Opposition to drone warfare is growing. There is now network of "no drone" organizations around the country, engaging in a varety of protests. You can see some that have been highligted by the No Drone Nework by clicking here. Below is a protest that occurred yesterday in California. We begin with David Hartsough's statement. He was one of the nine arrested at Beale after they shut he gate for three hours. He is a local time peace and justice activist. David was active in the Occupation of Washington, DC at Freedom Plaza.
David Hartsough’s Statement at the Drone Protest Beale Air Force Base, October 30, 2012
We are one human family. All people in the world are our brothers and sisters. If someone attacks our blood brother or sister, e would do everything in our power to stop them.
This is the way we feel about innocent civilians being killed by drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Drones are totally immoral and illegal under international law and are against everything we have been taught in our religious Faiths: Love one another, Love your enemy and Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
How would we feel if Russians or Chinese or Afghanis or Pakstanis were flying drones over the US and killing innocent people?
It is illegal under international law to go into another country and drop bombs on people our government doesn’t like.
The United States is making decisions to kill people without them ever coming before a court or found guilty. The US government is playing Judge, Jury and Executioner.
Using drones and killing many innocent people is creating more and more enemies of the US. Every person we kill has at least 50 family members and friends who will mourn the loss of their loved ones and seek revenge on the people and nation that has killed their loved one or friend.
Instead of drones and dropping bombs on people we need to send peace corps people to build schools and medical clinics and help people in these countries recover from the wounds of war. We could be the most loved country on earth rather than the most hated.
By our silence we condone this senseless killing. We must speak out and act to stop this madness. We call on our fellow Americans, people in churches and synagogues and mosques, students, all people of conscience to join us in stopping Drones before they kill more innocent people and recruit more people into Al Qaeda. Unfortunately, this is a receipt for perpetual wars and endless suffering and death for people around the world.
David reading Code of Non-Violence in San Francisco on December 16, 2010
David was arrested along with eight others blocking two entrances at Beale Air Force Base where they closed the main entrance for over three hours.
Four women and one man, who remained standing in front of a Beale Air Force Base gate after authorities asked them to move their protest off federal property were cited Tuesday and sang "We Shall Overcome."
About 50 people gathered in the morning at the base entrance off North Beale Road as well as at a gate off Doolittle Drive to protest against drones as part of a national action, said Sacr mento resident Cres Vellucci.
"This is more or less the Northern California protest," Vellucci said.
Sacramento resident Kevin Carter, 52, who calls himself a social justice activist, yelled, "Forgive these men that they know not what they do," as Beale security officials led the protesters away from the gate.
Four other protesters were also cited for trespassing at the Beale entrance off Doolittle. In all, nine people were cited.
David Hartsough, executive director of San Francisco-based Peaceworkers, displayed the peace symbol when cited at the North Beale Road entrance.
Sharon Delgado, founding director of Earth Justice Ministries in Nevada City, said "I just want to shut down the business as usual at the base. The longer the better."
Col. Phil Stewart, 9th Reconnaissance Wing commander at Beale, said in a statement after the protest, "It is our hope that these individuals, who have invoked their right to peaceable assembly, will do so safely and within the confines of the law in the future.
"We respect the rights of individuals to exercise free speech and the United States Air Force has always been and continues to be committed to defending lawful freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution," Stewart said.
Most protesters came from the Bay Area, San Francisco, Nevada County or Chico.
Protester Janie Kesselman, 58, who lives in Campontville in Yuba County and works at Sierra Solar, said where protesters live isn't important because the war and use of drones are global issues.
"The issue isn't that there are or aren't people in Marysville or Yuba County," she added.
"They're just not here today," Kesselman said.
Chico resident Michael Pike, 65, described the protest as a grass-roots movement that doesn't always attract those who live closest to a military base.
"A lot of times they don't want to know," Pike said of what takes place at Beale.
The primary mission at Beale, for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, does not include drones that fire weapons, but a protester contended the base is an accomplice in the drone program.
Vellucci said most Beale protesters living outside Yuba and Sutter counties are not new to social activism.
"People in the South were upset that people in the North were coming to protest the treatment of blacks," he added of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Carter said, "People in the Sutter area may not be informed as much as people in the Bay Area and other areas."
Oakland resident and Catholic priest Louis Vitale, 80, said outside Beale that, "We've been hyped into all this patriotism." Vitale said earlier wars haven't solved problems.
"They all thought they were saving the world by going to Vietnam," Vitale said of the military.
Toby Blome, a resident of El Cerrito in the Bay Area, was cited Tuesday for trespassing at the base entrance off Doolittle. She spent two weeks in Pakistan as part of the anti-war Code Pink group and returned Oct. 12. She said drones in the Middle East country are terrorizing people.
If Pakistanis asked her and others where they were from, Blome said she answered "America."
"I apologize for my government's policies against the people of Pakistan," she would tell them.
Sacramento resident Barry Binks, 72, also cited for trespassing, said he is disappointed that the drone program has expanded under President Barack Obama.
"I expected something to happen when Obama was elected," Binks said. "Like a lot of people, I thought he was going to do something."
Veterans and members of the Occupy VA movement have anchored themselves at the front doors of the Department of Veterans Affairs building, even as Hurricane Sandy approaches.
Veterans campaigning for more programs to prevent suicides in the armed forces snuggle together under an awning on the front steps of the Department of Veterans Affairs building Monday to wait out Hurricane Sandy. They have been on the sidewalk outside the VA since Oct. 4. SHFWire photo by Kristopher
Washington, D.C. - infoZine - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - “We’ve been here for three weeks, and we ain’t going anywhere,” John Penley, 60, of Washington, said. “A hurricane can’t drive us out of here.”
The Occupy VA group has been camped in front of the VA since Oct. 4, when they asked to meet with officials with the VA. Two veterans of Occupy met with representatives from the VA on Oct. 15, but the vets said they were not satisfied with the meeting.
The veterans are concerned about vets and soldiers who have been committing suicide in record numbers. They are also concerned about homeless and jobless veterans, as well as veterans who need benefits and medical attention, but are living on the street.
Veterans campaigning for more programs to prevent suicides in the armed forces snuggle together under an awning on the front steps of the Department of Veterans Affairs building Monday to wait out Hurricane Sandy. They have been on the sidewalk outside the VA since Oct. 4. SHFWire photo by KristopherOccupiers bundled up in layers of sweaters and jackets and then snuggled into sleeping bags with layers of tarps under an awning at the VA’s main entrance as a steady rain pelted the city and temperatures dropped. A van and small moving truck were scheduled to arrive at the building, just across Lafayette Square from the White House, where the occupiers will take turns keeping warm and drying off during the storm.
Penley, a Navy veteran, said the group wants to make suggestions for improving the VA system, even if they have to ride out the storm.
“It may not make sense on the surface, but you’re not talking about a group of folks who are extremely vulnerable,” John Zangas, 53, of Washington, said. “In this case, they’re determined to get their point across. There isn’t a person out here who isn’t soaked down to the bone.”
This intervew with three Occupy Baltimore activists and authors raises important issues not just for Occupy Baltimore but for Occupy activists and organizers across the country. The issues faced in Baltimore are the same as those faced in urban areas througout the country. This is part II of the interview, Part I is Baltimore, Race and the Occupy Movement. Real News, which is based in Baltimore, has a series of shows about Baltimore issues. Real News, which covers events throughout the nation and world, says this will be an ongoing series, so watch Real News and support it.
