Video on C-Span.

Rough transcript:

okay. let's take questions from the audience. in the very back there's a question with his hand up, and if you can give us your name, and if you're with an organization and also keep your questions brief so we can get to as many people as possible.

certainly. lloyd chris, america's democratic action. my question actually has to do with the occupied wall street protests that are going on in new york city, and there's been some recent activity where some union locals are kind of becoming involved in that, and i was wondering if you have an opinion on some of the afl-cio national member organizations, kind of beginning to take a role in that because i sort of think that that street demonstration activity is sort of forcing dialogue on the issues that you're talking about. just wondered if you have any thoughts on that, thank you.

i happen to agree with you. i think being in the streets and calling attention to issues is sometime the only recourse you have because god only knows you can go to the hill, and you can talk to a lot of people and see nothing ever happen because it doesn't happen. in the streets, i think, a lot of people are there. our international unions are involved. our locals are involved, and you'll see a lot of working people. you'll see a lot of small business people. you'll see a lot of manufacturing people who actually produce in this country that are being stepped on the same way by multinationals in wall street. i think it's a tactic and a valid tactic to call attention to a problem. wall street is out of control. we have three imbalances in this country. the imbalance between imports and exports. the imbalance between employer power and working power, and the imbalance between the real economy and the financial economy. we need to bring back balance to the final economy and calling attention to it and peacefully protesting is very legitimate way of doing it. god only knows i've done it thousands of times myself, and i'll do it again.

Source: War is Crime

AlterNet, September 28, 2011  |  

 

 

Critical thinking anti-authoritarians see the enormity of the military-industrial complex, the energy-industrial complex and the financial-industrial complex. They see the overwhelming power of the U.S. ruling class. They see many Americans unaware of the true sources of their oppression or with little knowledge of the strategies and tactics necessary to overcome it. They see American society lacking the psychological and cultural building blocks necessary for democratic movements—the self-respect required to reject the role as a mere subject of power, the collective self-confidence that success is possible, courage, determination, anti-authoritarianism, and solidarity. They see how the corporatocracy pays back those few Americans who do question, challenge, and resist illegitimate authority with economic and political marginalization.

Critical Thinking, Depression, and Political Passivity

Research shows that a more accurate notion of one’s powerlessness can result in a greater feeling of helplessness and is associated with depression. Several classic studies show that moderately depressed people are more critically thinking than those who are not depressed. Researchers Lauren Alloy and Lyn Abramson, studying nondepressed and depressed subjects who played a rigged game in which they had no actual control, found that nondepressed subjects overestimated their contribution to winning, while depressed subjects more accurately evaluated their lack of control.

If you are critical thinking enough to see the reality of just how much influence the corporatocracy has and how little power you have, then you are going to experience more pain than those who do not see these truths. To dull this pain, in addition to drugs and other diversions, human beings use depression and apathy. But these “shutdown strategies” weaken us and create passivity, immobilization and what Bob Marley called “mental slavery,” which in itself can be humiliatingly painful. And in this vicious cycle, human beings use even more diversions and shutdown strategies to dull this ever-increasing pain.

When one is in such a debilitating vicious cycle, painful truths about the cause of one’s malaise—the truths of how we are getting screwed—are not positively energizing. Instead, one may take such truths as confirmation that pessimism and hopelessness are warranted. The vicious cycle continues.

When one is already in pain and immobilized, there is a reflexive negative reaction to any proposed solution. Solutions demand effort, and a demand for effort is painful for those with little energy. So, it’s much easier to reflexively dismiss any solution. Of course, many solutions do deserve to be dismissed, as they may well be naïve.

The feeling of hopelessness is a legitimate one. And hopeless people are turned off by attempts to invalidate their feelings. Is it possible to validate that feeling of hopelessness while at the same time challenging the wisdom of inactions based on hopelessness? And is it possible to challenge it in a way that doesn’t insult the intelligence of critical thinkers?

