Monday, June 30, 2014

Tangela Harris fighting for the Four Freedoms; interviews Ficano at length

 Tangela Harris fighting for the Four Freedoms 



While looking for Detroit Change Tangela Harris of The Ride Tangela talks to Robert Ficano about Detroit's Emergency 
                                                    




PHILOSOPHICAL JAZZ

            

Duke Ellington - What Am I Here For




DIONNE WARWICK-WHATS IT ALL ABOUT ALFIE
Celine Dion - Nature Boy  

Nat King Cole, Nature Boy  


Miles Davis - Kind of Blue - 1959 (Complete Album)  



God Bless The Child - Billie Holiday (1941)  


 For the love of money - O' jays Full Version






http://www.clickondetroit.com/entertainment/group-wants-to-bring-rb-music-hall-of-fame-museum-to-detroit/26964968

Tangela Harris reports on weekend of political activism

Tangela Harris reports on weekend of political activism
I had a awesome weekend, June 28 and 29th ! Saturday I had the opportunity to work with some amazing people, helping with the revitalization of the Dexter Elmhurst community center. People came from all over the nation this past week to work with EMEAC (William Copeland) The People's Water Board, The Water Brigade, We the People, Michigan Welfare Rights and many other groups in Detroit that work very hard for the citizens of this city....A group by the name of Our Power (teens from California. New York, The Bay, North Carolina, Colorado, Flo, Chic, Ohio etc.)of all likes were here doing Canvassing, knocking door to door to educate the Dexter Elmhurst community on the Westside in Detroit, between Davison and Sturtevant, about the water shut offs, so the community could become aware of the matter and know there is a water hub in their area! On the hottest day our guest worked very
hard showing solidarity for HUMANITY!
The Dexter Elmhurst Center will be a water hub for the PEOPLE. ....... I have to give a big shout out to those who facilitated this event in the name of us all and Charity Mahouna Hicks........ William Copeland, Debra Taylor, Monica Lewis Patrick.... and Ms.Helen Moore it was a wonderful experience!



 Tangee Harris previously interviewed veteran political activist, Russell Bellant, for Labor Power, regarding the long term, historical take away of Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department from control by its elected officials as background to the current further usurpation of democratic control of Detroit's water and sewerage  here:
 http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/06/tangela-harris-talks-to-russ-bellant.html



 Another report on the Detroit water crisis by veteran activist Maureen Taylor on Reverend Al's show.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c7oX9-0h9s&feature=youtu.be

Anthropologist Ann Dunham, Mother of the Movement: Obama's Mama

By Charlie Brown

                                                                      Ann Dunham in 1960
I studied anthropology in college undergrad and graduate school, almost pursuing an academic career in anthropology. Recently some forty years after I got my degrees in anthro, I had the opportunity to teach the subject at Wayne County Community College District. It was a sort of blast from the past for me personally. Anthropology is something of its own world, a kinship group of a sort, a scientific community.

So, I have always been proud of the fact that President Barack Obama's mother was an anthropologist, Dr. Ann Dunham  !

And , my bet is that, ANTHROPOLOGY and its theory, through Dr. Dunham,  have had an impact in making a person who is a great leader of the Movement, Barack Obama. Surely, President Obama's ability to relate well to so many different types of people, different ethnic and cultural groups, is learned in part from his mother who  was an ethnologist or cultural anthropologist ( like me; smiles)


" In an interview, Barack Obama referred to his mother as "the dominant figure in my formative years ... The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics."
 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham)

I rest my case. 

We might say Ann Dunham is the Mama of Obamaism, a very important political movement of our time, the biggest of the present moment. 


Given the impact that the Individual ,Barack Hussein Obama, has had on the extremely difficult struggle to reverse Reaganism, the central political movement of this moment, verily I say unto you, Dr.  Ann Dunham is a Mother of the Movement .

But even more: Dr. Dunham was an organizer to fight  poverty in Indonesia and Pakistan:

 "To address the problem of poverty in rural villages, she created microcredit programs while working as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development. Dunham was also employed by the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and she consulted with the Asian Development Bank in Gujranwala, Pakistan. Towards the latter part of her life, she worked with Bank Rakyat Indonesia, where she helped apply her research to the largest microfinance program in the world.[4]"

                                                 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham

We know where Barack Obama got his inspiration to be a community organizer in the years before he ran for office.







