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Essay on the librarians in the Occupy movement | Inside Higher Ed

3 Nov

Steven Syrek, a graduate student in English at Rutgers University, has been working at the OWS library since about the third week of the demonstration. “People talk about this movement like it’s a ragtag bunch of hippies,” he told me when we spoke by phone, “but the work we do is extremely well-organized.” The central commitment, Syrek says, is to create “a genuine clearinghouse for books and information.” Volunteers have adopted a slogan summing up what the library brings to the movement: “Literacy, Legitimacy, and Moral Authority.” . . .

As with the “book bloc” that formed during protests against education cuts in Italy and elsewhere some month back, the occupation libraries seem like a new development. …

But the libraries at the anti-Wall Street protests are not quite as novel as they first appear. They have a tradition going back the better part of two centuries. In a recent article, Matthew Battles, the author of Libraries: An Unquiet History (Norton, 2004), noted the similarity to the reading rooms that served the egalitarian Chartist movement in Britain.

via Essay on the librarians in the Occupy movement | Inside Higher Ed.

For discussion, go here:

Guerrilla Librarians

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My soggy, frustrating, inspiring week Occupying Wall Street – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com

3 Nov

Livin’ the Occupation, paying your dues, a new rite of passage? Instead of touring The Continent, like the rich did back in the day, you go ‘on occupation’ for a few months when you get out of school.

. . . This last group includes a lot of slightly crazy, slightly sketchy, slightly “I hope he doesn’t stab me in the neck when I’m sleeping” people in camp who, seeking a free meal and a place to stay, have little to no interest in the movement. It was these sorts of occupiers — the wackos, the drunks — who were treated like celebrities on the red carpet by the media.

On the other hand, regular everyday visitors would go out of their way to engage with occupiers who came for idealistic reasons. Even though I’d merely be sitting on my pack, several passersby would thank me for “doing what you’re doing.” One middle-aged male offered me ponchos, scarves and gloves, telling me, “This should have happened years ago. Thank you so much for believing.” I overheard a well-to-do lady lean over to her friend and say, “They need to storm the White House. They need to storm the Capitol. Seriously.”

Late one night, in conversation

A girl with dreads chimed in, noting how incredible it was that the General Assembly just sent 100 tents and $20,000 of our raised money to the injured and incarcerated occupiers from Oakland (who’d just been violently evicted from their encampment), before going on a thrilling march up Broadway as a symbol of solidarity with people we’d never met, 3,000 miles away.

In this little circle, three ethnicities, two genders and two generations were represented. These occupiers didn’t fit Derrick’s depiction of the movement: They were neither slackers nor stoners, neither shiftless hipsters nor food-stamped freeloaders. They were smart, informed, articulate and passionate.

via My soggy, frustrating, inspiring week Occupying Wall Street – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.

Why the protesters are going to win | the new economics foundation

2 Nov

… there is something else even more important. It is the potent idea that the protesters represent the 99%.

This is what has changed, and it is a political shift as important as anything over the past generation or more.

We have been brought up to believe that the right represents the middle classes and the left represents the working classes. It is now clear that neither right nor left in conventional politics represent the interests of either. . . .

Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair rose to power with the support of the middle classes. But the middle classes in the UK, while they may not support the protests, are no longer prepared to put up with the financial status quo.

via David Boyle – Why the protesters are going to win | the new economics foundation.

Vatican Calls for Global Oversight of the Economy – NYTimes.com

2 Nov

The Vatican called on Monday for an overhaul of the world’s financial systems, and again proposed establishment of a supranational authority to oversee the global economy, calling it necessary to bring more democratic and ethical principles to a marketplace run amok.

In a report issued by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Vatican argued that “politics — which is responsible for the common good” must be given primacy over the economy and finance, and that existing institutions like the International Monetary Fund had not been responding adequately to global economic problems. . . .

The language in the document, which the Vatican refers to as a note, is distinctively strong. “We should not be afraid to propose new ideas, even if they might destabilize pre-existing balances of power that prevail over the weakest,” the document states.

The message prompted comparisons with the rallying cries of protest movements that have been challenging the financial world order, like the indignados in Madrid and the Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City. Still, Vatican officials said the document was not a manifesto for disaffected dissidents.

via Vatican Calls for Global Oversight of the Economy – NYTimes.com.

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Archbishop of Canterbury Endorses Tax on Bankers – NYTimes.com

2 Nov

Dr. Williams [archbishop of Canterbury] supported a Vatican statement last week endorsing the idea of a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transaction and for a separation of the retail and investment operations banks that have relied on bailouts from public funds.

“These ideas — ideas that have been advanced from other quarters, religious and secular, in recent years — do not amount to a simplistic call for the end of capitalism, but they are far more than a general expression of discontent,” he said.

via Archbishop of Canterbury Endorses Tax on Bankers – NYTimes.com.

Matthis Chiroux: The Wisdom and Power of a Leaderless Resistance

1 Nov

With no leadership structure to dismantle, the message of the Occupy movement stands poised to self-perpetuate, impervious to traditional routes of attack. The greatest tradition in movement breaking of all time, wanton violence, could still be used against us, but as the establishment learned once again last Tuesday in Oakland, sometimes using violence to clear an intersection can fill it twice as fast.

What is to come of our struggles is a story yet unwritten. We cannot honestly say we will win. What we can say is it doesn’t matter. Simply to struggle changes to world, and we learn from the struggle and continue to fight more effectively for the change we seek.

via Matthis Chiroux: The Wisdom and Power of a Leaderless Resistance.

Dissenting, or Seeking Shelter? Homeless Stake a Claim at Protests – NYTimes.com

31 Oct

From Los Angeles to Wall Street, from Denver to Boston, homeless men and women have joined the protesters in large numbers, or at least have settled in beside them for the night. While the economic deprivation they suffer might symbolize the grievance at the heart of this protest, they have come less for the cause than for what they almost invariably describe as an easier existence. There is food, as well as bathrooms, safety, company and lots of activity to allow them to pass away their days. . . .

But their presence is posing a mounting quandary for protesters and the authorities, and divisions have arisen among protesters across the country about how much, if at all, to embrace the interlopers. The rising number of homeless, many of them suffering from mental disorders, has made it easier for Occupy’s opponents to belittle the movement as vagrant and lawless and has raised the pressure on municipal authorities to crack down.

via Dissenting, or Seeking Shelter? Homeless Stake a Claim at Protests – NYTimes.com.

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Occupy Harlem: ‘Occupy Wall Street Is Not A White Thing’

31 Oct

The Occupy Wall Street movement went Uptown on Friday night, as more than 100 people filled the second-floor sanctuary at St. Philip’s Church in Harlem for the first general meeting of Occupy Harlem.

Unlike their downtown comrades, those in attendance were mostly black and Latino, save for a handful of whites who sat and listened intently, a few lifting their fists to shouts of “Power to the People.”

via Occupy Harlem: ‘Occupy Wall Street Is Not A White Thing’.

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OWS has transformed public opinion

31 Oct

…for the first time in more than half a century, a broad cross-section of the American public is talking about the concentration of income, wealth and political power at the top.

Score a big one for the Occupiers.

Even more startling is the change in public opinion. Not since the 1930s has a majority of Americans called for redistribution of income or wealth. But according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, an astounding 66 percent of Americans said the nation’s wealth should be more evenly distributed.

A similar majority believes the rich should pay more in taxes.

via OWS has transformed public opinion – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.

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Occupy Wall Street: Too Abstract? Will it Last?

31 Oct

Plus Zombies, Bicycles, and Fat Cats

John McWhorter and Glenn Loury have an interesting discussion, mostly about Occupy Wall Street. McWhorter went down there the other day and noticed that it’s small.

Yes it is. Was there yesterday afternoon (Sunday 30 Oct) and it IS small. A whole city block, yes, but a small block. And crowded with tents. It’s large in the imagination, but physically small.

And jammed with people taking photos, shooting videos, and doing interviews. Which surely is the point, get in the media however possible.

orange_mesh2

The crowd, more diverse than some reports suggest, though it’s hard to tell the OWSers from the one-time visitors. Some folks, of course, visit time and again. I got an armband of orange mesh—just like the police use to corral people—from an older couple who were helping out. I also saw some seminary students offer a sympathetic ear as Pastors for Occupy Wall Street (something like that, I forget the exact banner they flew under). Yes, lots of young folks, but also middle aged and old. Women as well as men, and a child singer playing a pink guitar in one placer, a child drummer in another. Black white yellow, probably red too.

Will OWS Last?

But back to McWhorter and Loury. McWhorter thinks they’ll all disperse in a month or so when the weather gets really cold. Perhaps.

What McWhorter and Loury were wondering is whether or not THIS is the sort of thing that really stirs the passions so that the protest will last and last. And thus really get in people’s minds and under their skin.

Yes, the 1% vs. 99% message is clear enough, economic inequality. But you push beyond that, and what do you get? They feat that the enemy may be too abstract. Financial manipulation, derivatives, that’s a bit abstract. Cheating is not abstract, but is that cheating? How so?

I think they’ve got a point. How to bring the message home? Continue reading →

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