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore, and we're continuing our discussion with three activists from Baltimore.
Joining us again: Kate Khatib. She's a coeditor of the book We Are Many, which just came out. She's also a founding member of Red Emma's Collective.
Mike McGuire. He's also coeditor of the book We Are Many, and he's been working with the Occupy movement since September 17, when it started. He also works with The Real News Network now, helping build our new headquarters.
And Lester Spence. He's a contributor to the book We Are Many. He's an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. He's the author of the book Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-Hop and Black Politics.
So, Lester, I'll start with you again. So, in 1968 there were thousands of people joined the protest that hit cities across America. And Baltimore—I said it the last time—the first Occupy Baltimore was actually the Army or the National Guard, and there were soldiers with guns and tanks on the street, and Baltimore was really an occupied city. But that level of mass protest, that movement that requires troops to come, fast-forward to now where you're telling me that if a few hundred people show up for a protest or an event, that's pretty good. Most recently there was a big one around the Trayvon Martin killing, but that was sort of an exception. So how do you get from a mass movement at such heights in Baltimore to one that's—you could say is pretty much in an ebb right now?
LESTER SPENCE, CONTRIBUTOR, WE ARE ONE: I think there are a few different things to consider. One is growing black political power. I don't think there's been a major civil disturbance in a city run by a black mayor. I don't think there's—I know there definitely wasn't one in Detroit. The last one we had was '67. I don't think there's—I know there hasn't been one in Baltimore since the three black mayors were elected. I don't think there was one even in New York or Chicago when Harold Washington was in Chicago or Dinkins was in New York. So I think that's part of it.
The other part of it is that the population that's most likely to engage in serious activist work is young, and a sizable portion of that population in the black community is now tied up in the prison-industrial complex.
And then a third related dynamic—and there's other stuff, but I'll open it up for Mike and Kate—the third related dynamic is unemployment, you know, unemployment drops—I mean, unemployment rises. Right? So to the extent that we're talking about these '60s movements that had a sizable labor component, when people aren't working, you know, they're not—there's a certain type of politics that they're not connected to anymore, because the labor movement was at least one of the funnels through which black politics takes on a certain tenor.
So when those three things happened, you know, the election of black mayors, the increasing election of black political leadership, the movement, the shutting off of a sizable percentage of black populations into the prison-industrial complex, and then growing unemployment, it makes it very hard for a certain type of political activism to take place in places like Baltimore.
JAY: What's your take on the same question?
KATE KHATIB, COEDITOR, WE ARE ONE: Well, I mean, I think Lester has given a pretty good outline of it. I definitely think that the fact that Baltimore has a black political class has a lot to do with the fact that we don't necessarily see mass activism coming from the black community in Baltimore in the same way that maybe we did in the '60s, either in Baltimore or elsewhere around the country.
In general, I think the question of why we don't have a climate of or maybe a culture of protest in Baltimore right now, I think, is a bigger question. It's not something that's entirely tied to race. I mean, it's definitely a racial question, but I think there are other aspects to it. I think some of it has to do with our proximity to Washington and the fact that there is always a lot of push for folks in Baltimore to actually go to D.C. to protest. There is, I think, a sense that protesting in Baltimore isn't necessarily going to accomplish anything. I think a lot of the mass mobilizations that you've seen in the United States in recent years, at least in the past couple of decades, have really very much been around conventions, around gatherings, and Baltimore really hasn't seen a major convention, either a political convention or, you know, a meeting of the WTO or the World Bank or the IMF, which is where a lot of the mass protest has kind of come from.
JAY: Well, Mike, what do you make of Lester's point from the previous segment of the interview that the thing that would galvanize people here more is certainly the issue that's affecting people more—it's the criminal justice system and the kind of issues that—I guess I don't know if it'd be the—. Would you say that's the same for Hispanics as well, and other people? Or is it really something specifically in terms of black Baltimore?
SPENCE: Yeah. So it's not—so it's a similar apparatus, but with Latinos I'd say it's the immigration apparatus, which is related to criminal justice, but it's not the same thing.
JAY: And it's a little sidetrack from where we're going, but is that not less an issue in Baltimore? I saw that the mayor was saying that the city officials are not allowed to ask people for citizenship and they're actually trying to get people to move here.
SPENCE: I think it's less a problem in Baltimore. That doesn't mean it isn't a problem. It just means it's less of a problem.
JAY: Yeah. But in terms of this—I guess, you know, the '68 protest was really a product of the black political movement. So that's one set of dynamics why that isn't at a rise. So maybe we should return to that in a second. But what do you make of Lester's point that white activists here aren't as tuned in to the problems facing, in fact, the majority of the city? 'Cause the majority of the city's black.
MIKE MCGUIRE, COEDITOR, WE ARE ONE: Well, that begs another question, which is: should it be the white community that's organizing the black community around prison-industrial issues? So should we be the ones going out, and should I, for example, be the one that's going out? And I think the answer is yes, if that's what I'm inspired to do, if that's what's driving me.
But I think in general there's not a huge culture of organizing in the United States. We've kind of lost those traditions. So we're talking about not just—like, the difference that you're talking about is in numbers, it's whether or not it's a mass movement. And what's happened in the United States between the '60s and now, it seems like it should be easier. We're much more in touch with each other through all of our digital devices. But at the same time, we're much less in touch with each other, because we're in touch with each other through these digital devices.
JAY: But it's interesting: in the recent period, the biggest protest that you're telling me took place in Baltimore was about youth and the criminal justice system. And the killing of Trayvon Martin is that, and it so resonated with people here 'cause they say, this is what's happening to us every day in Baltimore.
MCGUIRE: Yeah. But then what happened with that? Where did the organizing go with that?
And here in the first segment we were talking a lot about elections or electoral strategies. We don't form strategies well as social movements in the United States right now. We don't have venues in which we're actually coming together and talking through how we organize, what strategies we use, what makes sense, what we need to pursue, what—and in just rational discussions.
We had this debate with—kind of within or about the Occupy movement a couple nights ago that Verso hosted between Chris Hedges and a guy representing CrimethInc., and I came away from that thinking, yeah, the situation's actually worse than we thought. Like, if this is the level of discussion at which we can discuss strategies within a movement, then we're not going to move very far very fast. So I think that's actually something that's very generalizable, that we're immature in terms of how we organize in this country.
SPENCE: And even in how we articulate, right? So there is a difference between a mass action and a mass movement, right? So what happened in '68 was a mass action, and it was spurred by the assassination of Martin Luther King. Dozens of cities in the United States and cities across the country, I mean, across the world exploded. The same thing happened with Rodney King, right? Dozens of cities in the United States and a number of cities across the world. Those were mass actions.
But there's a difference between a mass action and a mass movement. Right? And the things—so mass actions are spurred on by crises. We can't predict when those crises happen. We can't predict which crises is going to lead to this stuff. They just kind of explode. But a mass movement or movement-building is a totally different process.
So when you conflate them, when you associate mass actions with mass movements, right, then you end up mis-specifying what needs to happen in order to make political change. Right? And then you end up—your time horizon ends up being short. We talked about that in the first segment, where you're thinking about overthrowing the state, like, within four years, right, and not understanding that this takes 30, 40. Right? You end up misunderstanding the populations you need to be engaged in, how you need to engage them, the whole thing.