Critical Thinking about Critical Thinking

The battle against the corporatocracy demands critical thinking, which results in seeing many ugly truths about reality. This critical thinking is absolutely necessary. Without it, one is more likely to engage in tactics that can make matters worse. Critical thinking also means the ability to think critically about one’s pessimism—realizing that pessimism can cripple the will. Critical thinkers who reflect on their own critical thinking recognize how negativism can cause inaction, which results in maintaining the status quo.

Critical thinking anti-authoritarians who move into hopelessness can forget that while they may in fact be better at seeing ugly truths than are many other people, they cannot see everything. Simply put, critical thinkers sometimes lose their humility.

Abraham Lincoln, considered by many historians to be our most critical thinking president, was also a major depressive. When he was a young man, he became so depressed that twice his friends had to form suicide watches for him. In the 1850s in the United States, the major battle was less over abolishing slavery than merely stopping the spread of it. Lincoln, who fought politically to stop the spread of slavery, wrote in 1856 a pessimistic analysis of the North’s chances of winning this fight:

This immense, palpable pecuniary interest, on the question of extending slavery, unites the Southern people, as one man. But it can not be demonstrated that the North will gain a dollar by restricting it. Moral principle is all, or nearly all, that unites us of the North. Pity ’tis, it is so, but this is a looser bond, than pecuniary interest. Right here is the plain cause of their perfect union and our want of it.

That slavery would be abolished in the United States less than a decade after Lincoln’s pessimistic analysis of the difficulty of merely stopping its spread was one of those seeming impossibilities that became possible because of unforeseen historical events. In the North, there was certainly not enough concern for African Americans to result in the end of slavery. But less than a decade after Lincoln’s pessimistic analysis about merely stopping the spread of slavery, one unforeseen event after another resulted in the abolition of slavery.

There are many examples from history of seeming impossibilities actually happening, examples that compel critical thinkers to rethink whether they are actually seeing all the possibilities. One recent example is, of course, the Arab spring. Many critical thinkers from that part of the world remain amazed at the huge revolts in Egypt that toppled the Mubarak tyranny.

The collapse of the Soviet empire seemed impossible to most Americans up until shortly before it occurred. Most Americans saw only mass resignation within the Soviet Union and its sphere of control. But the shipyard workers in Gdansk, Poland, did not see their Soviet and Communist Party rulers as the all-powerful forces that Americans did. And so Polish workers’ Solidarity, by simply refusing to go away, provided a strong dose of morale across Eastern Europe at the same time other historical events—such as the Soviet Union’s Afghanistan war—weakened their empire.

Why Not Just Wait for the Collapse?

History tells us that not just the Soviet empire but all empires ultimately collapse, and so why not just wait for their fall? It is pretty safe to say that the U.S. military-industrial complex and other oppressive U.S. industrial complexes will ultimately fall. These may be transformed by our own efforts or, more likely—given Americans’ current state of political passivity—they will fall owing mostly under the weight of their own stupidity. So, if it is more likely that these will fall under the weight of their own stupidity, why bother with activism?

One reason for democratic movements is that history tells us that not all empires and oppressive institutions fall under the weight of their own stupidity, as some are transformed by a combination of democratic movements and empire stupidity.

There is another reason to work each day on the democracy battlefields at our workplace, schools, the media, the marketplace, etc. Whether an empire and its oppressive institutions fall under the weight of their own stupidity or with help from a democratic movement, there must be people around in the aftermath who have what it takes to create and maintain a democratic society. There must be people who have retained their individual self-respect, collective self-confidence, courage, determination, anti-authoritarianism, and solidarity.

The lesson from history is that tyrannical and dehumanizing institutions are often more fragile than they appear. We never really know until it happens whether or not we are living in that time when historical variables are creating opportunities for seemingly impossible change. Maybe in our lifetime, or our kids’ lifetime, or their kids’ lifetime, the current corporatocracy will fall. It may fall because of the efforts of democratic movements or because of its own stupidity or some combination.

But when it does fall, the likelihood that it will be replaced by an enduring democratic society rests on whether there are enough of us with practice in democracy, enough of us who took seriously the psychological and cultural building blocks of self-respect, collective self-confidence, courage, determination, anti-authoritarianism, and solidarity. And democratic movements are the best place to practice creating those psychological and cultural building blocks required for an enduring democracy.