"Stanley Ann Dunham (November 29, 1942 – November 7, 1995), the mother of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, was an American anthropologist who specialized in economic anthropology and rural development. Dunham was known as Stanley Dunham through high school, then as Ann Dunham, Ann Obama, Ann Soetoro, Ann Sutoro (after her second divorce), and finally as Ann Dunham.[1] Born in Wichita, Kansas, Dunham spent her childhood in California, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, her teenage years in Mercer Island, Washington, and most of her adult life in Hawaii and Indonesia.[2]

 Dunham studied at the East–West Center and at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu, where she attained a bachelor's in anthropology or mathematics[3] and master's and Ph.D. in anthropology.[4] Interested in craftsmanship, weaving and the role of women in cottage industries, Dunham's research focused on women's work on the island of Java and blacksmithing in Indonesia.


After her son assumed the presidency, interest renewed in Dunham's work: The University of Hawaii held a symposium about her research; an exhibition of Dunham's Indonesian batik textile collection toured the United States; and in December 2009, Duke University Press published Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia, a book based on Dunham's original 1992 dissertation. Janny Scott, an author and former New York Times reporter, published a biography about Ann Dunham's life titled A Singular Woman in 2011. Posthumous interest has also led to the creation of The Ann Dunham Soetoro Endowment in the Anthropology Department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, as well as the Ann Dunham Soetoro Graduate Fellowships, intended to fund students associated with the East–West Center (EWC) in Honolulu, Hawaii.[5]

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham

Elizabeth Warren, New Mother of the Movement




Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has surged into the national political and class struggles like a St. George fighting the dragon named Wall Street.

Labor Power last blogged on the continuing influence of the Occupy Wall Street movement featured Senator Warren as the "Senator from Occupy " in many ways.

 http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/06/occupy-wall-street-lives.html


Labor Power blogged here on Warren's effort to get debt relief for students, a effort especially fit for an Occupier to take on: 

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/06/pass-senator-elizabeth-warrens-bank-on.html

" She was previously a Harvard Law School professor specializing in bankruptcy law. Warren is an active consumer protection advocate whose work led to the conception and establishment of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She has written a number of academic and popular works, and is a frequent subject of media interviews regarding the American economy and personal finance." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren

An expert in financial matters from her previous jobs   , she joins Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as an outstandingly progressive and socialistic Member of Congress ( a future Labor Power blog will explore the question of just what _is_ going so well in Vermont, electing the only Independent , socialist Senator in the country, ___ and other leading policies).

And of course, her biggest efforts in the Senate have been to take on the monstrous task of regulating and  re-regulating that Leviathan, which we know as Wall Street , finance capital.



 

On a side note, even the Pope is taking on Wall Street. "Earlier this month, he criticized the wealth made from financial speculation as intolerable and said speculation on commodities was a scandal that compromised the poor's access to food."  The Pope was accused of being a Leninist for this.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/29/us-pope-communism-idUSKBN0F40L020140629



Well, hell to the Yes.
We know, we know...we post a lot of Elizabeth Warren quotes. She just keeps telling the truth while too many other politicians do the opposite.
(Graphic via The Colbert Report)


 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152532800768118&set=a.10150179024053118.326871.92021268117&type=1

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Get $$$ out of politics Constitutional Amendment is freight train rushing at the Bourgeoisie

Get $$$ out of politics Constitutional Amendment is freight train rushing at the Bourgeoisie
  We now may be close to a majority in the Senate for Constitutional Amendment to reverse _Citizens United_. 

We have 45 Senators.



Communications Workers Association trade union (CWA) and  People for the American Way just called me and put me on a TELEFORUM where I heard  a discussion of overturning _Citizens United_ to get big money out of politics, defeat the Koch brothers. . Harry Reid is speaking. ( I am a relatively random phone call for CWA)

http://www.democracyisforpeople.org/page.cfm?id=63


 Communications Workers Association (CWA) , Larry Cohen President ,People for the American Way just called me and put me on a call where I can here a discussion of overturning _Citizens United_ to get big money out of politics. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is speaking. ( I am a relatively random phone call for CWA)
LikeLike ·

 Reid  focused on an extensive expose and critique of the Koch Brothers.

Cohen repeatedly uses the term "working class". The tea Republicans are turning trade union leaders into radicals.

 Cohen says US has fallen to the lowest category labor rights violators in the world with Iraq and others..Cohan we must have a "democracy movement" to get labor's rights back.