KHATIB: But, you know, it's also important to remember that in the '60s you do have—I mean, you do have a mass movement, right? You have the civil rights movement. But the civil rights movement didn't just spring up overnight in '68, right? I mean, it took many, many years to actually build a strong civil rights movement in the United States. And, you know, I think to look at Occupy and say, well, why hasn't Occupy managed to catalyze the same kind of thing, why isn't Occupy looking like a mass movement, I think we've got to—you know, as Lester says, I think we have to kind of widen our temporal gaze, we have to be looking even further into the future and saying, this is only the very beginning of a mass movement.
JAY: Yeah, but what I'm getting at is: if you're talking Baltimore and you're organizing in Baltimore, what Lester said earlier is, if you want to get a movement that's going to be a mass movement, you'd better deal with the issues that are facing the majority of the people, and he's saying right now that's the criminal justice system and related issues. And that's certainly my experience when I've been asking either young people who are activists or even—.
You know, we've been holding and we had a couple of these front-porch meetings where we just went to East Baltimore and sat on the front porch and asked people—we said, we're journalists, tell us what you want us to do. And it was two issues. It was—number one, it was criminal justice—not just injustice to young people going to jail; it was also how do we have safer streets so I can go to the corner store and not worry about getting robbed. I mean, it's both sides of that coin. And then the second one was a great one. It says, who the hell owns all these boarded-up houses, and why aren't they being rented out to low-income families? So those were the issues.
KHATIB: And I think if you look at where Occupy went after—so in Baltimore, after the Occupy movement was evicted from McKeldin Square, which was the sort of—the beginning of the occupation was the physical occupation of McKeldin Square in downtown Baltimore. And once that eviction happened, it freed up a lot of energy and a lot of time and a lot of excitement and ideas for organizing. Right? So there were all of these people organizing under the auspices of Occupy Baltimore. And where did it go? Well, it went specifically into addressing the situation with the youth jail, and it went specifically into what has now become known as the Occupy Our Homes movement, which is essentially foreclosure defense. So I think exactly the issues that you're bringing up here really are the issues that Occupy Baltimore tried to address and did address in very real ways.
MCGUIRE: And is trying, yeah.
KHATIB: Yeah, is trying, is still trying.
MCGUIRE: Yeah.
SPENCE: Another thing. If we look right now at what's going on in Baltimore—and there's a bunch of stuff—and one of the really good things about the Occupation movement is that we were all addressing universal themes, but addressing them locally and we were all in our own community.
So here in Baltimore, Occupy Baltimore quickly turned to look at development. And we weren't the only ones. Like, there are a lot of people looking at development, how development is practiced in the city, who's getting the money, what they're doing with the money, how we're using public resources for public good.
And right now some very interesting organizing and one of the more mass organizing efforts going on in Baltimore is in the black community. It's on the east side, and it's around jobs, and it's around development, and it's around how we use public subsidies for development without any benefit for the local populations in terms of economic development, in terms of skill development, stuff like that.
And it was shocking. Like, you know, at the same time that Occupy Baltimore was happening—and I was seeing kind of record numbers in the community that I'm used to organizing in, seeing those folks on the street—at the same time, I'm reading in the newspaper—and I was completely unaware of this organizing going on—I'm reading in a newspaper that there were 300 people on the east side that marched onto a job site that was being led by EBDI, East Baltimore Development Incorporated, the group that's overseeing the largest urban redevelopment program—project in the country. They're marching on one of their job sites and saying, where are our jobs, this is our community, these are our jobs, and they got their heads beaten in. You know, they just—the trials were just resolved the other day, and it was kind of pathetic, the whole thing.
But, like, at the same time that we were talking about this from Occupy Baltimore, Churches and Communities United in [laIun@] were organizing hundreds of folks. But they're turning out overnight. Like, this is probably more important than talking about the Trayvon Martin rally, you know, which was an instantaneous thing; it was, you know, a thousand or a couple of thousand people. But the folks that are organized around the EBDI stuff, they're turning out hundreds of people every time.
And how did that start? [laIun@] hosted a forum in a church, and they said, we want—we're trying to organize around jobs here, we're trying to get jobs for folks in this community, so come out and talk to us about your job situation. They ended up having folks lined up around the block.
They had 1,000 people turn out for that meeting. They were expecting to accommodate a couple of hundred. They had 1,000 people turn out for that meeting. Richie Armstrong, who's the main organizer of Churches and Communities United now, he went to that meeting looking for a job. He ended up becoming an organizer of Churches and Communities United. And they're turning out literally—like, they called for a demonstration. They're turning out hundreds of folks. And they're organizing in the black community.
And, you know, the first rally I went to, I was like, I know no one here. And they thought that I was probably a hostile entity going to EBDI as a developer. They were like, are you with us, or are you against us? And I was like, give me a sign.
JAY: Alright. Well, thank you all for joining us. And we'll pick this up in a few weeks and we will—it will be an ongoing discussion, and maybe we'll add some more people to it. Thanks for joining us on The Real News Network, from Baltimore.
There is lots of important info on the burgeoning recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. OWS has partnered with 350.org and recovers.org to create organized locally focussed websites which feature community-powered volunteer opportunities as well as a place for people affected by the storm to post needs.
If you have experience in or tools for medical and psychological services, electrician work, plumbing, construction, financial or legal services, debris and tree removal, child care, transportation, senior services or language skills please sign up.
Even if you can’t offer anything in those areas, we still need hands.
Make sure to visit Occupy Sandy’s hub at www.interoccupy.net/occupysandy/ for up to date information and
Hurricane Sandy's winds toppled trees and caused widespread damage throughout New York. Photo: p_romano / Flickr
A group of people from the Occupy Wall Street movement is collaborating with the climate change advocacy group 350.org and a new online toolkit for disaster recovery, recovers.org, to organize a grassroots relief effort in New York City.
Using Recovers.org, a web-based platform for organizing disaster response, Occupy volunteers are processing incoming offers of help and requests for aid, said Justin Wedes, a longtime occupier who 350.org put me in touch with when I contacted them about this project.
"Now we are working with organizers on the ground as well as volunteers who are canvassing neighborhoods on bikes and on foot, talking with people, helping them get resources like pumps, food, drinking water, a whole bunch of different things," Wedes told me by phone Tuesday. So far, there are three sites set up: One for the Lower East Side in Manhattan, one for Red Hook in Brooklyn, and a third for Astoria in Queens, all three of which are along the waterfront and experienced flooding and damage. Home and business owners throughout the city have been checking out the damage today.
This morning, business owners along 9th Street in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, in a low-lying area within two blocks of the Gowanus Canal, photographed damage and sorted through the debris caused by the canal rising above its walls and soaking their businesses. At a sportswear warehouse, workers sorted through waterlogged boxes of clothing Tuesday morning as they took stock of ruined inventory. Just a few yards uphill on the same street, a worker at a warehouse full of sacks of coffee beans told me that there was some water damage in one part of the building, but as the smell of fresh coffee indicated, most of the stock there was undamaged. Further west, though, in Red Hook, images shared online late Monday night and Tuesday morning indicated that entire streets had been flooded. Approximately 750,000 New Yorkers are without power after a storm that caused the deaths of at least 10 people in New York City and sparked an estimated 23 serious fires throughout the city, according Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
Occupy volunteers will be checking in with people in affected areas and passing that information along to a central database also collecting offers of help. They hope to use Recovers.org to match needs with offers, Wedes said.