That's why "Occupy Wall Street" makes sense, and that's why I will be at "October 2011" at Freedom Plaza, Washington D.C. beginning next Thursday, October 6.

Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite  (Chelsea Green, 2011). His Web site is www.brucelevine.net.

Source: AlterNet

By Daniel Massey The city's most experienced agitators—the labor and community groups that typically organize local marches, rallies and sit-ins—have been largely missing from the Occupy Wall Street protest that is in its 13th day at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.

But that's about to change.

A loose coalition of labor and community groups said Thursday that they would join the protest next week. They are organizing a solidarity march scheduled for Wednesday that is expected to start at City Hall and finish a few blocks south at Zuccotti Park.

“It's a responsibility for the progressive organizations in town to show their support and connect Occupy Wall Street to some of the struggles that are real in the city today,” said Jon Kest, executive director of New York Communities for Change, which is helping to organize the march. “They're speaking about issues we're trying to speak about.”

Despite the common cause, the city's established left did not initially embrace the protest, which began Sept. 17 and has been made up mostly of young people angry about the widening income chasm in the country, the growing influence of money on politics and police brutality, among other issues.

But as the action nears the start of its third week, unions and community groups are eager to jump on board. They are motivated perhaps by a sense of solidarity and a desire to tap into its growing success, but undoubtedly by something else too—embarrassment that a group of young people using Twitter and Facebook have been able to draw attention to progressive causes in a way they haven't been able to in years.

The protestors have transformed the park into a village of sorts, complete with a community kitchen, a library, a concert stage, an arts and crafts center and a media hub. All of that has enabled them not just to sustain the action but to build momentum. And as celebrities like Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Russell Simmons and Cornel West have joined in, the city's traditional activists have been forced to jump into the fray.

Daniel Massey [+] Enlarge

The protestors have transformed the park into a village of sorts, complete with a community kitchen, a library, a concert stage, an arts and crafts center and a media hub.

“It's become too big to ignore,” said one political consultant.

Some of the biggest players in organized labor are actively involved in planning for Wednesday's demonstration, either directly or through coalitions that they are a part of. The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are all expected to participate. The Working Families Party is helping to organize the protest and MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks to drum up support for the effort.

“We're getting involved because the crisis was caused by the excesses of Wall Street and the consequences have fallen hardest on workers,” a spokesman for TWU Local 100 said.

Community groups like Make the Road New York, the Coalition for the Homeless, the Alliance for Quality Education and Community Voices Heard are also organizing for Wednesday's action, and the labor/community coalitions United New York and Strong Economy For All are pitching in as well.

Signs and chants will likely call for an extension of the so-called millionaires' tax and a roll-back of state budget cuts. They will also likely show support for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's position that a proposed settlement between banks and attorneys general over troubled mortgage pools is too lenient.

Organizers of the march said they aren't looking to take control of the Occupy Wall Street protest, which has captured headlines since it began nearly two weeks ago, but add to it.

“We're not trying to grab the steering wheel or to control it,” said Michael Kink, executive director of the Strong Economy For All coalition. “We're looking to find common cause and support the effort. It's the right fight at the right time and we want to be part of it.”

Source: Crains New York
 

Denver Post,
Sep 27, 2011

Over 700 hundred Continental and United pilots, joined by additional pilots from other Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) carriers, demonstrate in front of Wall Street on September 27, 2011 in New York City. The pilots want to draw attention to the lack of progress on negotiations of the pilots’ joint collective bargaining agreement ahead of the one-year anniversary of the corporate merger close date of United and Continental airlines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Denver Post (More photos at link.)

New York City labor unions are preparing to back the unwieldy grassroots band occupying a park in Lower Manhattan, in a move that could mark a significant shift in the tenor of the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street protests and send thousands more people into the streets.

