Check out this link for info about the Occupy Oakland effort

http://www.occupyoakland.org/strike/

Via http://www.organizingupgrade.com/2011/10/leblanc-interview-about-occupy/

October 11, 20111

Erica Smiley, new contributing editor wth Organizing Upgrade, interviewed Judith LeBlanc, Peace Action Field Director, to get her opinion on how labor and other mass organizations should strategically relate to Occupy Wall Street. Peace Action is the largest grassroots peace organization in the US. Judith is currently helping to coordinate the activities of the New Priorities Network, a newly organized national network of community, labor, faith and peace groups who are working to reduce military spending to fund human needs programs. She is a member of the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma.

Given your existing efforts to make Wall Street pay, how do you think the Occupy Wall Street developments open the door on sharper demands or more focused strategy, if it does at all?

At the October 5 labor demonstration on Wall Street, a labor leader said , “We have found each other.” A new kind of 21st century solidarity is being born. It began in Tahrir Square, spread to WI and Ohio and continues now on Wall Street and in over 900 cities and towns. The era of single issue organizing is beginning to end. The occupations are drawing movements together in solidarity that are not always willing to stand together without a lot of negotiations and pre-planning.
Although the search for strategic allies has always been a part of an effective organizing strategy, what is new is that we must connect with spontaneous actions. We have to be able to meld what we have been organizing to the spontaneous rejection of the status quo and strengthen our organizing with solidarity. Solidarity is as old as dirt. But lifting up and supporting the spontaneous actions by others not a part of the movement we, as organizers have been building, is not.
It is a recognition that we cannot win without responding to new movements, especially when those actions are pointing to the systemic nature of the crisis problems we face.

There has been a lot of commentary either critiquing or defending Occupy Wall Street, when what we really need are thoughts on strategy. It is clear that this is a movement moment. Based on that understanding, how should mass organizations relate to Occupy Wall Street?

It’s an “ah-ha” movement moment or a “magic” movement moment not of our own making. For some of us and our movements, it may have come as a total surprise that people were ready to take direct action against the “the system” in a way that leaps beyond what we have organized so far. That is the new kind of solidarity we have to step up to organize, “finding each other”, going beyond our organizing single-issue silos.

We must find every possible way to support Occupy Wall Street. For those of us who work with the movements that have a history of an organizing culture and struggle, we need to utilize the infrastructure of our movements to mobilize and popularize the significance of the occupations.

We have to encourage our movements to participate in the grand, widespread debate about the significance of the occupations. We need to affirm that together we, the people, can find a way out of the crisis we are in.

We need to find political ways to support the indignation that is at the heart of the occupations. It means helping our movements to be represented and it also means looking further down the road to build the political power that comes from challenging “the system.”

Every time the labor movement joins in solidarity and speaks out in defense of the occupations it ups the ante in the ongoing political struggles because it links labor’s organizing to the outrage against “the system.” When the peace movement stands with the occupations it links the militarization of the federal budget to the anger against “the system.” Unless we have the long view and understand that linking our ongoing organizing to the peaceful, spontaneous outrage the occupations symbolize, we will miss the opportunity to strengthen the grassroots, rank and file understanding of what we are really up against.

How should mass organizations maximize the current political opportunity to make some clear gains in their existing fights to make Wall Street pay, whether through divestment, taxes, demilitarize the economy or other means?

Peace Action is working with others to build the New Priorities Network (NPN), which bringing together racial and economic justice groups, peace and faith and labor to change federal spending priorities. It’s abundantly clear that 58% of yearly federal discretionary spending going to the Pentagon war reflects wrong priorities.

What Occupy Wall Street highlights is that there needs to be strategic relationships between racial and economic justice groups, labor and the peace movement. The solutions are clear, and in the minds of many, the causes of the economic crisis are as well. Poll after poll shows that people believe that the tax cuts for the rich and the corporations and the costs of the wars have driven up the budget deficit. And they are right.

