World Occupy Everywhere Newswire Archive

Los de Abajo (the Underdogs)
The links between Occupy, El Barrio and the EZLN
Gloria Muñoz Ramírez
Originally published in Spanish in La Jornada

Details of January screenings of The Crisis of Civilization: a documentary feature film investigating how global crises like ecological disaster, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single, failed global system.

We will be adding yet more screenings as they are confirmed, so keep an eye out for further details!

A coalition of Civil Society in Abuja said that it would begin a mass protest come January 2012 tagged (Occupy Nigeria) over the controversial fuel subsidy removal.

This revelation was made today by the National Convener of the group ,Jaye Gaskia, at a press briefing. Gaskia said that the group would mobilize all Nigerian and other organized bodies for permanent street protest which would cut across the country if Government go a finally go ahead with the removal of the fuel subsidy.

The group which comprises of Action Aid , United Action for Democracy (UAD), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Legislative Advocacy Center (CISLAC).

Call it the Nigerian Spring if you like. but whatever you choose to call it, Nigerians have begun to come out against the government’s unpopular decision to remove the subsidy on fuel. Reports reaching us indicate that protest pockets are beginning to form all over the country, and the momentum is beginning to build. Might the government have understimated the will of its citizens this time? We’re keenly following the developments. A huge portion of this action is being coordinated via social media, especially on Twitter, where the hashtags to follow are #occupynigeria and #fuelsubsidy. You can also view our curated Storify feed of Nigeria’s reactions to the fuel Subsidy removal.

Build Power & Show Power through Mass Participatory Bold Action

To show our power, on May 1st, 2012, we will be organizing for such a mass participatory and bold collective action: a national general strike, mass boycott, student strike/ walk-out and mass day of action. We will be organizing within our unions- or informal workplace organizations where there’s no union or the union isn’t supportive- to hold a one-day general strike. Where a strike is not possible, we will be organizing people to call in sick, or take a personal day, as part of a coordinated “sick-out”. Those who are students will be walking-out of their schools (or not showing up in the first place). In the community, we will be holding a mass boycott and refusing to make any purchase on that day.

We, the 99%, will build our power and show our power until we've occupied our workplaces, our communities, our schools, our lives, our world... until we've occupied everything!

While the history of the world is moving decisively toward a culture of inclusion, diversity and pluralism, Israeli politics seems to challenge history by moving in the opposite direction of exclusion and unilateral self - righteous monopoly of geography, demography, history, archeology and culture, especially in Jerusalem.

Ports up and down the West Coast were blockaded, from Seattle to San Diego. Despite a barrage of hostile propaganda in the media, opposition from union bureaucrats and heavy police repression in some places, overall the blockade was successful – this time. The blockade was called in solidarity with longshore workers fighting a union-busting assault in Longview, Washington and with port truckers seeking union recognition in the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach. This support should have been greeted. Instead, the union bureaucracy attacked the port blockade, although longshore workers respected the picket lines. But now the class war on the West Coast docks is coming to a head, and it can’t be waged from the outside. Bay Area labor has called for a caravan to Longview. The goal should be a real occupation of the terminal by the workers to prevent the loading of the scab cargo. Longshore militants have called on the longshore unions to shut down every port on the West Coast, and the East and Gulf Coasts, to smash EGT’s union-busting. Can it be done? Yes, but only though sharp struggle against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy.

As the world awaits the celebration of the birth of the Christ child -- and as, on the eve of this celebration, municipalities around the United States clear out Occupy encampments, pepper-spray peaceful protesters, and threaten them with felony convictions and two-year jail sentences -- it is worth remembering what the historical Jesus actually told people to do: he told them precisely to behave like Occupy protesters.

Tsunami
U.S. City
Historical Inevitability
Occupation

Short clips from the day spliced into 6 mins with accompanying track by Riot in London. In solidarity with all those who took part in the occupy and strike action on the day

If the catastrophe that is coming is to be avoided and humanity is to have another chance, it will be because the others, from below and to the left, have not only resisted, but are already sketching the outline of something else.