Don't give up on red states. This is an issue Americans understand, 9 out of 10, Dems and Reps.

We will win public financing , too.

Deblasio's victory in the NYC Mayoral race was possible because of a New York State matching funds campaign finance law.


Celebrate Democracy on Independence Day!

The U.S. Senate is taking a historic vote this summer on a constitutional amendment that would stem the tide of money from the mega-corporations and ultra-wealthy in our elections. Do your senators support S.J. Res. 19, a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court rulings of Citizens United & McCutcheon? Look to see if your senators have co-sponsored this amendment.
July 2nd and 3rd are National Action Days!  Look to see what patriotic events are happening in your area.





SJ Res. 19 sign-on letter

June 3, 2014


Dear Senator,
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, now bolstered by the recent McCutcheon decision, has unleashed a flood of spending on our elections that threatens the very foundation of our democracy.
Because we know that America will never deliver on its promise if our election system is dominated by big money interests, we are writing today to urge you to support S.J.Res. 19: a constitutional amendment to establish that Congress and the states have the power to regulate and limit election spending.
This amendment would overturn Citizens United v. FEC , as well as McCutcheon v. FEC, the decision issued earlier this year eliminating the cap on the total amount an individual can contribution to candidates, political parties and political committees. The amendment also would overturn the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling, which established the doctrine colloquially known as “money equals speech.”
The Supreme Court held in McCutcheon that the only legitimate rationale for limiting campaign spending is to prevent quid pro quo corruption – essentially, the crime of bribery. But the American people understand quite well that corruption can take many forms and the problem with big money dominating our elections is far more profound than the narrowly defined crime of bribery. These activist judicial changes to the meaning of our Constitution tilt the entire government to favor big money donors. They deny regular people an equal say in determining the future of our country.
America faces great and serious challenges – putting people back to work, addressing deepening inequality, averting catastrophic climate change, fixing our schools, ensuring quality and affordable health care for all, and much more. Our country has the wealth and wherewithal, and the creativity and conscience, to meet these challenges. But we will fall short unless we repair our democracy.
We do not lightly call for amending our great Constitution. But we know that there can be no greater constitutional purpose than ensuring the functioning of our democracy. We urge you in the strongest terms to support S.J.Res.19, so that it quickly becomes the 28th amendment to our Constitution.


http://www.moneyoutvotersin.org/28th_amendment_national_roadshow


THE 28TH AMENDMENT NATIONAL ROADSHOW
Never before in the history of the United States has our system been so openly corrupted by big money.  Our democracy has been overtaken by corporate interests who have bought favor with politicians, putting up huge roadblocks to any legislation that benefits We The People.  But all over the country people are also fighting back and demanding change.

Now is the time to take our power back!
• Over 80% of Americans support an amendment.
• Over 140 groups are working to GET THE MONEY OUT of politics
• 16 states and hundreds of cities have called for a constitutional amendment.
• The 113th Congress proposed 14 amendments
• Over 150 members of Congress support a constitutional amendment.

Why do we need a 28th Amendment National Roadshow?
Ever since the disastrous Citizens United people have been up in arms about the undue influence of big money in politics.  But most Americans feel overwhelmed and believe that a Constitutional Amendment is too big a task and that it is just not possible in our current stalemate political climate.  The media makes viewers feel disempowered and has failed to highlight the victories that groups are making to GET THE MONEY OUT.

Join us and help spread the word to your members and activists!
Working together The 28th Amendment National Roadshow will unify activists, educate everyday Americans and force the media and people running for office to talk about the future of the 28th Amendment to overturn Citizens United just before the important 2014 election.



 http://www.moneyoutvotersin.org/

MOVI (MONEY OUT VOTERS IN) IS THE SPONSOR OF SB 1272 -

THE OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED ACT

Here is the wording that would be on the California ballot this November:
“Shall the Congress of the United States propose, and the California Legislature ratify, an amendment or amendments to the United States Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) 558 U.S. 310, and other applicable judicial precedents, to allow the full regulation or limitation of campaign contributions and spending, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of wealth, may express their views to one another, and to make clear that the rights protected by the United States Constitution are the rights of natural persons only?”