The Transit Workers Union Local 100's executive committee, which oversees the organization of subway and bus workers, voted unanimously Wednesday night to support the protesters. The union claims 38,000 members. A union-backed organizing coalition, which orchestrated a large May 12 march on Wall Street before the protests, is planning a rally on Oct. 5 in explicit support. And SEIU 32BJ, which represents doormen, security guards and maintenance workers, is using its Oct. 12 rally to express solidarity with the Zuccotti Park protesters.

"The call went out over a month ago, before actually the occupancy of Wall Street took place," said 32BJ spokesman Kwame Patterson. Now, he added, "we're all coming under one cause, even though we have our different initiatives."

The protests found their genesis not in any of the established New York social action groups but with a call put out by a Canadian magazine. While other major unions beyond the TWU have yet to officially endorse Occupy Wall Street, more backing could come as early as this week. Both the New York Metro Area Postal Union and SEIU 1199 are considering such moves.

Jackie DiSalvo, an Occupy Wall Street organizer, says a series of public actions aimed at expressing support for labor -- from disrupting a Sotheby's auction on Sept. 22 to attending a postal workers' rally on Tuesday -- have convinced unions that the two groups' struggles are one.

"Labor is up against the wall and they're begging us to help them," said DiSalvo, a retired professor at Baruch College in her late 60s who has emerged as a driving force in the effort to link up labor and the protests. DiSalvo is herself a member of the Professional Staff Congress, which represents teachers at the City University of New York.

Recent anti-labor actions like Scott Walker's in Wisconsin "really shocked the unions and moved them into militant action," DiSalvo said, and the inflammatory video of a NYPD deputy inspector pepper-spraying several protesters on Saturday also generated union sympathy.

"There's a lot of good feeling. They've made a lot of friends," said Chuck Zlatkin of the postal union.

When a band of about 100 protesters showed up at a postal workers' rally featuring Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday, complete with purple hair and big drums, "they went a long way towards touching people and making connections," Zlatkin observed.

If unions move to support the protests in a major way, that could mean thousands more people marching in Lower Manhattan. Thus far the protesters have not managed to come near the 10,000 or so who attended the unrelated May 12 march on Wall Street. The Strong Economy for All Coalition, which receives support from the United Federation of Teachers, the Working Families Party, plus SEIU 32BJ and 1199, previously helped put together that demonstration. Now they will be rallying for the grassroots group.

"Their fight is our fight," director Michael Kink said. "They've chosen the right targets. We also want to see a society where folks other than the top 1 percent have a chance to say how things go."

Asked if the union support could dilute the message of the Occupy Wall Street protesters -- which has itself been dismissed as incoherent -- organizer DiSalvo said the rag tag group's stance would remain unchanged.

"Occupy Wall Street will not negotiate watering down its own message," she said, union support or not.

Source: Huffington Post
 

Participate in the Occupation Movement, Come to Freedom Plaza

(Image: JR / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Spc. Bryanna Poulin, The U.S. Army)

By Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com, September 29, 2011

PBC podcast 296 [ 1:01:53 ] Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

Activist Kevin Zeese is back, with updates on the Wall Street protests and the heavy-handed police tactics that, perversely, are causing the media to actually start covering the protest.  Zeese also details plans for a major protest in Washington starting October 6, the 10th anniversary of our invasion of Afghanistan.  Joby Warrick of The Washington Post talks about his new book, The Triple Agent.

Zeese is an attorney and activist involved in many causes, and we focus on the now-12-day action on Wall Street.  Initially ignored by the mainstream media, Michael Moore and others have managed to penetrate the corporate media filter to get the news out.  Get more about Wall St. protests here, or click here to find activists near you.  Zeese also tells us about the plans for the action in Washington that starts on October 6.  If you can’t be in DC, go to the blog page for ways you can be involved.

