, and as this happens wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated at the very top of the income scale. This is not how capitalism is supposed to work, and it is not good for America.
Occupy as a Permanent Disruption – Protest Force
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Disruption Example: Open Source Protest + Flash Mob
The Occupy Network/Brand is a perma protest against the future.
Occupy's Cause of the day: To express discontent with the “indefinite detention” provisions of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act).
mindlessrabble said…
Could you explain “perma protest against the future”?
I see them as permanent opposition to totalitarism and corporatism (aka fascism). But I don't seem them as the inevitable future.
Action: Freezing Grand Central Station during rush hour.
Worth a Look: Future of Occupy Newsletter
Worth A Look
“Occupy will never die; Evict us, we multiply!”
Welcome to The Future of Occupy newsletter!
As the movement enters a new phase of its development, having many sites evicted or facing eviction, we dedicate the first issue of FoO to one of its potent life-giving forces, the General Assemblies. Here you will find blogposts about the processes and evolution of the GAs, collaborative thinking, and a set of core declarations from some of the major occupations.
Monthly Downloads
Every month, newly posted key documents (as pdf's) will be available for download. This month, you can download From the “99%” – The New Common Sense and What is next for the Occupy Movement? Download PDF's
Selected Headlines:
Under Assemblies what might national, European and global governance look like?
General Assemblies: the primordial soup of social life in the 3rd millennium
Collective Thinking is an essential part of our movement
Beyond Protest: the way of People’s Assemblies
Occupy as a new societal model and ways to improve it
How Occupy innovates and gives new meaning to “mass communication”