"It's hard to tell because it's a very diffuse effort and its not centralized in any way, but on these three sites alone we've got about two dozen volunteers that are fielding phone calls and matching needs and offers," Wedes told me.
Recovers.org was founded last year by another group of disaster survivors. Site cofounder Caitria O'Neill decided there was a need for a web-based platform for disaster recovery after a tornado struck her hometown of Munson, Mass., in June of last year, she told me by phone Tuesday.
"My own house was damaged, we were yellow-tagged and couldn't stay there anymore," O'Neill said. "My sister and I wound up going to the local church, the First Church ... and basically we encountered huge organizing problems. There were people showing up with chainsaws and dropping off extra bags of clothing, and ... nobody knew where to go yet."
O'Neill and her sister took organizing knowledge they learned as volunteers working for Barack Obama's 2008 campaign and applied it to the problems of disaster recovery, she said. Unlike a campaign, which starts with zero interest and zero capacity, recovery starts with high interest but no capacity to capitalize on it, she explained. Immediately after a disaster, good recordkeeping is not necessarily a high priority, but people affected by a storm need a few days to figure out what's damaged and what they need, she explained. In the meantime, potential volunteers lose interest and donations that aren't properly tracked might go to waste. Recovers.org was built to offer communities in need a set of tools to allow them to start tracking needs and resources right away — not to mention keep an inventory that would help in applying for disaster aid down the line, which she said was a little-known but important step for communities to take.
"So what we're trying to do with these tools," she said, "is to create instant capacity."
Recovers.org is a for-profit operation that makes its money by licensing its software to cities and major organizations that are preparing for disasters, she said. The company does not charge people who turn to the platform after disaster strikes. Its financing includes a $340,000 investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as well as grants from MIT, Code for America and Masschallenge, O'Neill said. She says that by operating as a for-profit, the company is not competing for funding that might otherwise go to cities in need.
She also said that the aftermath of Sandy has stretched their capacity, and she was unable to offer the platform for free to any other organizations for want of the money to keep enough infrastructure running to support them.
This effort is not connected with New York City in any way, Wedes said, although volunteers are trying to direct people to city shelters or other city resources as needed. O'Neill says Recovers.org has been used in situations like that before, where networks of churches or other volunteer organizations use it to handle their own bottom-up relief efforts rather than rely on institutions like the Red Cross, which come in, help stabilize a community and then leave.
"Everything recorded in the community," she said, "stays in the community."
Other Ways to Help
NYC Service, a city community service agency, is asking potential volunteers to communicate through their Facebook page as this post is being published — because offers to help are flooding its regular website, the organization announced on Twitter.
The Red Cross is collecting donations for relief efforts. Sandy's footprint stretches as far west as Michigan and north to parts of Vermont and Massachusetts, where, O'Neill from Recovers.org says, several communities have that platform on standby.
New York Cares is working to deploy volunteers to help in the wake of the hurricane and superstorm. In addition to offerint to volunteer, people can donate $10 by texting iCARE to the shortcode 85944.
Occupy Wall Streeters are asking people who are willing to help out to tweet using the hashtag #SandyVolunteer and people who need support to tweet using the hashtag #SandyAid. The Hurricane Hackers group has created a tool that allows volunteers monitoring the #SandyAid hashtag to force a Twitter account to retweet selected requests, which also archives the request for aid. The tool works by joining an IRC chat room where a program has been set to listen for commands to retweet specific tweets, denoted by each message's unique ID number.
(New York, NY, October 24)—Alarmed by the billions of dollars of secret money flooding into the political system to influence voters this election cycle, three high school students sat in at JPMorgan Chase in lower Manhattan on October 24th, demanding full disclosure of the bank’s anonymous political expenditures. The students, who delivered a petition to the bank over three weeks ago articulating their demand, refused to leave the bank’s premises until the requested information was handed over to the public. The bank instead chose to shut down the entire 60 floor building and have them arrested.
“I’m risking arrest today because I’m fed up with the politics as usual,” said Emilie Hirsh, a high school senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School. “The way we finance elections is broken. Both sides are dependent on the donations of corporations and the super-rich, and that means that their preferences take precedent over the needs of ordinary Americans like me, regardless of who ends up in office. I’m prepared to get arrested in hopes of inspiring other frustrated Americans to join me in pushing for change.”
Hirsh and the other students are members of 99Rise, a new anti-corruption movement to get Big Money out of American politics. 99Rise is a grassroots response to the deep dissatisfaction felt by citizens across the political spectrum towards the increasing corruption of American government. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, billionaire and corporate spending on election ads has jumped by 1,139%. With an estimated $9.8 billion set to be spent during this electoral cycle, the 2012 elections will be the most expensive in history. This spending is increasingly bankrolled by anonymous, unaccountable funders who, because of a loophole in the tax code, conceal their political spending by funneling it through so-called “social welfare” organizations that are not required to disclose their donors and that can spend unlimited amounts of money running political ads. Due to the disproportionate political influence of wealthy donors in elections, one in four Americans say they are less likely to vote, and 75% of Americans believe money buys results in Congress.
Today’s sit-in in New York will be followed by a sit-in in Los Angeles tomorrow, when another group of young people will deliver the same petition making the same demand of another Wall Street bank. The Los Angeles protesters will also refuse to leave until their demand is met and will also risk arrest. Eight protestors were arrested on September 28th at Bank of America in Los Angeles in 99Rise’s first petition delivery and sit-in. The movement’s ultimate objective is to win a constitutional amendment banning Big Money from American politics and landmark federal legislation reforming the nation’s campaign finance and lobbying laws.
Five youth were arrested in a similar protest in LA on October 25th. The 5 young arrestees from thee LA action (Ryan Flannagan, Dylan Bruce, Devon Whitham, Jordan Greenslade, and Kai Newkirk) have all been released. The 3 women arrested during Wednesday's NY action have also been released. Show your support by adding your name to the petition they delivered----> http://bit.ly/DarkMoney
Occupy Oakland protesters gather in Frank Ogawa Plaza after a march in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. (Jane Tyska/Oakland Trbune Staff)
Below are two articles and associated pictures showing the Occupy Oakland return to the Frank Ogawa Plaza one year after the raid on the encampment. The Occupied Oakland Tribune has an excellent article on the police attack on Occupy and its meaning, A Year Ago Today Scott Olsen Fell and A Reign of Terror Began.
More than 150 Occupy Oakland activists gathered downtown Thursday to mark the anniversary of the dismantlement of their encampment with chalk drawings, speeches and an evening march, and though anger flared at times they managed to maintain a basic harmony between those calling for peace and those who don't mind violence.
Several, particularly those wearing Black Bloc-style dark clothing and masks, said they would defy police by camping overnight in front of City Hall, but that didn't happen.
City officials had said nobody would be allowed to camp in Frank Ogawa Plaza, the spread of brick, concrete and grass in front of Oakland City Hall.
