Shamus Cooke: For Occupy to grow into a democratic revolutionary movement, the working majority of the population must join in, requiring that Occupy broadcast a message based on concrete working-class demands.
Activist Kwazi Nkrumah Arrested at Long Beach Port (updated)
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Sharon Kyle: Kwazi Nkrumah, a long-time civil rights activist, has been arrested in Long Beach where the Occupy Movement was gathering as part of “Occupy the Ports”, a coordinated West Coast port shutdown.
Occupy: You Can’t Evict an Idea
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Ruth Rosen: Any successful movement must change the national conversation and create and dominate the terms of debate. This the Occupy movement has successfully done, for now.
An Open Letter to Supporters of Occupy Wall Street
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David Kristjanson-Gural: I am asking you to continue to lend your support to the Occupy gatherings. Just show up as you are able, on top of everything else you are doing, to lend your encouragement and support to others and, in turn, to gather strength of purpose.
Occupy LA: A Salt Lick for Bullies
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Stephen Box: The bullies embedded within the LAPD found freedom to exercise their demons, to act on the rage they felt when they were denied the opportunity to unleash their skills on a violent enemy.
What Ron Paul, Occupy Wall Street, Lech Walesa, Tahrir Square, Tiananmen Square and Many Tea Partiers Have in Common
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Brent Budowsky: One reason Ron Paul has been on an upward and steady curve is that he speaks, with integrity and honor, for one segment (though far from all) of this unrest in an age of protest and demand for change.
Occupy Our Homes: The Next Stage
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Peter Dreier: Perhaps because so many Occupiers have recently been evicted from their encampments in cities across the country, they have found common cause with the growing number of American families facing foreclosure.
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.
Will Occupy Fade Away?
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Mark Naison: If the Occupy movement’s showed us, in words and deeds, “This Is What Democracy Looks Like” those attacking the Occupations showed the world, albeit unintentionally “This Is What a Police State Looks Like.”
Occupy LA Backed Corporate Personhood Resolution as Eviction Loomed
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Michael R. Evans: On the night that Occupy Los Angeles protesters were given as a deadline to begin vacating the land around City Hall, their general assembly unanimously passed a resolution to end corporate personhood through constitutional amendment
A Letter to the Editor of the LA Times
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The following letter was written to the LA Times in response to their December 3, 2011 article, “Postscript: Digging into the Occupy L.A. ‘mess‘.” The writer, Scott Peer, also sent a copy to the LA Progressive. We are posting it with his permission: It’s not a huge surprise that The LA Times continues to slant [...]
Thoughts That Occupy My Mind
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William Blum: Those young people, and the old ones as well, keep surprising me, with their dedication and energy, their camaraderie and courage, their optimism and innovation, their non-violence and their keen awareness of the danger of being co-opted their focusing on the economic institutions more than on the politicians or political parties.
Detained LA Occupy Protesters Punished Out of Sight
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Yasha Levine: The police attack on Occupy LA was much more violent than reported, with most of the abuse happening while the protesters were in police custody, completely outside the range of the media.
Occupy LA: The Death of Mainstream Media
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Stephen Box: As the LAPD shed its hard core reputation and as the Occupy LA movement held to its nonviolent principles, it was the media who caved in and who were left behind as casualties on the battlefield.
Blacks and Occupy: Dividing the Occupy Movement
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Carl Bloice: Occupy activists are thinking deeply about how we might incorporate opposition to racism, class exploitation, homophobia, xenophobia, ableism, violence done to the environment and transphobia into the resistance of the 99%.
Occupy Movement’s New Threat: Media Election Coverage
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Randy Shaw: The voters 2012 have heard it all before. Only Occupy offers something new, which is why its agenda of inequality and democracy for the 99% could become the key election issues next year.
Tech Tip: Occupy Sim-City
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Robert Link: As we think about the difference, say, between Irvine and Davis, both in California, it is natural to wonder if we really know enough about the different cities to understand why things unfold one way at one place but so differently at another.
I Am the Spokesperson for #OWS: These Are Our Demands
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David Kristjanson-Gural: The general assemblies of New York, Oakland, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas and 350 communities across the United States have appointed me spokesperson for the Occupy Wall St. movement. I am hereby empowered to submit the following demands.
Friday Feedback: “Occupy” Occupies Burlingame
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Friday Feedback: The Democratic Party, like the Republican Party receives THE MAJORITY of its funding from corporate sources. Democrats have supported the insane wars and the THREE NEW NAFTAs.
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.
Why We Must Occupy Democracy
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Robert Reich: The First Amendment is being stood on its head. Money speaks, and an unlimited amount of it can now be spent bribing and cajoling politicians. Yet peaceful assembly is viewed as a public nuisance and removed by force.
Obama Continues Alienating Onetime Core Supporters
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Randy Shaw: I expect many Occupy supporters to spend time from Labor Day to Election Day in 2012 on statewide initiatives seeking to raise taxes on the 1% in order to fund schools and other vital needs.
Occupy the Bill of Rights
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Stephen Box: The students who witnessed the pepper spray assault began to chant “Shame on you!” while maintaining their distance.
“Occupy” Occupies California’s Democratic Party
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Dick Price: If a meeting this past weekend between representatives from a half dozen Occupy encampments in California and perhaps 200 members of the California Progressive Caucus is any guide, the Occupy Movement has already tapped into older generations of progressive activists who are eager to support, leverage, and amplify the Occupyers’ ground-breaking work.
How to Support the Occupations
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Mark Naison: If you part of a large and growing number of Americans who support the Occupy movement, but may or may not be able to “Occupy” yourself, you might want to form a 99 Percent Club at your school, your workplace or in your neighborhood.
Occupy LA: Time to Get Off the Lawn?
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Stephen Box: It’s time that we stop looking to the tents at City Hall Park and instead look inside City Hall and ask the Mayor and the City Council the tough questions, “Where is the leadership and what is the plan?”
What Occupy Wall Street Has Accomplished in Two Short Months
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Mark Naison: While Occupy Wall Street and its spinoffs around the nation have certainly not developed “leaders” who articulate its goals to the media or negotiate with public officials, it has already registered a formidable list of accomplishments for a movement this young.
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Labor Must Choose Between Occupy and the Democrats
Shamus Cooke: The labor movement has a foot in both worlds; one in step with the Occupy Movement and the other with the Democrats, who are working to crush Occupy outright.