SB 1272 PASSED OUT OF THE SENATE AND IS MOVING THROUGH THE STATE ASSEMBLY

HELP MAKE HISTORY BY GETTING THIS VOTER INITIATIVE ON THE CALIFORNIA BALLOT THIS NOVEMBER!
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE -  We need to be done and dusted with the governor's signature 


update: California Senate passes resolution supporting overturning _Citizens United_ : http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/24/1309202/-California-Becomes-Second-State-to-Back-a-Constitutional-Amendment-Overturning-Citizens-United?detail=facebook

OCCUPY WALL STREET LIVES !


 By Charlie Brown
                                                                 


Occupy Wall Street lives:

in Occupiers still meeting and acting all over the US and elsewhere .activism in Detroit , Traverse City Michigan,and NYC, etc.

- in dozens of facebook pages

 Occupy The SEC , which is mainly a facebook page, has been deeply involved in the Volcker Rule Congressional action. !  
We submitted a comment letter to the SEC regarding its proposed clearing agency regulations.

- in the popularization of "the 99%" and "1%" reference to working class and bourgeoisie in political economic discourse; in putting class struggle into the American consciousness more than since the 1930's

- in its impact on the 2012 election, including the Presidential election. The "47%" never would have been conceived in the major media without the premise of the "99%".  And the "47%" and Romney's persona of definite "1%'er" were important to his losing Romney notoriously argued with Occupiers in person that "Corporations are people". Sure they are.  Obama said 1%ers didn't build their businesses without lots of help from workers and the Gov'mint. The Republicans put up a banner at their convention saying "We  built this", reminding most people that the Republicans were lying , exploiters; hadn't built it without the 99% doing most of the work.

Thus  Occupy Wall Street played a big role in Obama's win.

- in concern about income inquality as an ongoing major news story clearly because of the initial push of the Occupy. 99%-1% splash. not since the 1960's has poverty mattered so much. Avnd so Occupy lives in the low-wage/minimum-wage battle clearly related to income inequality. The rallies against low pay at Walmart, McDonalds, and the rest, and the petitions for raising the minimum wage are children of Occupy Wall Street, in my opinion.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/08/how-seattle%E2%80%99s-15-minimum-wage-victory-began-in-new-york-city%E2%80%99s-zuccotti-park/

The banks, the financial sector are just under mass scrutiny more than ever in recent time, and they know it.

They are being scrutinized by none more than Senator Eliszabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Occupy lives in Elizabeth Warren's work in the Senate against Wall Street and much more
                                                                

In many ways, Elizabeth Warren is the Senator from Occupy Wall Street. Her election victory and policy positions as a Senator, fighting for the 99%, came out of the Occupy dialectic and struggle.

Labor Power blogged here on Warren's effort to get debt relief for students, a effort especially fit for an Occupier to take on: 

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/06/pass-senator-elizabeth-warrens-bank-on.html

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/WarrenFanClub/

                                                       

Importantly right now , Senator EW is fighting against the re-election of  that meely-mouthed , so-and-so, Mitch McConnell,  ON HIS HOME STATE TERRITORY. Takin' it to him where he lives, for Democratic candidate


 http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/elizabeth-warren-is-coming-for-mitch-mcconnell-279307331865


With Warren , it is as if an Occupier of Wall Street was elected to the Senate. Senator Warren is mic-checking Republican Senate sultan McConnell.


Stop Mitch McConnell's dangerous obstruction. Add your name and help us defeat Mitch: http://bit.ly/1fqjRPs



Tue Jun 24, 2014 at 08:32 AM PDT

So much for that CRAAAZY Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren talks to supporter
Democrats aren't afraid of Elizabeth Warren in solid Red territory.
Two weeks ago:
Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes said Thursday that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., will campaign in Kentucky against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell [...] After the [failed student loan] vote, Warren told MSNBC's Chris Hayes, "One way I'm going to start fighting back is I'm going to go down to Kentucky and I'm going to campaign for Alison Lundergan Grimes."
Today:
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren will campaign for Natalie Tennant in West Virginia next month in a push to keep a Democratic Senate seat. Warren will accompany Tennant in the Eastern Panhandle on July 14 as she rolls out an education agenda. Tennant's campaign provided trip details to The Associated Press.
So it's only June, yet Elizabeth Warren has already announced campaign appearances in conservative Kentucky and West Virginia. You can bet that the Grimes and Tennant campaigns have tested Warren's appearances, and that they extended the invitation means the results were good—that Warren is more of a positive than a negative. The Grimes campaign has been particularly cautious, yet even they aren't afraid of Warren. Makes sense, since these midterms will be a base turnout year, and Warren has got that niche locked up. Furthermore, and related, Democrats will win if women turn out in droves, and yup, Warren helps with that, too.
There has been much energy spent trying to turn Warren into a boogeyman. This is proof that those conservative efforts have failed miserably.


