Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: The 99% Spring is the latest effort by those close to the Democrats to take advantage of Occupy, but the results were less than spectacular.
Occupy’s ‘Shut Down the Corporations’ Action: Success or Failure?
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Shamus Cooke: Occupy has amazing potential in its ability to coordinate actions across a vast country, but the only way to draw in the broader working class is to listen to their issues and fight to achieve their goals. Any other path unnecessarily wastes precious movement fuel.
The Movie, “The Help”
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Sharon Kyle: As demonstrated in 1973, the Academy Awards can be used as a megaphone to reach those who are oblivious to the continued state of segregation and, as a result, racial inequality that persists in the United States.
Occupy Birmingham
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Jim Rhodes: The mainstream press has been critical of Occupy’s “failure” to provide alternative solutions, but I assure you they are being developed in spite of the built in mechanisms that guarantee failure.
Will Occupy Spring Forward or Melt Down?
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Shamus Cooke: Most Occupiers have learned that raw enthusiasm alone cannot bring victory to a social movement; ideas matter too. Action divorced from strategy equals wasted energy, divisiveness, diversions and unnecessary mistakes. Not all tactics push the movement forward.
The Making of an Activist
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Vivan Rothstein: In my first act of civil disobedience, I mixed up all the index card files of clients and contracts so no one could figure out who had received which threatening letter, effectively destroying the company’s system of harassment.
Why #OWS Needs to Denounce Violent Tactics on Display at Occupy Oakland
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Tina Dupuy: Nonviolent struggle has nothing to do with how the cops react. In actual nonviolent movements they welcome police overreaction because it helps the cause they’re fighting for.
Occupy Movement Recharges for 2012
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Randy Shaw: The Occupy movement could greatly benefit from choosing a similar big target that could engage activists across the world.
Join Occupy, Jesse Jackson Tells LA’s Black Community
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Dick Price: Reverend Jesse Jackson urged the black community to get involved with the Occupy Movement, saying, “Whenever the Freedom Train comes to town, get onboard.”
Bull Connor 2.0: The Police Response to #OccupyWallStreet
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David Love: The police response to the Occupy Movement flies in the face of the reputed tenets of American constitutional democracy, and contravenes the precepts of international human rights law.
LA’s Offer to Its Occupiers
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Paulina Gonzalez: What if Occupy locked arms with community groups and announced its refusal to move unless the city extends and agrees to enforce the moratorium on the eviction of tenants in bank-controlled foreclosed properties?
Two Ways to Destroy “Occupy Wall Street”
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Bruce Reilly: The classic method of the powerful to distract the masses is to get them to fight amongst themselves. The easiest one is via racism, and the other is class warfare pitting the Middle Class vs. Lower Class.
Occupy Movement at the Crossroads
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Randy Shaw: Successful movements must be flexible enough to change tactics in the face of roadblocks, and activists’ camping in public spaces is not strategically necessary for the Occupy movement’s success.
From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy the Neighborhoods
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Paul Loeb: Nothing stops the Occupiers and their supporters from can raising their key issues as clearly and powerfully as possible, while reminding people that showing up at the polls still matters.
Shutting Cities Down: Now and Then
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Lee Fang: The American political and economic system is falling apart. No matter who wins an election, in many cases, the outcomes are the same: well-heeled corporate interests dictate policy.
The Troops and Occupy Wall Street
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Tina Dupuy: Meet the new face of Occupy Wall Street: Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine and Iraq War vet who was shot in the head with a “non-lethal round” during a raid on Occupy Oakland last week.
King Memorial: Now More than a Scar on the Nation’s Conscience
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Anthony Samad: King meant different things to different people, but one thing is for sure…America, black and white, had not gotten over King’s death – not if you have any sort of a conscience.
Occupy Movement Must Resist Pressure for Specific Demands
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Randy Shaw: You know that Occupy Wall Street and its local, national and international progeny have reached a level of success when everyone is offering advice. Unfortunately, the most commonly offered view – that activists must get specific about their demands – is entirely wrong.
Civil Disobedience as a Strategy for the Occupy Movement
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Tom Hayden: If there’s enough people and they all sit down and say “We want to appeal to a jury of our peers, which is our Constitutional right,” that’s something that should make the decision makers take pause because I don’t think juries are going to convict these people.
Why Nonviolent Resistance Beats Armed Struggles for Regime Change
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Randy Shaw: But as much as the Left has romanticized Castro’s armed overthrow of the Bautista regime, and Ho Chi Minh’s military defeat of the United States to unite Vietnam, in most cases violence is less likely to achieve revolutionary change than nonviolent strategies.
What History Can Teach the Occupy Forces
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Tomiko Brown-Nagin: History shows that American political activism has never been limited to the form that it conventionally takes today—electoral politics. Citizens have historically employed an array of tools to influence public policy
Victory! Transforming Occupy Wall Street From a Moment to a Movement
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Peter Dreier: If the Occupy Wall Street activists join forces with the unions and community groups, they could catalyze a massive nationwide movement to resist foreclosures and block evictions.
MLK Would Oppose Today’s Wars
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William Loren Katz: Would Dr. King have called for withdrawal from Vietnam and, had he lived, not called for a withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan? Would he have failed to see parallels that are as obvious as they are frightening?
China Needs Martin Luther King
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David Love: As America awaits the August 28 opening of the King National Memorial in Washington, D.C., this is a perfect time to reflect on the leader’s accomplishments, legacy, and commitment to justice, equality and nonviolent social change.
How the Netroots Evolved
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Paul Hogarth: Everyone from Howard Dean to Van Jones had the same message – that this political movement cannot be reliant on a charismatic leader, but instead on a charismatic network of activists.
Netroots at Crossroads in Minneapolis This Weekend
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Paul Hogarth: I look forward to this Conference as a way of re-engaging in the national struggle, and harnessing the energy everyone with a Wi-Fi connection can take to fight for progressive change.
The Attack on Community Organizing: Who’s Next?
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Randy Shaw: Instead of Obama’s election proving the type of launching point that conservative groups experienced after Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election, community organizing opportunities are less available today than in past decades.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Municipal Workers
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Joseph Palermo: I cannot believe that in the 21st Century we are having this kind of a debate on the role of labor unions in this country. But I suppose it isn’t surprising since we have a new Gilded Age going on.
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