Scott Olsen, left, marches with Occupy Oakland protesters in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Olsen was injured by a projectile fired by an Oakland police officer during an Occupy protest on Oct. 25, 2011. (Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune Staff)
Vet tries to keep group going
One year ago Thursday, police cleared the Occupy Oakland encampment of about 150 tents in the plaza and a tear-gas-filled riot followed, resulting in injuries and international headlines.
The person most seriously injured in that riot - Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen, who was hit in the head by a projectile beanbag - was in front of City Hall again Thursday, saying he wanted to help keep the Occupy movement going and that he intended to camp out in the plaza.
Plans for Thursday had been colored by a deepening division between two ideologies in the Occupy movement, which has from its beginning been leaderless by design.
On one side are moderates who say they are fed up by window-smashing and other violence that erupted at several protests over the past year. They say they want Occupy's message to go back to its original focus on economic inequities.
On the other side are anarchists who consider police and much of government corrupt and like using a "diversity of tactics," which means they consider violence a viable form of protest.
The moderates outnumbered the extremists throughout the day.
Occupy Oakland demonstrators march past the Alameda County Court House in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Occupy supporters commemorated the first anniversary when OPD raided the Occupy Oakland encampment in the wee hours of the morning of October 25, 2011. (Ray Chavez/Oakland Tribune Staff)
Ron Streitz, 64, of Oakland said the mood at the gathering reminded him of the Occupy movement when it began in early October 2011 and included a wide range of people, from office workers to college students and the homeless. That was before moderate voices were marginalized.
"I think that was the intention - to have a gathering that is true to the spirit of Occupy," Streitz said.
Demonstrators ask a masked man to leave Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza after he made white supremacist comments during the first anniversary of the dismantling of the group's camp. Photo: Mathew Sumner, Special To The Chronicle / SF
About 20 people dressed as Black Blockers and carrying homemade shields said if any violence erupted, it would be the fault of the police.
"I hope the police will let us be peaceful," said one young man wearing a bandanna, standing next to a similarly garbed friend who carried a shield bearing the letters "FTP," meaning "F- the Police." Like most Black Blockers, he would not give his name.
An Occupy Oakland demonstrator records video as Oakland Police officers form a line to prevent protesters from getting to the OPD headquarters at Broadway and 7th in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Occupy supporters commemorated the first anniversary when OPD raided the Occupy Oakland encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza on October 25, 2011. (Ray Chavez/Oakland Tribune Staff)
At 7 p.m., the crowd set off on a two-hour march throughout downtown, stopping briefly at police headquarters at Eighth and Washington streets. There, marcher Dina Cook, 37, of Oakland challenged others to stop shouting angrily at police. She was surrounded by about a half dozen protesters who screamed at her to "Shut up, bitch." Other demonstrators separated them.
"I am trying to represent a peaceful movement, and I'm not scared to tell these people who aren't even from here to stop messing with the cops," Cook said shortly afterward. "They don't represent our group. They're just trying to get on TV."
Man arrested for rocks
At least 200 police remained alongside the crowd throughout the evening as the march ended up back at the plaza, and then dissipated by Friday morning. Although authorities said two men were arrested - one on suspicion of hitting an officer with a rock and another for allegedly obstructing an officer and possessing drugs - there was there were no physical confrontations with police.
Oakland Police officers follow Occupy Oakland demonstrators as they march through the streets of downtown Oakland in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Occupy supporters commemorated the first anniversary when OPD raided the Occupy Oakland encampment in the wee hours of the morning of October 25, 2011. (Ray Chavez/Oakland Tribune Staff)
"We tried to facilitate this march throughout the downtown area," said Assistant Chief Anthony Toribio.
San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Matthai Kuruvila and Carolyn Jones contributed to this report.
Demonstrator Albert Hakimz, left, of Oakland, displays his banners as they get ready for a general assembly at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Occupy supporters commemorate the first anniversary when Oakland police raided the Occupy Oakland encampment in the wee hours of the morning of October 25, 2011. (Ray Chavez/Oakland Tribune Staff)
Hundreds of protesters gathered peacefully Thursday night to mark the anniversary of Occupy Oakland, marching for miles through the city's downtown before reconvening at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza to reminisce over the past year.
Occupy Oakland demonstrators mingle before a general assembly at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Occupy supporters commemorate the first anniversary when Oakland police raided the Occupy Oakland encampment in the wee hours of the morning of October 25, 2011. (Ray Chavez/Oakland Tribune Staff)
Friday morning, there was no sign of the vandalism on downtown streets that accompanied protests a year ago, and merchants who had braced for the worst began removing boards from store windows.
Occupy Oakland demonstrators march past the Alameda County Court House in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Occupy supporters commemorated the first anniversary when OPD raided the Occupy Oakland encampment in the wee hours of the morning of October 25, 2011. (Ray Chavez/Oakland Tribune Staff)
At one point during Thursday's march, protesters faced off against dozens of officers clad in riot gear outside Oakland police headquarters, but the marchers quickly peeled off and headed back to the plaza. Two arrests were made, including one person arrested on suspicion of throwing a rock at officers, but the rally, marking the anniversary of a police raid on the original Occupy encampment at Ogawa Plaza, was otherwise uneventful.
Occupy Oakland supporters march along Broadway in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Supporters gathered to mark the one-year anniversary of the first police raid on the Occupy encampment on the lawn at Frank Ogawa Plaza. (Anda Chu/Oakland Tribune Staff)
Starting at 7 p.m., as many as 200 people snaked their way through downtown Oakland, to Lake Merritt, into Chinatown and then to the police department offices. The march took protesters on a walking tour of the sites of previous clashes between Occupy members and police.
By 9 p.m., marchers were back at the plaza, had a drum circle going and were watching a slideshow projected onto a sheet of photos of past protests. By 11 p.m., the crowd had dwindled to about 30 people, listening to music and milling about the plaza.
Throughout the earlier activity, police kept close tabs on the crowd with four vans of officers never veering far from marchers, with at least 15 officers walking alongside the group.
Police blocked roads so the crowd could pass safely and the march, at points, seemed celebratory, with a marcher broadcasting the score of the Giants World Series game over a loudspeaker.
Occupy Oakland protesters gather for a rally in Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. (Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune Staff)
One person was arrested about 9:10 p.m., with officers alleging that he threw a rock at them during the march. The man, identified 29-year-old Alexander Loutsis of Manteca, was arrested at Ogawa Plaza after an incident officers said occurred about 40 minutes earlier, as marchers were passing the intersection of 8th Street and Broadway. The rock struck an officer in the chest, but he was not hurt, police said. The man was wearing a mask at the time, police said.
Loutsis, who was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, denied throwing the rock. He told police he was a veteran of the U.S. Navy and was attending technical school in Lathrop on the G.I. Bill.
Another arrest was made about 11 p.m., when a man was taken into custody on suspicion of obstructing an officer and possession of a cocaine-based narcotic, police said. His name was not immediately released.
An Occupy Oakland demonstrator carries emergency items as they gather at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Occupy supporters commemorate the first anniversary when Oakland police raided the Occupy Oakland encampment in the wee hours of the morning of October 25, 2011. (Ray Chavez/Oakland Tribune Staff)
The two arrests followed a day of rallies, speeches and a community meal in Frank Ogawa Plaza, with dozens of police and private security guards watching protesters' every move. Oakland police sent out several messages saying violence would not be tolerated during the day's events.
After the protest, Mayor Jean Quan said police acted professionally and helped keep the march peaceful. "I'm pleased that the vast majority of the protesters remained peaceful as well," Quan said. "Tonight shows how far we've all come since last year and how much we've learned as we worked together to improve public safety in general."
Occupy Oakland protesters watch a slide show of last year's protest pictures in Frank Ogawa Plaza after a march in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Occupy protesters held a rally and march to mark the first anniversary of the Oakland Police Department's raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment in Frank Ogawa Plaza on Oct. 25, 2011. The march was peaceful and only one arrest was made. (Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune Staff)
Although the gathering and march were peaceful, anti-police chants were heard loud and clear.
In the crowd was Scott Thomas Olsen, a young veteran who last year was struck in the head with a tear-gas canister during protests following the Oct. 25, 2011, raid on the camp. Olsen was being pushed in a wheelchair stemming from an accident unrelated to his injury last year.
As the events began Thursday afternoon, Samsarah Morgan said she was in the plaza to celebrate the "rebirth" of the Occupy movement, while pointing out that she is not part of the "official" movement. She said her group condemned violence.
"We ask for peace tonight," Morgan said.
Occupy Oakland protesters march back to Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. (Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune Staff)
Earlier this month, a flier was distributed downtown urging people to bring bats to stand up and "defend Oakland." The flier said that people should plan to "beat the (expletive) out of anarchists and vandals" during the anniversary events.
The day, however, was mostly low key.
That was in stark contrast to one year ago when at least 200 police, many in riot gear, tore down an Occupy Oakland encampment of more than 100 tents in front of City Hall and arrested dozens of people. A smaller camp near the lake was also dismantled in the early morning hours of Oct. 25, 2011.
Occupy Oakland protester D.J. Occupy pretends to be arrested by a paper mache pig in Frank Ogawa Plaza after a march in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. (Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune Staff)
Those raids sparked a day of protests that continued into the early morning of Oct. 26, when as many as 1,000 people marched throughout downtown Oakland. The rally quickly turned violent, and police fired bean-bag rounds and tear gas to disperse protesters who sometimes threw bottles and rocks at officers. It was shortly after that Olsen, 24, of Daly City, was struck with the tear-gas canister.
That night, protesters set up a second encampment at Ogawa Plaza, which they named Oscar Grant Plaza, after Oscar Grant who was killed by BART police in 2009. The second camp at Frank Ogawa Plaza grew to several hundred tents before it was again dismantled by police on Nov. 14, 2011.
Since then, groups affiliated with Occupy have staged numerous protests and rallies throughout downtown Oakland, several of which led to broken windows, vandalism and mass arrests.
Occupy supporter Dafina Kuficha called the vandals cowards and blamed them for making people look at Occupy Oakland as a disjointed, violent movement.
"We are standing for positive change," Kuficha said.
By Stanislas Jourdan, Translated by Carol Osborne Global Voices, October 28, 2012
Under the slogan “You are not a loan, you are not alone,” Occupy Wall Street's “Strike Debt” group is aiming to inject life into a resistance movement against debt repayment. The operation is gaining worldwide support, and could very well revive the protest movement which was born a year ago.
Occupy Wall Street demonstrators participating in a street-theater production wear signs around their neck representing their student debt during a protest against the rising national student debt in Union Square, in New York, April 25, 2012. Reuters/Andrew Burton
The basic premise laid out in a joint statement by Occupy Wall Street, Real Democracy Now, the 15-M movement and various organisations asserts a demand for a debt audit by the people, announcing:
"To the financial institutions of the world, we have only one thing to say: we owe you nothing."
Mortgages, medical debts, student loans, credit cards, or even local government debts: making war against any form of illegitimate debt is the new combat for an increasing number of protest movements throughout the world.
There are already several videos online calling for debts to be wiped out:
The movement is already world-wide, but its momentum originates in the United States, where a striking reality cannot be denied: a debt strike is actually already underway there. Nicholas Mirzoeffe writes in his blog:
"- 27 percent of student loans are in default and that number is rising.
"- $1.2 trillion of mortgage debt is underwater (debt exceeds value of property) or about one-third of all properties.
"- 5 million homes have been foreclosed and 5 million more are under threat of foreclosure, meaning that owners are in default or behind on payments. 300,000 people had a foreclosure notification added to their credit report in the first quarter of this year. 27% of mortgages are seriously delinquent–ironically, a slight improvement. 300,000 more people went bankrupt.
"- The average credit card debt per household has fallen from $17, 936 in 2009 to $14,336 now: because of mass default. In 2010, credit card companies had to write off fully 10% of all debt."
These observations are striking. But how does one go from an individual refusal to repay - often without much choice - to a collective rebellion against debt?
That is the object of the Strike Debt operation. On the operation's official site there is even a “Debt Resisters' Operations Manual.” This comprehensive, referenced and argumented 100-pages-long document explains how to negotiate a credit card overdraft, the risks one runs if one do not repay the student loan or the merits or lack thereof of declaring yourself bankrupt. Another section gives advice about how to best manage debts arising from medical care.
In each section, a short history of the evolution of the banking and financial system allows for a better understanding of the perversity of the financial system. It presents, for example, the collaboration between banks and universities:
"A 2006 investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s Office concluded that the business relationship between lenders and university officials amounted to an “unholy alliance.” Lenders paid kickbacks to universities based on the loan volume that financial aid offices steered their way; lenders also gave all-expenses-paid Caribbean vacations to financial aid administrators, and even put them on their payroll."
The Strike Debt operation is aiming in particular to create solidarity between ordinary people, by reminding them that they are not alone faced with their debts:
If you are about to default on a student loan, remember that you are not alone. There are approximately 4 to 5 million other Americans that have already done so.
On November 15, Strike Debt will announce the launch of an operation named “Rolling Jubilee”. The idea is to create a network of mutual help, allowing those who are not indebted to legally buy up the personal debts of those who are collapsing under their repayments.
Rolling Debt Jubilee _ Public domain
The twitter feed @Occupytheory adds:
@Occupytheory: A bailout for the people by the people #undebt #n15
Towards bailing out the people?
However, beyond education and acts of solidarity, several Strike Debt activists have a more general proposal to put forward. They suggest a modern debt jubilee, meaning a massive debt cancellation.
The Australian economist Steve Keen also calls this idea a “quantitative easing for the people,” in reference to the huge support central banks give to private banks through their policy of purchasing assets. He explains his proposal on his site:
"A Modern Jubilee would create fiat money in the same way as with Quantitative Easing, but would direct that money to the bank accounts of the public with the requirement that the first use of this money would be to reduce debt. Debtors whose debt exceeded their injection would have their debt reduced but not eliminated, while at the other extreme, recipients with no debt would receive a cash injection into their deposit accounts."
The anthropologist David Graeber is one of the main sources of inspiration behind the operation. This anarchist, one of the early instigators of Occupy Wall Street, is the author of a key work published in 2011, “Debt: the first 5,000 years,” in which he explores the history of debt, and launches an appeal for a debt jubilee, which was an important custom in antiquity, as he points out in his book.
In the third edition of the review Tidal, edited by the Occupy movement, he argues:
"No doubt, readers will object: “but if you just print trillions of dollars, wouldn’t that cause severe inflation?” Well, yes, in theory, it should. But it seems the theory here is flawed, since that’s exactly what the government is doing: they’ve been printing trillions of dollars, and so far, it hasn’t had any notable inflationary effect.
(…)
"The problem is it didn’t work. Either to get the economy moving, or to increase inflation. First of all, banks did not invest the money. Mainly, they either lent it back to the government again, or deposited it in the Federal Reserve, which paid them a higher interest rate for just keeping it there than they were charging those same banks to borrow it. So in effect, the government has been printing money and giving it to the banks and the banks have just sat on it."
So in the end why not give money directly to the people if we are now giving it to the banks?
Presented in these terms, the idea probably seems less absurd.
In the name of what type of ethics does the debt contract rule?
Going beyond economic justifications, Occupy activists completely reject the moral argument often associated with debt according to which “all debt should be repaid.” On the site The Occupied Times, Michael Richmond writes:
"What kind of morality is this morality of debt that says paying one’s debts is more important than anything else? We are seeing a regression back to Victorian times when debtors were criminalised, jailed and branded with a stigma that couldn’t be erased. And yet, everyone is in some kind of debt because the system is built on it, none more so than the entire financial sector which can only survive on public bailouts."
How long will the strike hold? It's difficult to predict, but it is sure that one year after the birth of Occupy Wall Street, the emergence of a global consensus around the operation is marking the start of a new era for the movement. As Astra Taylor interpreted it on September 5 2012 on the site The Nation:
"Debt, a growing number of organizers believe, has the potential to serve as a kind of connective tissue for the Occupy movement, uniting increasingly dispersed organizing efforts around a common problem (debt) as opposed to a common tactic (occupation)."
In another article on the same site, David Greaber goes as far as to wonder whether debt could trigger a revolution:
Occupy was right to resist the temptation to issue concrete demands. But if I were to frame a demand today, it would be for as broad a cancellation of debt as possible, followed by a mass reduction of working hours - say to a five-hour workday or a guaranteed five-month vacation.
By attacking debt, Occupy is attacking the basis of the system, and no longer only those who benefit from it or even their tools (austerity, bail-outs, central banks). The Occupy movement's change in direction is certainly ambitious, difficult and resolutely more subversive. However for David Greaber, this is not the problem:
If such a suggestion seems outrageous, even inconceivable, it’s just a measure of the degree to which our horizons have shrunk.
By Chris Time Steele The Examiner, October 29, 2012
The Colorado Foreclosure Resistance Coalition and Occupy Denver are helping to prevent Sahara Donahue in Idaho Springs from being evicted from her home of 24 years on Tuesday October 30, 2012. When the Realtor arrived to her house on Wednesday October 24, 2012, a houseful of occupiers stated that they were not going to leave the house. The Realtor explained that he would be coming back with 20 people to evict everyone from the house on October 30th.
A protest is set to take place October 29, 2012, from noon to 2 p.m. at US Bank’s main office (950 17th Street) in Denver. The protest is requesting that US Bank gives Donahue 60 days to leave her house. Following the protest, supporters are planning to go to Donahue’s house in Idaho Springs and occupy the home overnight to prevent her from being evicted on Tuesday. The Clear Creek County Sheriff’s office confirmed on Monday morning that they would be evicting Donahue on Tuesday October 30.
Occupy Denver reported, “We are in communication with local attorneys who have successfully opposed such fraudulent, illegal foreclosure actions by the banks. Community members in Idaho Springs, along with Occupy Denver, plan to petition local law enforcement to have the decency to allow Sahara the chance to move safely from her home as winter sets in.” Compared to 2011, foreclosure fillings have been on the rise in Colorado as with much of the country. KGNU and the Huffington Post have reported that they will be covering the story on site.
Chris Steele is a well-known musician, writer and a specialist on progressive politics. He advocates for truth and public accountability. timespitkicker@aol.com
LAPD officers help the Street Services Department remove a makeshift fence from Javier Hernandez's home on Leadwell Street in Van Nuys on Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. The site has been the headquarters for the Occupy Van Nuys movement when the family began fighting to save the foreclosed property by refusing to leave. (Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer)
Resident Ulises Hernandez speaks with LAPD officers after they helped the Street Services Department remove a makeshift fence from Javier Hernandez's home on Leadwell Street in Van Nuys on Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. The site has been the headquarters for the Occupy Van Nuys movement when the family began fighting to save the foreclosed property by refusing to leave. (Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer)
City officials removed a six-foot-tall wooden fence that surrounded a Van Nuys home Monday morning where members of Occupy San Fernando Valley have been camped out for the last 65 days.
The Los Angeles Police Department assisted workers with the city's Building and Safety department in removing the fence, which was made of wooden pallets and plywood and on public property. The city deemed it a danger to the community, police officials said.
Members of the Occupy group have stayed at the home at 14620 Leadwell Street, dubbed Fort Hernandez, to support the owners who face eviction.
"We've got nothing against the LAPD," said homeowner Javier Hernandez.
"It's the bank. They've called everyone from the health department to child services to get us out."
Javier Hernandez said 11 people live in the 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home he bought in 2006, which was then worth $546,000. | See photo gallery.
Hernandez, who is 31, said he and his family signed a subprime mortgage that included an adjustable rate, meaning the increase was legal. He and his family were paying $3,900 a month under an interest-only loan for two years, but couldn't afford the payment when it increased to $4,500. They have not made a mortgage payment in more than four years.
Hernandez said they were trying to work out a loan modification with Bank of America when the house was sold at auction in August.
Occupy San Fernando Valley is standing by the family.
A Bank of America spokeswoman said earlier this month that Hernandez didn't submit documentation requested during a 2011 modification review, giving the bank no choice but to go through with foreclosure.
Several people who are staying at Hernandez's home worked to clean up and sweep debris left by the bulldozers that came in to remove the fence.
Tents now sit on Hernandez's lawn and a banner strewn across the front of the house reads: "Save our Community."
Some neighbors who live in the area said they've grown weary of what they call scrappy-looking Occupy members walking up and down Leadwell Street. They see some members sleep in old, parked cars.
"I'm tired of all this crap," said one Leadwell Street resident, who has lived in the area since 1968, but who did not wish to give his name. "I don't have any sympathy for them."
LAPD officers leave after helping the Street Services Department remove a makeshift fence from Javier Hernandez's home on Leadwell Street in Van Nuys on Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. The site has been the headquarters for the Occupy Van Nuys movement when the family began fighting to save the foreclosed property by refusing to leave. (Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer)
I suspect people who run the big banks in the U.S. also know Occupy is rght. They know the economy is rigged and corrupt. That is how it always is in times of revolt. Those inside know the system is corrupt and broken. This reality will one factor in leading to its demise. KZ
Andrew Haldane praises ‘loud and persuasive’ protesters who succeeded because ‘they are right’
By Richard Hall
The Independent, October 29, 2012
The Occupy movement received vindication from unlikely source tonight, as a senior executive at the Bank of England credited it with stirring a “reformation of finance”.
In a glowing appraisal of the movement’s achievements, Andrew Haldane, executive director of financial stability, said Occupy protesters had been “both loud and persuasive”, and had attracted public support because “they are right”.
“Some have suggested … that Occupy’s voice has been loud but vague, long on problems, short on solutions. Others have argued that the fault-lines in the global financial system, which chasmed during the crisis, are essentially unaltered, that reform has failed,” Mr Haldane said in a speech tonight.
“I wish to argue that both are wrong – that Occupy’s voice has been both loud and persuasive and that policymakers have listened and are acting in ways which will close those fault-lines. In fact, I want to argue that we are in the early stages of a reformation of finance, a reformation which Occupy has helped stir.”
Speaking at an Occupy Economics event in central London, Mr Haldane said that Occupy had been “successful in its efforts to popularise the problems of the global financial system for one very simple reason: they are right.” He added that protesters who camped out near St Paul’s Catherdal in London and dozens of other cities including New York,“touched a moral nerve in pointing to growing inequities in the allocation of wealth”.
Mr Haldane ended with a direct appeal to activists to continue putting pressure on governments and regulators. He said: “You have put the arguments. You have helped win the debate. And policymakers, like me, will need your continuing support in delivering that radical change.”
Mr Haldane’s comments were welcomed by Occupy activists last night. Ronan McNern, a spokesman for Occupy London Stock Exchange, said: “It’s good to hear more voices like Mr Haldane’s coming through. His comments are definitely welcome. They could have done something about this a lot faster.”
He added: “If this is a beginning, there is a long way to go. Banking reform is only part of the problem. It’s a system-wide issue where certain people are profiting of other people.”
Occupy protesters first descended on the London Stock Exchange on 15 October 2011, in a copy-cat demonstration of other protests around the world that called for action against economic inequality and corporate excess.
After being blocked from entering the main square in which the stock exchange was located, tents were set up in the church yard of St Paul’s – which led to friction between the church and campers.
The camp remained, however, until February of this year, when protesters were evicted by the City of London Corporation – the authority that runs the Square Mile.
In this episode: US anti-police crimes protests.
OWS Week has covered Milwaukee and LA's protests against Police Crimes and talked to the veterans in Washington DC who have been camped outside for weeks to fight for their rights.
Occupy Wall Street and student activists have also been making a stand against a massive expansion plan in New York's Greenwich Village.
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Join us for a panel of family members from the East and West Coasts who have lost loved ones to police brutality, as they tell stories of their struggles for justice and strategize on taking action within our communities, to confront police terror and hold them accountable for brutality and racist murder.
SPEAKERS:
·Ramona Africa, survivor of 1985 bombing of the MOVE movement by Philadelphia police.
·Nicole Paultre Bell, fiancée of Sean Bell, killed the morning of his wedding in Queens on November 25, 2006.
·Adam & Jeralynn Blueford, parents of 18-year-old Alan Blueford, murdered on May 6, 2012 by Oakland police.
·Jack Bryson, father of two sons who were with Oscar Grant when he was murdered on an Oakland, CA, subway platform by police on January 1, 2009.
·Danette Chavis, mother of 19-year old Gregory Chavis, left to bleed to death after being shot by the NYPD on October 9, 2004.
· Natasha Duncan, sister of 23-year old Shantel Davis, killed by NYPD in Brooklyn on June 14, 2012, while she was sitting in a car.
·Frank Graham and Constance Malcolm, parents of Ramarley Graham, killed in his home in the Bronx on February 2, 2012, by the NYPD.
·Damion Ramirez, childhood friend of Michael Nida, murdered by police in Downey, CA, on October 22, 2011.
·Margarita Rosario, mother of Anthony Rosario, murdered by the NYPD in the Bronx along with his cousin Hilton Vega, on January 12, 1995.
·Juanita Young, mother of Malcolm Ferguson, shot point-blank by undercover NYPD in the Bronx, on March 1, 2000.
With a live performance by Rebel Diaz!!
Sunday, October 28, 2012
4-8 PM
The Riverside Church in New York City
Assembly Hall
120th Street & Claremont
Trains: #1 to 116th Street
Hosted by: Campaign to End the New Jim Crow
Sponsored by: Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Free Mumia Coalition-NYC, International Socialist Organization, Justice for Alan Blueford, Justice Committee, October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Oscar Grant Movement, Parents Against Police Brutality, Ramarley’s Call, Students United for Free CUNY Coalition
Occupy Criminal (In)jusice Working grops have been protesting at Wells Fargo for their investment in private prisons. Now, Wells Fargo is rapidly dumping its stock in private prisons.
In a major boost to the efforts to the National Private Prison Divestment Campaign, its partners and allies, new SEC filings reveal that, as of September 30, 2012, Wells Fargo and Company and its subsidiaries divested nearly 75% of its aggregate holdings in the Geo Group, the nation’s second largest private prison company.
According to an SEC filing recently made public, Wells Fargo and Company and its subsidiaries had aggregate holdings of 3,061,851 shares, or 4.98% of Geo Group’s common stock as of September 30, down from the 9,185,823 shares or 19.56% of Geo Group’s common stock reported as in the December 31, 2011 SEC filing of the same required report. (Wells Fargo and Geo Group SEC filings can be found under the SEC tab at http://wfdetentions.wordpress.com/lobbyist/)
According to its current annual report, Geo Group, the nation’s second largest private prison company, depends on the incarceration of immigrants to meet its revenue goals. The company is a major contributor to federal political campaigns and lobbying efforts impacting budgets of the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice.
Enlace Executive Director, Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, congratulated Wells Fargo on its well advised decision to dump the private prison stock and called on the financial industry giant to rid itself of the rest of its private prison holdings and to cease financing private prison companies’ efforts to build, fill and manage immigrant detention centers and other private prisons.
(AP) It’s difficult to argue with the goals of the World Food Prize Foundation to recognize people who have helped improve the quality and availability of food to reduce world hunger.
But as the Des Moines-based foundation prepares for its 2012 award ceremony, which will be attended by dignitaries including Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, dozens of protesters hope to disrupt the activities.
Members of Occupy Des Moines plan civil disobedience efforts and expect to be arrested as they obstruct participants at the World Food Prize headquarters on Wednesday and at the Iowa Capitol on Thursday before the $250,000 prize is awarded to this year’s recipient.
Organizer Frank Cordaro said he expected about 30 people to turn out Wednesday, with 10 willing to be arrested. By Wednesday afternoon, police arrested five activists on trespassing charges after they tried to enter a private event.
The group opposes what it sees as a focus on corporate agriculture motivated more by profit than food safety or protection of natural resources.
“The prize is corporate agriculture’s way of branding themselves in the minds of the American people as the good guys, the people who are feeding the hungry and the best last chance the human race has to meet our basic needs,” said Cordaro, 61, a former Roman Catholic priest who’s been jailed numerous times for acts of civil disobedience to social issues. “The truth is the prize is owned and scripted for corporate agriculture and large corporate entities who want to make a profit first and don’t really care about the planet.”
The protesters say the foundation also supports organizations that promote and sell crops that include genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs. While many scientists say genetic modification has been useful in developing crops resistant to pests, drought and disease, opponents worry it could result in harm to the environment or people.
World Food Prize Foundation President Kenneth Quinn, a retired career diplomat and Foreign Service officer for the U.S. Government, said he’s dealt with a variety of protests in his career, but he’s puzzled that people would object to an organization founded by a man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to fight hunger. Norman Borlaug was honored in 1970 for work that boosted agricultural
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