The SFPD is concerned about public health and safety. That’s why they have to hit the public with clubs. The OccupySF encampment was raided and completely destroyed by SFPD late last night and Justin Herman Plaza, now being called Bradley Manning Plaza was left empty except for a city sign which read “park closed for renovations” and the occasional pile of horse crap left by one of our proud mounted public servants. 85 arrests were made and all the tents and equipment were confiscated. They were cited with “illegal camping.”

The 99 percent movement, which has been evicted from many of their encampments across the country, is finding common cause with thousands of homeowners who are also being evicted from their homes.

Even though the movement has often been criticized for a lack of defined goals, Tuesday’s “Occupy Our Homes” action in at least 20 cities makes it clear that they are standing up to banks to reverse foreclosures.

“We’re in the neighborhood in New York City that had the highest number of foreclosure filings in 2010 to send a message that the economy is failing the 99 percent,” Vocal New York organizer Sean Barry told Raw Story from a Brooklyn neighborhood as about 200 protesters chanted in the background.

Yesterday, Four female activists entered and occupied the Egyptian Embassy in solidarity with the Tahrir Square movement. The activists were subsequently arrested and taken to West End Central Police Station.

“As a social forum, a thousand things happen at the same time and this is how thing flow. The square is beginning to fill up. Having a thousand things and a thousand different ways is a path towards no turning back!” Rodrigo Bertame at Occupy Rio.

In Portland, Oregon, Occupy Oregon (also known as Occupy PDX) re-occupied Shermanski Park last night. They setup tents, tarps, and folding tables at 4:35 pm PST. A police officer drove by and informed the occupiers it was illegal to “camp” in a public park. The occupiers continued to setup the new encampment. Families with their children were there and a kitchen went up in the park too. They even had a bat signal shining on a building that was able to broadcast text messages from people all over the world.

The Egyptian revolution will not be settled in 18 days or months. It’ll take “years” for the dust to settle, may be four or five, I don’t know. There will be waves, ebbs and flows, battles to be won and others lost.

This November uprising is only one chapter in the Egyptian revolution, but not the final one.

We have come a long way. We can all recall the mood in February when you could have been lynched in a protest by the people if you had chanted against the army. Now there is wide disillusionment with SCAF, and the majority of the public can clearly see today they are nothing but Mubarak’s army generals who are in effect leading the counterrevolution.

On Saturday, December 3, in Liberty Plaza, we—THE OWS HUNGER STRIKERS—began a hunger strike. We are striking to demand outdoor space for a new occupation. We are holding our strike at Duarte Square on Sixth Avenue and Canal Street in Manhattan as part of a continued effort seeking sanctuary on Trinity Church’s unused land.

This is a call for escalation, in response to the escalated levels of government-enacted violence and repression The Occupy Movement has endured over the last few weeks. In dozens of cities across the nation, Mayors chose to stifle freedom of speech and the right to assemble by evicting peaceful occupations using illegal and and unconstitutional force. Here in New York, on the night of November 14, the City—under orders from Mayor Bloomberg—violently evicted our community from Liberty Square.

The US Senate voted Thursday night to approve a military funding bill that codifies into law the criminal state practices begun under Bush—and continued under Obama—in the name of the “global war on terror.”

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed spent the first half of the post 2001 decade analysing the West's Ties With Terror: Western-Al-Qaeda Relations in the Post-Cold War Period (2005), The Secret History of International Terrorism (2006) and the role of the West in Creating Terror (2006). Following this he moved on to analysing the The Hidden Holocaust - Our Civilizational Crisis (2008) and the Food Crisis & Peak Oil (2008). His latest book is A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It (2010), has now been adapted into a documentary feature film, The Crisis of Civilization (2011) and it had it's first UK screening in Leeds, in November. Read on for an analysis of the multiple global crisis's facing humanity and the hope that a movement to change the course the 1% have society set on can be changed by the 99%, Occupy Planet Earth: Resisting the Militarisation of State Power by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed.