Defending Radical NYC Art #Save5pointz

If you care about art, community, and resistance against gentrification in New York City, please  support 5 Pointz, an "outdoor art exhibit space in Long Island City, New York, considered to be the world’s premiere “graffiti Mecca,” where aerosol artists from around the globe paint colorful pieces on the walls of a 200,000-square-foot factory building". 5 Pointz have shown support for Occupy Wall St from the beginning, so let's show them what solidarity means!

Read more about the 5 pointz eviction battle

THE CALL FOR SUPPORT FROM 5 POINTZ:

We are reaching out to any and all supporters of 5 Pointz, now is the time!

We need your support, we need to show the city that art has value and money is not greater then culture. This fight is bigger then graffiti, bigger then a building, its about preserving something priceless, a piece of history and a monument know over to the world.

No War, Not Now, Not Ever

The “No War With Syria” movement denounces the complete disregard of the government of the United States for the will of the American people as reflected in the government's decision to start yet another war. The movement in no way support the actions of the Assad regime, but we recognize that US intervention will instigate more violence and suffering in Syria. As the U.S. is already hurting from a recession and perpetual wars, becoming involved in Syria will only create further destabilization in the Middle East and strip the people of the United States of desperately needed resources. The “No War With Syria” movement recognizes that the only the American people can stop U.S. intrusion in the Middle East, just as only the people of the Middle East can stop their own internal struggles. We call on everyone to join us in saying no to yet another U.S. invasion. We recognize that peace cannot be reached through bombs, drone attacks, and murder; peace is created through compassion and forgiveness, which must come from within. Please join us as we gather across the country to begin a campaign to stop the United States government from invading Syria.

Brother Martin and the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington Posted 3 days ago on Aug. 11, 2013, 4:17 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt Tags: Martin Luther King, Marching on Washington, Hoodies Up Cornell West spoke on Democracy Now recently about issues that should be remembered at the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington that coincides with the Million Hoodies March for Justice on August 24th, 2013. Brother Martin would not be invited to the very march in his name, because he would talk about drones. He’d talk about Wall Street criminality. He would talk about working class being pushed to the margins as profits went up for corporate executives in their compensation. He would talk about the legacies of white supremacy. Liberal reform is too narrow, is too truncated. And, of course, the two-party system is dying, and therefore it doesn’t have the capacity to speak to these kinds of issues. There’s no doubt that the vicious legacy of white supremacy affects the black upper classes, it affects the black middle classes. But those kinds of stories hide and conceal just how ugly and intensely vicious it is for black poor, brown poor. If that’s the case, why hasn’t the new Jim Crow been a priority in the Obama administration? Why has not the new Jim Crow been a priority for Eric Holder? If what they’re saying is something they feel deeply, if what they’re saying is that they’re—themselves and their children have the same status as Brother Jamal and Sister Latisha and Brother Ray Ray and Sister Jarell, then why has that not been a center part of what they do to ensure there’s fairness and justice? Well, the reason is political. Well, we don’t want to identify with black folk, because a black president can’t get too close to black folk, because Fox News, with their reactionary self in so many instances, will attack them, and that becomes the point of reference? No. If they’re going to be part of the legacy of Martin King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and the others, then the truth and justice stuff that you pursue, you don’t care who is coming at you. But, no, this black liberal class has proven itself to be too morally bankrupt, too hypocritical, and indifferent to criminality—Wall Street criminality, no serious talk about enforcement of torturers and wiretappers under the Bush administration. Why? Because they don’t want the subsequent administration to take them to jail. Any reference to the hunger strike of our brothers out in California and other places, dealing with torture? Sustained solitary confinement is a form of torture. And we won’t even talk about Guantánamo. Force-feeding, torture in its core—didn’t our dear brother Yasiin Bey point that out, the former Mos Def? God bless that brother. We must never tame Martin Luther King Jr. or Fannie Lou Hamer or Ella Baker or Stokely Carmichael. They were unbossed. They were unbought. That Martin was talking about a beloved community, which meant that it subverts any plantation—Bush’s plantation, Clinton’s plantation, Obama’s plantation—and the social forces behind those plantations, which have to do with Wall Street, have to do with multinational corporations. And we’re going to focus on poor people. We’re going to focus on working people across the board. We’re going to talk about the connection between drones, which is a form of—a form of crimes against humanity outside the national borders. We’re going to talk about Wall Street criminality. We’re going to talk about how we ensure that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have their dignity affirmed. We’re going to talk about the children. Martin Luther King Jr. was a free black man. He was a Jesus-loving free black man. Will the connection between drones, new Jim Crow, prison-industrial complex, attacks on the working class, escalating profits at the top, be talked about and brought together during that march? I don’t hold my breath. But Brother Martin’s spirit would want somebody to push it. And that’s part of his connection to Malcolm X. That’s part of his connection to so many of the great freedom fighters that go all the way back to the first slave who stepped on these decrepit shores.

It's Not About 20¢ — The Struggle In Brazil

Although not isolated from the uprisings that have been taking place around the world, the protests that have been taking place in Brazil are not merely a reflection of the global mood. In addition to the battles in the streets, there is a contest of stories taking place. Various forces across a diverse political landscape are locked in their attempts to manipulate and transform the narrative of this historic upheaval in their own image.

As is now very known, the spark that led to the protests was the increase of 20 cents in Brazilian reals on public transportation fares in São Paulo and other cities. The group that led the demonstrations from the beginning was the Free Fare Movement, known as MPL. It was formed after the World Social Forum in 2005, in the city of Porto Alegre. MPL defines itself as an horizontal, autonomous, nonviolent and non-partisan organization with a clear agenda: free and decent public transportation. In response to the most recent hike, starting on June 6, thousands responded to MPL’s calls and barricaded highways and avenues.

The marches were met with extreme brutality. A paramilitary police force used tear gas, rubber bullets and other so-called “non-lethal weapons” against peaceful protesters. There were hundreds of arrests. Over the course of one week, several more marches were organized, and their size grew. The repression from police escalated, and so did the protesters’ response. Buses, train stations and banks were looted. The numbers on the streets only increased, and the scope of political dissent expanded from just transportation to a much wider range of issues.

Meanwhile, the mass media played a role in trying to diminish the significance of the protests. “There is maybe the influence from the struggle in Turkey, where the fight is just and important,” political commentator Arnaldo Jabor said on national TV. “But this revolted middle class here isn’t worth even 20 cents.” Protesters were called “vandals” and “barbarians.” The São Paulo newspaper Folha published an editorial on June 13 claiming that “the few protesters that have something in their heads besides their hoodies justify the looting as a response to the supposed police violence.” But that night, Giuliana Vallone, a young reporter from the same newspaper, was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet by a military police officer. A photo of her injured face spread around the world.

As the protesters gained support from a large part of the population, a change came over the discourse of the Brazilian media. Jabor apologized publicly, saying that he actually wanted to see the youth in the streets. One day, the news was deeming the protesters vandals, and the next they became heroes. Pundits began calling on the youth to go to the streets wearing white, to ask for peace, and to fight for a “better country” and against “corruption.” Many activists blame this media endorsement for the increasingly nationalistic tone that subsequently came over the protests.

On June 17 there was a nationwide demonstration. Each city had its own way of participating. Demands relating to a variety of issues were on display, from transportation to education to the expense of preparing for the World Cup. But the overall tone was a very nationalist one. People were singing Brazil’s national anthem in the streets, and the country’s flag was everywhere.

In the capital city of Brasília, demonstrators take to the roof of the National Congress on June 17 during the largest mass demonstration in Brazil’s history.\ (NINJA Media)

“The march felt like a celebration of a World Cup victory,” wrote blogger, activist and sociologist Marilia Moschovich on the website Medium. “Ironic, right?”

It began to appear as if the demonstrations had been steered by the establishment media and its language of “corruption” as a nationalist uprising against the current president, Dilma Roussef, and her left-wing Worker’s Party. The next day was especially confusing for the leftists who had worked to organize the movement in the first place.

“Everything is so weird,” wrote Moschovich.

Despite the proliferation of agendas, MPL was clear about its aims from the beginning. Pedro Brandão, one of MPL’s organizers, said the morning of June 18, “We will keep pushing to revoke the hike. That’s what we went to the streets for.” He added, “Once we achieve the revocation of the hike, we will be an example of how autonomous, horizontal movements can achieve concrete victories with clear demands.”

Sure enough, by the end of the day, the fare hikes in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro had been cancelled.

The next day, MPL went to the streets of São Paulo to celebrate its victory, but protests continued across the majority of the country. Narratives became confusing as initially non-partisan messages were replaced with opposition to one party or another. Left-wing partisans were attacked by members of the extreme right and neo-Nazi groups. While the mainstream media kept pushing the conversation against corruption, blaming the Worker’s Party for all the country’s problems, some began to fear for a mobilization of the extreme right and even the possibility of a military coup.