It is not a deficit crisis, it is a revenue crisis. The money has been going to the wrong people and places. Look at the Congressional Super Committee; they are working on over 1 trillion dollars in federal budget cuts. The fact is all they need to do to deal with the budget deficit is end the wars and begin to cut the 58% of discretionary spending that goes to the Pentagon, a budget that has doubled in the last 10 years while only 2% of spending goes to education, 3% to transportation…single-digits to basic needs. So NPN is developing strategic relationships to build a long-term movement. It’s taken years for the military industrial complex to get control of 58% federal discretionary budget. So we need a long-term movement to loosen its grip on it.

The Wall Street occupation is a shot of adrenaline which will energize this strategic alliance/relationship building—building the confidence at the grassroots and at the national level. We’re talking about taking on Wall Street, the banks, this huge military industry that has for decades controlled political decision-making and spending. It re-invigorates the political struggle—stirring up this huge public debate in communities and in the movement about society wide solutions, not simply what the problems are.

We have to ride this wave into the 2012 elections and leverage a highly politicized and educated electorate in defeating the rightwing agenda. We have to organize it into a political movement that “occupies” the ballot box on Election Day. Occupy Wall Street, planned or not, is providing the popular education that can help organize a very politicized electorate to defeat the Right in the elections.

Now, we have a “which side are you on” scenario—including among local electeds like in LA and NYC where city council-members who are taking a stand in support of Occupy Wall Street. We need more of that—local electeds weighing in on national issues and the decisions made on the national level. The occupations are a social movement, not a political movement. Our job is to provide a bridge to take what this social movement has stirred up into the political arena.

We have to continue supporting the occupations, the debates happening in the public arena, but we also have to play our own role as organized movements. We have to play the larger political role to drive home the issues/demands that are compelling people to occupy downtown locations all around the country. Our role, the role of the organized movements, is to amplify the politics of the moment.

Are there any flags that we should be aware of in engaging Occupy Wall Street moving forward?

This is a social movement that has been in the making for some time now—people who are concerned about the environment, who reject the status quo, the 99% who understand that the system is not working for them. It is a rebellion against a system that is dysfunctional and broken. The energetic support that the organized movements are giving is essential. But it would be a mistake to try to replace the role that organized labor and the economic and racial justice movements has played over the years, with the tactic of the Wall Street occupation.

Nonviolent direct action is one tool we have, and we have many others. They’re all important in the fight for justice. We should join the Occupy Wall Street movement because it puts “wind in our sails” as we continue to organize for jobs, prevent cuts to the social safety net and compel Congress to cut military spending and end the wars. But we still have to do the work in compelling Congressional action, preparing for the 2012 elections. We should be in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, but we can’t stop doing what we’ve been doing to defend our communities or in the political arena.

Do you have anything else you want to add?

In Seattle during the WTO in 1999, we had labor and environmentalists and anti-war and land movement , all the justice movements marching together. And there was the beginning of a grassroots movement to change the culture, the politics of global capitalism. Then 9/11 happened and derailed the movement and all that unity. The movements were fractured and people were afraid to protest. Protesting was unpatriotic to some. Under the Bush Administration the anti-war movement galvanized the movements for peace AND justice, and the unity we had then has come around full-circle. The movements are stronger now because we are in a worse mess. Now, the majority of people in the country understand that the rich and corporations should pay their fair share, and we need to bring the tax dollars home from the wars and reduce military spending.

We have to build a ” Move-the-Money” movement that is as social as it is political, and Occupy Wall Street is reminding us that the social aspect of political organizing is critical. It’s about modeling new behavior and developing new relationships with the people who are suffering from the problems of “ the system.” They’re trying to create a society in a microcosm. Given this, the organized movements have to wage a fight to change the political system in the macro. We need a solidarity economy that works for the people not the banks, corporations and the rich. Power to the peaceful!

By Haiki Khoo

China.org.cn, Oct. 18, 2011

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2011-10/18/content_23657378.htm

The international occupation of squares will define the history of 2011. First those that burst out in the Arab Spring to bring down long-standing dictatorships and then those that developed in Spain and the United States, which touched off a wave of sympathy protests around the world.