Warren's latest
Jeri Henson Dies says:
The smart and classy fighter of the Senate.
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT (Photo:...
Truthout

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/elizabeth-warren-champions-bill-to-restore-glass-steagall-act-and-rein-in-wall-street


MORE ON OCCUPY
11/11/11  exchange :  "this "occupation protest" thing is wearing off,yes it hitting major
citys but its not accomplishing anything .
Like · · 6 minutes ago ·

        Charles Brown
        ‎///// It's accomplished more in organizing a national
anti-capitalist campaign directly targeting Wall Street and Corporate
America, and _not_ the government, but the real rulers behind the
govt.on Wall Street who not been demonstrated against 100's of times
as the government has been over the last many decades. Just changing
people's _political_ attention to the Private Market as a Political
Power Center and formulating it is class terms of the 99% vs the 1%,
and then having a months long demo as opposed to the one say demos of
the past ACCOMPLISHES MORE IN TERMS OF A WORKING CLASS STRUGGLE
MOVEMENT AGAINST THE BOURGEOISIE THAN ANYTHING SINCE THE 1930'S FLINT
SITDOWN STRIKE AGAINST GENERAL MOTORS.


The Whole reverse Citizen United movement came significantly from the boost of Occupy . You might say that it has not succeeded.  But many local resolutions have been passed. It has brought a whole group of people onto the left side of a class struggle  It intersects with other efforts in terms of activist and politically campaigning personnel.

 Subject: Amend the Constitution
To: cb31450@gmail.com


Hey,

I'm fed up with the explosion of big corporate influence over our politics.

With the Supreme Court ignoring its own precedents to unleash a
torrent of corporate and special interest money in our elections, I
decided to take action.

Senators Dick Durbin, Jeff Merkley, Chuck Schumer, Tom Udall, and
Sheldon Whitehouse have introduced an amendment to the U.S.
Constitution that would restore our right to regulate money in
elections -- the right the Supreme Court took away with their
misguided Citizens United ruling in 2010 -- and I just signed their
public petition in support of it.

This is a really important issue for our democracy, so I thought you
would want to sign, too.

Take action here:

http://petition.reversecitizensunited.com/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5007&tag=rcu_ty_taf

Thanks!

http://petition.reversecitizensunited.com/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5007?tag=rcu_ty_taf


Occupy made itself a descendent of the Civil Rights Movement when it declared for non-violent tactics. Veterans of the Civil Rights brave efforts visited Occupy Wall Streeters recognizing this kinship.

non-violence is the most powerful weapon we have

Inbox
x

c b <cb31450@gmail.com>

11/9/11


to lbo-talk
If police assaulted a mass picket, or a demonstration, people would
have every right to defend themselves if they could. Invoking
'non-violence' in such circumstances would be absurd. One should not
to turn a valid, but provisional, tactical calculation into a spurious
categorical imperative.

^^^^^
CB: Followers of ML King did not respond with violence to violent
police attacks. In general, it is considered that the Civil Rights
Movement won its struggle with the segregationists with these tactics.
 Similarly, Ghandi had a significant impact in forwarding the Indian
national liberation movement. So, responding to violence by invoking
'non-violence' is not absurd. OWS gained a lot of sympathy and support
with non-violent response to the police violence against them early
on.

c b <cb31450@gmail.com>

11/9/11


to lbo-talk
from_alamut

   There was violence in the civil rights movements. The growth of
armed black defense groups in the south during the mid 60's was
instrumental in ending the KKK attacks on non-violent civil rights
workers. Th riots of the 60's also played a major role.   peace   Jim
Davis Ozark Bioregion, USA, Planet Gaia  check out my books at:
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=141735

^^^^^
CB: However , not all or even most of the Civil Rights activists,
including M L King,  responded to the violence with violence. The
children set upon by dogs and water hoses did not respond with
violence, nor did the Deacons for Defense or anybody else defend them
with violence. This forbearance from violence gained widespread
sympathy around the country.  This sympathy resulted in millions of
voters non-violently  pressuring Congress and the President to pass
Civil Rights laws.  The main non-violent tactic in the US is voting.

Ergo, " responding to violence by invoking 'non-violence' is not absurd. "


And of course , the main non-violent form of "fighting" politically is through VOTING


Sen. Bernie Sanders: It’s time to declare independence from the 1 percent

By Eric W. Dolan
Saturday, July 5, 2014 14:52 EDT

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/05/sen-bernie-sanders-time-to-declare-independence-from-the-1-percent/



Charles Brown As far as shortcomings, and in comparison with the Bolsheviks, of course, Occupy Wall Street did not lead a socialist revolution. However, I did not expect that. I had been calling for protests at the Wall Street site, politicizing the symbolic finance capital center, for several years before the Occupy took place.
 
 Occupy W is a reform, not revolutionary, spontaneous upsurge from middle strata and organic intellectuals, middle strata who are very much mixed wage-laborers, very little petit bourgeois activity in the sense of starting their own businesses. ( see _Contemporary Capitalism and The Middle Classes_ by S.N. Nadel)

What was the significance of the Occupy Movement? Was it an immature outburst? A missed opportunity? Did/does it have potential to become a sustained, organized movement? Or is/was it merely a prelude to something else? What were its successes and failures? Was it a student movement, a worker's movement, a poor people's movement? What was its relationship to the other 'global uprisings' of 2011-2012?
  • 2 people like this.
  • Charles Brown MORE ON OCCUPY
    11/11/11 exchange : "this "occupation protest" thing is wearing off,yes it hitting major
    citys but its not accomplishing anything .
    Like · · 6 minutes ago ·

    Charles Brown
    ///// It's accomplished more in organizing a national
    anti-capitalist campaign directly targeting Wall Street and Corporate
    America, and _not_ the government, but the real rulers behind the
    govt.on Wall Street who not been demonstrated against 100's of times
    as the government has been over the last many decades. Just changing
    people's _political_ attention to the Private Market as a Political
    Power Center and formulating it is class terms of the 99% vs the 1%,
    and then having a months long demo as opposed to the one say demos of
    the past ACCOMPLISHES MORE IN TERMS OF A WORKING CLASS STRUGGLE
    MOVEMENT AGAINST THE BOURGEOISIE THAN ANYTHING SINCE THE 1930'S FLINT
    SITDOWN STRIKE AGAINST GENERAL MOTORS.
  • Charles Brown - in concern about income inquality as an ongoing major news story clearly because of the initial push of the Occupy. 99%-1% splash. not since the 1960's has poverty mattered so much. Avnd so Occupy lives in the low-wage/minimum-wage battle clearly related to income inequality. The rallies against low pay at Walmart, McDonalds, and the rest, and the petitions for raising the minimum wage are children of Occupy Wall Street, in my opinion.

    http://billmoyers.com/.../how-seattle%E2%80%99s-15.../
    billmoyers.com
    Immediately after the Occupy Wall Street protests began, candidates and elected ... See More
  • Charles Brown Occupy, with it's we are the 99% vs the 1% has shoved the idea of class and class struggle back into the mass US national political discourse.
    17 hrs · Like · 1
  • Ellis Reamt OWS was the real thing - the real thing is going to suck and be full of frustration & differences & egos, etc etc, and the state and media will step in to make it look like shit. i'm going to write a piece about OWS & publish it on www.TheAcademicActivist.org in a few days
    www.theacademicactivist.org
    Contemporary Philosophy PlaylistSubmitted by admin on Thu, 07/31/2014 - 15:38We ... See More
    17 hrs · Unlike · 2
  • Bob Maschi It was an anarchist movement, with some socialists as well, that liberals tried to co-opt. It was a good start.
    17 hrs · Like · 2
  • Charles Brown Occupy politicized the symbolic finance capitalist center , Wall Street. It demonstrated Wall Street as the dominant political institution. That's huge . Most past protests are at government sites , like Washington , D.C.
  • Cy Lee Farquar In the UK it definatily wasn't an anarchist movement. In the UK it attracted mostly non-aligned people who knew what they didn't want but had very little or no ideal what should replace capitalism. There were actually very few anarchists and socialists that identified with Occupy in the UK. It was badly infiltrated by hippies, freemen of the land, and power junkies that wanted to just try wanted to try and influence people.

    What it did do is wake up a few people who were asleep but most of the occupy movement I spoke too wouldn't even give any proclaimed socialist/anarchist the time of day. The only answer I got was that they were failed options from the past and we 'had to be creative and find something new'. What was ironic was that they tried to organize the camp outside of St Pauls Cathedral in London non-hierarchically and on a consensus federated basis. In short they used anarchist ideas but couldn't bring themselves to use the word.
    17 hrs · Edited · Unlike · 1
  • Charles Brown The only answer I got was that they were failed options from the past and we 'had to be creative and find something new'/////// luckily the US tendency to be ahistorical in thinking works to our advantage in this case, as US'ers don't speak of the "past" much. So, socialist ideas can be introduced as if they had historical amnesia.
    17 hrs · Edited · Like · 1
  • Matt Kong Flash I definitely want to comment on this. I was around the Occupy Indianapolis thing. I'm a little bit busy, right now, but this is a great question, and I will be thinking about an answer from what I saw. Again, this is a good question and topic for discussion.
  • Cy Lee Farquar @Charles. Thats where a relatively young country like the US comes into its own. Brits are bloody besotted with the past.
  • Erkki KochKetola A Rorschach test.
  • Charles Brown Yes, Cy Lee Farquar, except unfortunately, actually, socialist and Marxist thinking relies on historical thinking, so USers' ahistorical thinking by habit in general acts as a sort of vaccine preventing them from thinking like Marxists. The current example above is a sort of ironic exception.
  • Charles Brown https://www.facebook.com/OccupyIND
    We join united as people of peace with those in our country and the the world th... See More
    Community: 15,317 like this
  • Charles Brown https://www.facebook.com/groups/OccupyDetroitGA/
    • Hello 99! This is a discussion area for general Occupy Detroit conversation. Up...
    See More
  • Charles Brown https://www.facebook.com/occupythesec
    A working group of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy the SEC is a collection of concern... See More
    Community Organization: 1,506 like this
  • David Faunt Le Roy I think its successes included:

    • Education: people learned something about how their economy and governments actually work and who dominates them.

    • It highlighted the antagonism and contradictory interests of the %1 and the %99. I don't think this formula was the best, but it was simple an easy to understand. I wouldn't say its a class formula. There are huge, serious divisions and contradictory interests within the %99.

    • The Occupiers discovered pretty quickly who the police were there to protect and serve. So it exposed in a very intimate way the class character of the state.

    Failures:

    • The crash of 2008 was often presented as the result of the actions of a few greedy bankers rather than a natural outcome of the inherently crisis-ridden capitalist system

    • The tactic of occupying public spaces has only a limited utility. It doesn't shut production like a strike or factory occupation. I'm not sure what its supposed to demonstrate or convey. Although it did show that local governments had no problem denying the right assembly to peaceful protesters.

    • The organizers of the movement had some sort of aversion to being articulate. They refuse to formulate a program, a mission statement or even a limited set of demands.

    • It drew attention to suppressed issues like income inequality, money in politics, the imperialist aims of US foreign policy, but didn't propose what to do about any of it.

    • The General Assembly model was basically just a talk shop. As far I can tell no attempt was ever made to set up permanent local institutions, define their purposes and goals, and coordinate their activity. The movement never went beyond sitting in a public space and talking and trying out difference models of consensus decision making.
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  • Ellis Reamt that's not true. it was decentralized -- meaning there were tons of smaller groups working on different projects. for example @ a GA someone would get up and say we want to start a history group to teach people about history & create info to distribute - then anyone who was interested would join. or maybe there was a group to address local single parent families.
  • David Faunt Le Roy I don't think an organization that is that decentralized will ever have a prayer of successfully confronting the organized power of the capitalist state.
  • Ellis Reamt hmm it actually will probably be the only capable form of organization that could. if it was centralized it would get smashed.
    16 hrs · Unlike · 2
  • Ellis Reamt for example, if the vietcong in vietnam had a base and city - they could have been taken down dont u think?
  • Erkki KochKetola The NLF actually had a centralized command structure.
  • Erkki KochKetola Granted, it was also highly decentralized.
  • David Faunt Le Roy I think the structure of the Bolshevik Party is highly instructive. They went through periods of legality, semi-legality and illegality. They were underground, and did open work. They had Duma deputies, yet were opponents of parliamentary democracy. They had a presence in the unions and factories and working-class neighborhoods. They had a central committee, but also powerful local committees. They went through periods of revolution (1905-1907) and reaction (1908-1911). Whenever one layer of leaders got arrested, another stepped up. The arrests actually helped the party in that it forced the party to develop more and more cadres who could play a leading role. The rank and file played a leading role in the uprisings that brought down the Czar. The Party organized hundreds of thousands in opposition to the Provisional Government. And it was able to seize power from the capitalist government in what wad basically a surgical strike in October.
    16 hrs · Like · 1
  • Charles Brown Occupy was significantly spontaneous , in Lenin's sense in _What is to be done ?_. But it sort of rediscovered Lenin's theory of finance capital a bit. The length of time it last was a quantitative leap from all past protest demonstrations; and as I said it was at the symbolic finance capital center, "saying" that this Wall Street is a political location subject to popular protest. That's big time. The demonstrators are organic intellectuals largely , in the Gramscian sense.
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  • Ellis Reamt david what book do you recommend on the history of the bolshevik party? and wouldn't it be a rational conclusion that their structure is also what led to the removal of control from the soviets - centralization - and to stalin's rule?
    15 hrs · Like · 2
  • David Faunt Le Roy No not all. The main groups which maintain that Stalinism was merely an outgrowth of Leninism/Bolshevism are the Stalinists themselves and bourgeois historians who seek to associate Lenin with Stalin's crimes.

    I would recommend:

    The Bolsheviks Come to Power by Alexander Rabinowitch

    The History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky

    3-volume Lenin biography by Tony Cliff

    From Lenin to Stalin by Victor Serge

    Lenin Rediscovered by Lars Lih

    My Life by Leon Trotsky

    The Third International after Lenin by Trotsky

    The Revolution Betrayed by Trotsky

    The Stalin School of Falsification by Trotsky

    The Challenge of the Left Opposition, 2 vols., Pathfinder Press

    Year One of the Russian Revolution by Victor Serge

    The Comintern by Duncan Hallas

    Johm Riddell's Pathfinder Press and Haymarket Books editorial anthologies of Comintern documents from the 1st, 2nd and 4th World Congresses

    Lenin and the Revolutionary Party by Paul LeBlanc

    The Stalinist Legacy by Tariq Ali

    Let History Judge by Roy Medvedev

    The Bolsheviks in Power by Alexander Rabinowitch

    The booka by Victor Serge might be particularly of interest to you as he was an anarchist Bolshevik.
    15 hrs · Edited · Like · 1
  • David Faunt Le Roy I would also read about the other great communist party of that era, the German KPD.

    The premier history of the German Revolution is 'The German Revolution 1917-1923' by Pierre Broue

    Also:

    In the Steps of Rosa Luxemburg, Selected Writings of Paul Levi, Haymarket Books

    Karl Kautsky and The Socialist Revolution, 1880-1938 by Massimo Salvadori

    The Lost Revolution by Chris Harman

    The Lessons of October by Leon Trotsky
    15 hrs · Like · 2
  • Matt Kong Flash I've read Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution, but I can see that I need to read all these titles ESPECIALLY that three volume biography on Lenin. Damn, David Faunt Le Roy, you're a reading machine!
    14 hrs · Like · 2
  • Charles Boyd It was a spontaneous movement of opposition and (importantly) it exposed concretely the strategic primitivism and overall lack of anything resembling an organized radical left.
  • Charles Boyd It could have developed into something more permanent or at least resulted in the formation of an SDS-like umbrella organization for the broad left within a mass movement.
  • Kerry Vernon http://directaction.org.au/.../occupy_sydney_mobilises...
    directaction.org.au
    Direct Action was the paper of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP). At its f... See More
  • Kerry Vernon The state and the police successfully smashed Occupy Sydney and other Occupies around Australia, but there were interesting times and people. After it waned & the left & socialist groups left it degenerated into an apolitical squat & homeless food cent...See More
    7 hrs · Like · 1
  • Kerry Vernon One more: there was a debate in Occupy Sydney about the role of the police. I wrote the following article at the time http://directaction.org.au/.../can_police_be_part_of_the_99
    directaction.org.au
    Direct Action was the paper of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP). At its f... See More
  • Charles Brown As far as shortcomings, and in comparison with the Bolsheviks, of course, Occupy Wall Street did not lead a socialist revolution. However, I did not expect that. I had been calling for protests at the Wall Street site, politicizing the symbolic finance capital center, for several years before the Occupy took place.
     
     Occupy W is a reform, not revolutionary, spontaneous upsurge from middle strata and organic intellectuals, middle strata who are very much mixed wage-laborers, very little petit bourgeois activity in the sense of starting their own businesses. ( see _Contemporary Capitalism and The Middle Classes_ by S.N. Nadel)