Uncategorized – Page 96 – Public Intelligence Blog

#Occupy Together – emerging patterns and suggestions

I'm beginning to sense a progression of developments that may productively unfold in, through, and because of the Occupy Together movement. It is still somewhat vague, but something like it is definitely in the works. All of it is happening both as a sequence and simultaneously.

1. Share stories, creations, and demonstrations of frustration and outrage that
. a. speak to and rouse an increasing majority of ordinary people
. b. challenge the institutional sources of that frustration
. – and while we do it, create occupation communities that reflect our values
. and experiment with new, better ways of being together.
2. Encourage, stimulate, provoke, catalyze and convene expanding conversations
. about (1) and every subsequent step, in every sector, nook, and mind in society.
3. Consciously reach out to more and more people unlike ourselves –
. the rest of the 99% – creatively, powerfully, and lovingly expanding toward 100%
. inclusivity. Welcome people into a new world of possibility.
4. Learn about and explore dreams and alternatives – about new economics, politics,
. governance, education, health care, community, and all the rest… Gain real
. certainty that “another world is possible.”
5. Develop and articulate a powerful shared vision of the society we want.
6. In place of demands, clarify two things and organize to make them happen:
. a. What millions of ordinary people can do to further the vision.
. b. What governments and institutions must do, not only to further the vision,
. but to continue functioning at all, in the face
. of the rising forces for justice, sustainability, meaning and joy.
7. And while we do all this, share, learn from experience, and use all forms
. of diversity, skill, passion, technology and struggle creatively.

Below are some of the ideas and images that make me feel something like this is beginning to unfold. I find all of them important, both in themselves and as signs of the larger societal motion (“movement”), the larger awakening that seems to be happening here.

See various links and full texts including “Bringing the Salt March [Gandhi in India] to Wall Street.”

Oh, and don't miss the video “Marine Defends Occupy Wall Street” that's included below. I can't help wondering what its many impacts will be.

Coheartedly,
Tom

2011/10/172011/10/17

Robert Steele (Video): Two-Party Tyranny, Obama Will NOT Co-Ops OWS, Violence by Provocateurs Not OWS

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steele smiling final — Robert David STEELE Vivas

Record-breaking OWS demo hits NYC

EXTRACT:

[Note: this was recorded at 1015 EST well before the reports about eight hours later that Anarchists had penetrated the groups in Europe and were responsible for the violence.]

Former US intelligence officer Robert David Steele says that the violence in Rome was not instigated by the protesters themselves.

“I think they were penetrated by provocateurs,” he argued. “Remember that in Italy the Red Band was actually a CIA/NATO operation to fabricate terrorism in order to push Italy toward fascism. I don’t believe that the violence is coming from the demonstrators; they are being provoked.”

Steele pointed to an incident this past week in New York, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg called off a planned eviction of the protesters from a downtown park, nominally to clean up the public site.

“By basically keeping the place cleaner and more orderly than the government itself was able to,” he said, the protesters effectively – and peacefully – outmaneuvered the government. “They cannot be violent. They must demonstrate that the governments have failed and that they are superior.”

See two other video clips and full report.

2011/10/172011/10/17

John Robb: Differences Between Tea Party & OWS

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There are two major differences between the Tea Party and OWS:

1) The Tea Party is affiliated with the Republican party, and not replicated elsewhere in the world.

2) OWS rejects both parties and all forms of institutionalized corruption, and has been replicated all over the world.

ows world map — Click on Image to Enlarge

2011/10/17

Paul Fernhout: G. William Domhoff on Social Movements and Strategic Nonviolence

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Social Movements and Strategic Nonviolence

by G. William Domhoff<

March 2005

One of the distinctive features of left activists is their willingness to go to the streets to win people to their causes and create the political pressures necessary for the social changes they advocate. Studies in social psychology and sociology support this strategy by showing there has to be a non-routine dimension to any effort toward change. It doesn't make any sense to people to say that things are terrible, but they just should vote and write letters to their elected representatives. If things are going to change, then people have to get out of their routines one way or another. There has to be social disruption. There has to be a “getting in the way of power” as one author-activist puts it. There has to be a social movement that has a shared political identity.

But case studies also show that these movements go nowhere without an electoral component, as seen with the women's suffrage movement, the industrial union movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the feminist movement, and the environmental movement. Changes in government were the end result in every case. They usually don't go far enough, but that just means the next cycle of movement activism is necessary.

Studies of social movements in the United States also show that the necessary social disruption has to be created through the principled use of strategic nonviolence. Any form of violence, whether property damage or physical battles with opponents and police, will turn off the great majority of Americans and bring down overwhelming police and military repression.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: This may be where OWS derails. They have ONE CHANCE to demand Electoral Reform in time to impact on 2012. That chance slips away by the end of November. The Constitutional Amendment is a pipe dream in the absence of Electoral Reform first, first Congress has to be cleansed of corruption, then a Constitutional Amendment can be sought.

2011/10/142011/10/17

Anne Kadet: A Day in the Life of Occupy Wall Street

03 Economy, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, IO Deeds of Peace, Methods & Process, Uncategorized

The Occupy Economy

Anne Kadet

Wall Street Journal, 15 October 2011

Say what you want about the assorted professionals, philosophers, bums, radicals, students and wage slaves comprising Occupy Wall Street, but they've managed to pull off the impossible. In the center of one of the world's most expensive cities, a place where the average tourist family of four spends roughly $3,500 per visit, they've accomplished something even the guidebooks wouldn't dare promise: New York living on less than $10 a day.

. . . . . .

In less than four weeks, Occupy Wall Street managed to erect what looks and functions like a cross between a high-tech folk festival and a Canadian logging camp. At least for now, there's a lending library on one end and a man doling out cigarettes on the other. There are stations for first aid, phone charging and poster-making. There's even a guy who walks around handing out, yes, free money.

. . . . . .

The whole operation runs on donations, of course. More than $5,000 in cash comes in every day through the park's contribution boxes, and supplies flow in from around the country. Kim Heines, a Bensonhurst office manager volunteering on the storage committee, opened her composition notebook to display records of the morning's 90-odd shipments: soap from Winnipeg; rain ponchos from Keller, Texas; sleeping bags from Indiana; gluten-free snack bars from Santa Monica.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: This is a stellar piece of work, riveting detail, economy of words, just an utterly spectacular communication of the logistical essence of Occupy Wall Street.

2011/10/052011/10/06

IBM: proceed with caution (WWII to the present)

Corporations, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Technologies, Uncategorized

3 examples:

IBM is working with DARPA

IBM Testing Biometric Technology for Retail Advertising

How IBM Tech Helped Jump Start the Holocaust

Comment: I would be cautious+keen of the “smart planet” vision of those running IBM, they have made the brand popular for spreading to all cities. Keep an eye on them (biometric pun, sorry) and be friendly.

Also see:
Carnegie Mellon Univ project PittPatt (facial recognition) spun off into a company post 9/11 funded by DARPA, purchased by Google

2011/09/252011/12/23