The protests in the United States have finally given voice to the generalized discontent against corporate and banking excess. They have exposed the embedded relationship between economic and political power; long-established connections within the state and civil society, that bind layer upon layer of power and exploitation together. Now that the economic reproduction of the system has broken down, these relations are revealed as systemic corruption and nepotism, all concealed beneath a thin veneer of democratic procedures.

The brutality of the free market is accepted when significant layers of the working class feel that their interests are at one with those of their superiors. These circumstances of organic reproduction of the capitalist social system are rooted in economic development and improving opportunities and conditions. The American Dream required many small examples of “pauper to president” style advancement, to anchor itself in popular consciousness and become a material force.

The American Dream, like all dreams, according to Sigmund Freud, was a symbolic representation of unresolved conflicts. Conflicts caused by unspoken experiences and traumas, and which expose the sham illusion of the unity of all classes in the nation. Moments of exorcism of such ghosts are always traumatic and explosive, as one form of dream disappears and anger about this loss of innocence finds expression.

The questions asked lead to dark places. The disfigurement of more than 30,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, the death of more than 4,000 was this all simply serving the interests and agenda of the rich and powerful and not those of the people? Were any wars in the 20th century serving the people? Were the banks and major corporations once upon a time serving the people? Or were they always profit-seeking exploiters manipulating the masses, using the theater of democratic procedure as a cover?

The U.S. protests gain their vitality from the lack of an encrusted labor bureaucracy. In Europe, for over a hundred years, social democratic reform acted as a buffer to capture the anger of the working classes and channel it into reformist demands for welfare rights and democratic improvements within capitalism. But such demands were muted in the U.S. political mainstream because of, firstly, its imperial ascendancy and virulent anti-communism after World War II, and secondly, its capacity to develop the economy at a rate capable of absorbing internal discontent.

The epoch of U.S. global economic dominance appears to be coming to an end, its internal balance of class forces is unstable and being questioned. Pressure to provide reforms for the masses instead of bailouts for the super rich will become overwhelming. This in turn will shatter the political balance of power, thrusting the working classes and the poor into a decisive position within U.S. politics. The idea of a mass party of the working class if scattered in the winds from the occupation movement will certainly fall on fertile ground.

In Europe, the reformists are embedded to capitalist power relations and so offer no proposals and make no attempt to capitalize on the crisis. Instead of standing at the head of social unrest, they tail-end it waiting for their chance to show their loyalty to the existing order by condemning violence and calling for dialogue. A radical rebirth of the workers’ movement is likely to spring forth over the many months and years of bitter struggle that lie ahead.

It appears that the tide of public opinion in the West is shifting inexorably against the existing structure of wealth and power.
A world in which a few hundred billionaires own more personal wealth than half the population of the world is no longer considered tolerable. As waves of social discontent bring ever-larger layers of the working classes and the middle classes into activity, the central demands for economic transformation will come to focus on public ownership and democratic control of the banks and the commanding heights of the economy.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm

Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2011-10-04/article/38526?headline=Official-Statement-from-Occupy-Wall-Street–Forwarded-by-Estelle-Jelinek

Forwarded by Estelle Jelinek

This statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square: Declaration of the
Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together.
We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/UWvmo0m6gqNZ/info/

Words; Mark Ross, Bruce Murdoch & Etan Ben-Ami
Music; Traditional

There’s a place in New York City
Where the money goes around
For the 99ers in the street
None of that will trickle down

Chorus;Which side are you on? (2X)

We came here for liberty
To change a damned disgrace
Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge
Got night sticks in our face

The politicos and the bankers
Are having too much fun
We’re out here on the street today
To put them on the run

Oh, people can you stand it,
Tell me if you can
Will we fight here on the street
Or beg with cap in hand?

Tell them up in Washington
Let them hear it ‘cross the land
We’ve been too long divided
United we’ll make our stand

It’s called the New York Stock Exchange
They all work out of sight
Money goes from their left hand
Directly to their right

We send our deepest thanks to you
We know you will not fall
They cops could take us one by one
But they sure can’t take us all

You say you love this country,
I hope to God that’s true,
But do you think those politicians,
Give a damn about you.

Come all you brave New Yorkers,
I’ve a truth that I must tell,
If you don’t fight for this country,
You’ll watch it go to hell.

Havana, Monday, July 18, 2011. Year 15 / Number 199

MANUEL E. YEPE

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs3223.html
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Greece, cradle of slavery democracy, seems fated to be among the countries digging the upcoming grave of capitalist democracy.

“To understand what the future has in store for the people of Greece, you need to imagine an intruder breaking into your home, pointing a gun at your head and demanding you give him your salary, your savings, your car, your TV set and your refrigerator.”

That’s how US writer and journalist Zoltan Zigedy sees the situation in his web site ZZ’s Blog where, under the title Capitalism Mugs Greece. Who is Next?, he explains that the Greek people did not benefit at all from the orgiastic profits of international banking nor did it promote its irresponsible behavior, but now it is forced to pay the price for the damage which caused the collapse of the global capitalist system.

“And if invasion, armed robbery and extortion are crimes, Greece is undoubtedly a crime victim. And the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are the criminals with the PASOK leaders and parliamentarians who attempt to legitimize the crime”.

The recovery-from-recession prescription — presented by capitalist economists as a universal law – stemmed from the concept that deficit and debt-promoting expenses stimulated growth and inflation which, in turn, increased tax incomes and made the debt cheaper allowing the reduction of public debt vis-a-vis the economic product.

Today, according to Zigedy, two factors have changed this dynamic. Firstly, the almost total domination of the neoliberal ideology which has generated in public opinion a great fear of any degree of public debt.

Secondly, for decades, changes in the global economy led to a new dynamic that manipulates and exploits the debt to limits never seen before. With many of the rich capitalist countries moving their manufacturing industries to low-salary areas, the financial activities – administration, manipulation and expansion of capital – took on a main role in these economies.

New techniques, instruments and institutions evolved toward the accumulation of surplus value – profits – in the hands of only a few engaged in the financial game.

The combination of these two elements –one subjective and the other objective – has placed Greece in a spiral of death. With a swiftly rising unemployment rate already over 16%, with taxes that cannot be collected, reduced salaries and benefits, with a growing number of homeless families and their social services slashed, Greek workers face a future of serious decadence.

The Greek people know little of the exotic instruments created in the international financial centers to generate the massive amounts of ghost capital that stimulates the growth of the predator system; they are only indirectly familiar with the arrogant and irresponsible actions of gargantuan international banks such as Bear Stearns, Lehmann Brothers and Goldman Sachs.

Zoltan Zigedy recommends that his fellow countrymen notice the similarities between this assault on the Greek people and the situation facing the US citizenry. “We should be inspired by the popular resistance in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states, and understand that we have a very difficult struggle ahead, without being seduced in this struggle by such false political allies as the Democratic Party, the US homologue of the Greek PASOK.”

Certainly for humankind the collapse of the global capitalist system will not be an easy matter, because there is no doubt it will do everything possible to delay its own debacle and will lay upon the rest of the world, including its allies, the associated damages.

La Habana, lunes 18 de julio de 2011. Año 15 / Número 199

Grecia víctima del capitalismo

MANUEL E. YEPE

Grecia, cuna de la democracia esclavista, parece encaminada a estar entre los países llamados a excavar la ya próxima sepultura de la democracia capitalista.

La plaza Syntagma, de Atenas, fue escenario de las protestas del pueblo contra las medidas estrangulatorias impuestas por la Unión Europea y el FMI.

“Para comprender lo que el futuro depara al pueblo de Grecia, usted debe imaginar que un intruso llega a su casa, le apunta a la cabeza con un arma y le exige que le entregue su salario, sus ahorros, su auto, su televisor y su refrigerador”.