Inspired by protests like the one above in Tahrir Square, a new occupation will be launched on October 6th in Washington, DC. (photo: Getty Images)
 

Synergy Between Wall Street and DC's Freedom Plaza Occupations

By Scott Galindez,
Reader Supported News, September 27, 2011

ith the Occupation of Wall Street in its second week, solidarity actions are popping up around the country and the world. Cities currently supporting Occupy Wall Street are: Madrid, Spain; San Francisco, California; Los Angeles, California; Toronto, Canada; London, England; Athens, Greece; Sydney, Australia; Stuttgart, Germany; Tokyo, Japan; Milan, Italy; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Algiers, Algeria; Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel; Portland, Oregon; and Chicago, Illinois.

Cities in the process of joining Occupy Wall Street are: Phoenix, Arizona; Montreal, Canada; Cleveland, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; Kansas City, Missouri; Seattle, Washington; and Orlando, Florida.

All of those actions were directly inspired by Occupy Wall Street.

Another occupation will begin next week in Washington, DC.

A press release from the October2011 coalition announced that "... the People's Uprisings seen around the world and in the United States will come to Washington, DC beginning on Thursday, October 6 when thousands will converge to begin a prolonged people's occupation of Freedom Plaza." The release claimed they were building on Arab Spring, European Summer, Madison and the Occupation of Wall Street.

The Freedom Plaza Occupation will demand that the government represent the people, not just the top 1%. The pledge, signed by thousands, calls for using our resources on human needs and environmental protection, not for war and exploitation. The October2011 coalition stands with the American people on seven key issues:

• Tax the rich and corporations



• End the wars, bring the troops home, cut military spending



• Protect the social safety net, strengthen Social Security and improved Medicare for all



• End corporate welfare for oil companies and other big business interests



• Transition to a clean energy economy, reverse environmental degradation



• Protect worker rights including collective bargaining, create jobs and raise wages



• Get money out of politics

Some may wonder ... why not join the Wall Street Occupation instead of opening up another front? Kevin Zeese from the October2011 coalition addressed that question: "We have both cross-endorsed our events and see them as synergistic. If you look at the October2011.org website we provide a lot of coverage to the Wall Street occupation, including urging people to attend and support it. Our core organizers attended many of their planning meetings and have been involved with the occupation. Three of our key people were interviewed Sunday, Chris Hedges, Medea Benjamin and Debra Sweet, and a bunch more were in the Plaza. We are mutually supportive of each other."

Both of these actions have their own strengths. Occupy Wall Street was more spontaneous. Nobody knew what to expect, nobody knew who would show up, or how long they would stay. The culture-jamming online magazine Adbusters issued the call, but did not organize the event.

One thing you hear often at the Wall Street protest is people saying that they were inspired by Tahrir Square, and didn't want the usual marches with the same talking heads that end with everyone going back to their normal lives and supporting the status quo.

They have established a close-knit community that is interdependent on each other. You hear talk of establishing a new way to build a movement; one that is inclusive and without powerful leaders. To say there are no leaders, however, is not the case. In all communities people step up and provide leadership. Those people become leaders by earning respect.

Decisions in Liberty Plaza are made by the "General Assembly" on a consensus basis. The result is everyone has a role in the decision and everyone can provide leadership in the implementation. While it can be tedious to reach a consensus, the result is a decision that everyone can get behind.

Occupy DC will be powerful in its own right but will have a different dynamic. Organizing and planning has been underway for months. There will be permits, a stage with a sound system, a medical tent, media tent and a shantytown. The National Park Service has already warned them that sleeping will not be allowed, but Zeese said the first Assembly on the 6th will discuss whether or not to comply.

As a veteran of large protests in Washington I hope that large numbers decide to sleep in the park. My guess is if only a few dozen or so decide to take a stand, the Park Police will enforce the camping regulation, but if hundreds "sleep in" they will likely back off.

In Washington there will be experienced protesters and organizers who sometimes get caught repeating bad habits. Let us hope they are watching Wall Street very closely and learning that there are no right or wrong ways to organize. Spontaneity, creativity, and imagination can sometimes be more effective than planning and preparation, but both have their place and can complement each other nicely.

Scott Galindez is the Political Director of Reader Supported News, and the co-founder of Truthout.

Source: Reader Supported News

“If I can do this, anybody can get in a car and do this.”

Carrie Stone begins her journey to D.C. from Wallace, West Virginia

“If you are tired of waiting for politicians to fix what’s wrong & if you believe our policies are going in the WRONG direction, here is your chance to join with thousands of other Americans to DO something besides complain,” writes Carrie Stone, a 56-year-old gay grandmother and cancer survivor who has begun a 200-mile trek to D.C.

Stone started her walk from her hometown of Wallace, West Virginia on Sept. 26 and she’s scheduled to arrive in D.C. on Oct. 5. (You can follow her progress along the C&O Trail on Facebook, Twitter @papercrete, and her website.) She explained the significance of the timing of her arrival: “Beginning on Oct. 6, 2011, people are going to start occupying Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. There we will stay indefinitely until something changes.”

“If I can do this, anybody can get in a car and do this,” Stone said in a phone conversation the day before her departure. “I want to inspire people to get involved. People think they’re too busy. I’m too busy, too… [but] this is so important. It’s more important than anything.”

When I reached out to Stone earlier this month, I didn’t know about her upcoming journey, or her past ones. Ever since TheFightBack began last year, I’ve had this idea to do a profile of our 500th Facebook friend.

The route from West Virginia to Washington DC

When we reached the milestone, I contacted the “lucky winner,” one Carrie Stone, and asked if I could interview her. “Sounds great,” she replied via Facebook. “My partner & I have quite the story to tell.” She wasn’t kidding.

In her second Facebook message, Stone laid out some of the life events that brought her to the decision to walk to D.C.

As for background info, Elisia & I are LGBT activists and have (officially) been involved in the struggle for equal legal rights for LGBT couples ever since Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Shortly after DOMA was passed, we started Rainbow Law, a first of its kind legal document resource for our community. There we provide free advance directives and affordable document packages that allow partners to give each other rights and responsibilities that would otherwise be denied.

And because we understand these documents are very limited, our primary mission is to advocate for equal marriage rights for all LGBT Americans in every state. That is why we rode our bicycles across the country – twice – to advocate for marriage equality. We did so 1st in 2003 and again in 2004 while George Bush was pushing Congress to amend the Constitution to ban “gay marriage.” A documentary film called “Lesbian Grandmothers from Mars” was made and released right before the 2004 election. There is a trailer on YouTube. We are planning one more ride in 2013 – 10 years after the first ride.

After we ended the last ride we sold our house, quit our jobs and moved to West Virginia where we bought a small piece of land and started building a house out of recycled materials (builtfromtrash.com), like newspaper (papercrete), bottles, cans and tires.

We’ve just about finished the house and now have 4 goats, 6 chickens & 3 organic gardens. We are currently making our own solar panels (bought the parts on Ebay), a home-made windmill and a mini-hydroelectric generator. All of these (plus a generator made from an old stationary bike) are used to charge a bank of batteries so that we will eventually get off the power grid.

So, all of this sounds wonderful, right? Well, as it turns out, the oil & gas industry discovered we are living over top a mother lode of natural gas embedded in a layer of shale rock. Halliburton invented a wonderful way to extract that gas by hydraulic fracturing — in other words, by drilling down to and then horizontally through the shale and blasting it with a high pressure liquid which contains all sorts of toxins. Not only is this depleting local water supplies, it is causing methane gas to seep into the water wells AND it creates a toxic waste from the drilling fluid that is difficult to dispose of.

On top of all of that, as an uninsured cancer survivor, I struggle with no health care.

Needless to say, all of the above makes us almost a poster child for what ails this country today.

We had such hope when Obama was elected, but now see that we – the American people – need to take matters into our own hands. Our elected officials are clearly representing the 1% of the population who control the money while ignoring the other 99%. I may not be a mathematician but it is clear to me that – even if we get a fraction of people affected by these harmful policies (austerity measures, cutting education & government assistance, etc. while at the same time wasting billions in Iraq & Afghanistan and on giving welfare to wealthy corporations) – we will scare the sh** out of them.

http://thefightback.org/2011/09/grandmother-walks-from-west-virginia-to-d-c-for-oct-6-protest/