Así ve la situación el escritor y periodista estadounidense Zoltan Zigedy en su sitio web ZZ¢ s Blog donde, bajo el título Capitalism Mugs Greece. Who is Next?, explica que el pueblo griego no se benefició para nada con las orgíacas ganancias de la banca internacional, ni estimuló su irresponsable conducta y, sin embargo, ahora se le fuerza a pagar el precio de los daños causantes del colapso del sistema capitalista mundial.

“Y si la invasión, el robo armado y la extorsión son crímenes, Grecia es sin dudas la víctima de un crimen. Y la Unión Europea, el Banco Central Europeo y el Fondo Monetario Internacional son los criminales¼ con los líderes y parlamentarios del PASOK tratando legitimar el crimen”.

Alimentado por una fuerte inyección de fondos públicos, el sector financiero del mundo capitalista desarrollado, que no fue condenado ni castigado por sus acciones conducentes al desastre que se pretendía reparar, retornó con fuerza a la especulación y, ahora, ataca las deudas soberanas de países como Grecia, Irlanda, Portugal y España, los más vulnerables en Europa, forzándoles a la conversión de la deuda privada en deuda pública.

Con pocas excepciones, estos países se vieron obligados a contraer mayores deudas para estimular el crecimiento económico ante la severa caída de la inversión y la demanda general, a nivel global. Las economías capitalistas quedaron sin otra opción que no sea la de seguir hundiéndose.

La fórmula para la recuperación en casos de recesión —que los economistas capitalistas presentaban como ley universal— partía de que el déficit y los gastos generadores de deudas promovían el crecimiento y la inflación que, a su vez, incrementaban los ingresos impositivos y abarataban la deuda permitiendo que la deuda pública se redujera con respecto al producto económico.

Hoy, según Zigedy, dos factores han cambiado esta dinámica. Primero, la dominación casi total de la ideología neoliberal ha ido conformando en la opinión un gran temor a cualquier grado de deuda pública.

En segundo lugar, por décadas, los cambios en la economía global llevaron a una nueva dinámica que manipula y explota la deuda hasta límites nunca antes vistos. Con muchos de los países capitalistas ricos trasladando sus industrias manufactureras a áreas de bajos salarios, las actividades financieras —administración, manipulación y expansión del capital— asumieron un mayor papel en estas economías.

Nuevas técnicas, instrumentos e instituciones evolucionaron hacia la acumulación de valor excedente —ganancias— en manos de unos pocos comprometidos con el juego financiero.

La combinación de estos dos elementos —uno subjetivo y otro objetivo— ha situado a Grecia en una espiral de la muerte. Con un desempleo en acelerado incremento que ya sobrepasa el 16 %, los impuestos que no se cobran, salarios y beneficios recortados, un número creciente de familias sin vivienda y con sus servicios sociales cercenados, los trabajadores griegos encaran un futuro de grave decadencia.

El pueblo griego conoce poco de los exóticos instrumentos urdidos en los centros financieros internacionales para generar las masivas cantidades de capital fantasma que avivan el crecimiento del rapaz sistema y solo indirectamente están familiarizados con las arrogantes e irresponsables acciones de gigantescos bancos internacionales como Bear Stearns, Lehmann Brothers y Goldman Sachs.

Zoltan Zigedy recomienda a sus compatriotas que vean la similitud que tiene el asalto al pueblo griego con la situación que enfrenta la ciudadanía en Estados Unidos. “Debía inspirarnos la resistencia popular en Wisconsin, Ohio y otros estados y reconocer que lo que tenemos por delante es una lucha difícil, muy difícil, sin dejarnos seducir en esta lucha por falsos aliados políticos como el partido demócrata, homólogo en Estados Unidos del PASOK griego”.

Es indudable que para la humanidad toda el colapso del sistema capitalista mundial no será nada fácil, porque nadie duda que hará todo lo posible por retardar la debacle propia descargando sobre el resto del mundo, sus aliados inclusive, los perjuicios coyunturales.

http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2011/07/18/interna/artic01.html