As more time passes, however, no such coup seems likely. Moschovich wrote, “In the current moment, I think it is more likely to have a public opinion coup that will support authoritarian conservative politics within a democratic state.”

Countering that narrative, in turn, Brazil’s government took steps to address more of the protesters’ demands that it wanted to highlight. President Dilma proposed that all oil revenue should go to education and health care; this proposal has already undergone many changes, however, and it is still being debated by the legislature.

“The giant woke up” has been the slogan used by media. And, like the 2011 uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, there was enough unity about demands to compel prompt action from those in power. But the question remains of how the breadth of discontent in Brazil will be channelled by those in the streets and those with access to the media.

University of São Paulo professor Pablo Ortellado believes that the strategy of concrete demands should continue to guide the narrative. “The comrades from the popular committees against the World Cup need to find the ‘20 cents’ of their campaigns,” he wrote on his Facebook page, “so that we can articulate the struggle throughout the country on a strategy of effective achievements.”

A New Declaration

When, in the course of human development, existing institutions prove inadequate to the needs of man, when they serve merely to enslave, rob, and oppress mankind, the people have the eternal right to rebel against, and overthrow, these institutions.

The mere fact that these forces -- inimical to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- are legalized by statute laws, sanctified by divine rights, and enforced by political power, in no way justifies their continued existence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all human beings, irrespective of race, color, or sex, are born with the equal right to share at the table of life; that to secure this right, there must be established among men economic, social, and political freedom; we hold further that government exists but to maintain special privilege and property rights; that it coerces man into submission and therefore robs him of dignity, self-respect, and life.

The history of the American kings of capital and authority is the history of repeated crimes, injustice, oppression, outrage, and abuse, all aiming at the suppression of individual liberties and the exploitation of the people. A vast country, rich enough to supply all her children with all possible comforts, and insure well-being to all, is in the hands of a few, while the nameless millions are at the mercy of ruthless wealth gatherers, unscrupulous lawmakers, and corrupt politicians.

Sturdy sons of America are forced to tramp the country in a fruitless search for bread, and many of her daughters are driven into the street, while thousands of tender children are daily sacrificed on the altar of Mammon. The reign of these kings is holding mankind in slavery, perpetuating poverty and disease, maintaining crime and corruption; it is fettering the spirit of liberty, throttling the voice of justice, and degrading and oppressing humanity. It is engaged in continual war and slaughter, devastating the country and destroying the best and finest qualities of man; it nurtures superstition and ignorance, sows prejudice and strife, and turns the human family into a camp of Ishmaelites.

We, therefore, the liberty-loving men and women, realizing the great injustice and brutality of this state of affairs, earnestly and boldly do hereby declare, That each and every individual is and ought to be free to own himself and to enjoy the full fruit of his labor; that man is absolved from all allegiance to the kings of authority and capital; that he has, by the very fact of his being, free access to the land and all means of production, and entire liberty of disposing of the fruits of his efforts; that each and every individual has the unquestionable and unabridgeable right of free and voluntary association with other equally sovereign individuals for economic, political, social, and all other purposes, and that to achieve this end man must emancipate himself from the sacredness of property, the respect for man-made law, the fear of the Church, the cowardice of public opinion, the stupid arrogance of national, racial, religious, and sex superiority, and from the narrow puritanical conception of human life.

And for the support of this Declaration, and with a firm reliance on the harmonious blending of man's social and individual tendencies, the lovers of liberty joyfully consecrate their uncompromising devotion, their energy and intelligence, their solidarity and their lives..

This `Declaration' was written by Emma Goldman at the request of a certain newspaper, which subsequently refused to publish it, though the article was already in composition. (Published in Mother Earth, Vol. IV, no. 5, July 1909.)

Capitalism Causes Earthquakes

One of the biggest firms responsible for the practice of fracking has admitted that their actions caused seismic activity in England.

Fracking involves cracking or fracturing rock, containing trapped shale gas, by using pressurized liquid. Shale gas is an increasingly important energy resource though there have been claims that it is worse for the environment than coal, largely due to the fracking process.

Analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased. There have been previous cases where seismologists have suggested a link between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes, but data was limited, so drawing a definitive conclusion was not possible for these cases.

Drilling either for fossil fuels or renewable energy exploration may cause earthquakes. Both geophysicists and oilmen agree that natural-gas drilling trigger earthquakes. One oilman stated that "there is not the slightest doubt" that gas production caused the temblors."

A New York Times report confirmed drilling for oil sets off earthquakes and detailed how a drilling project near San Francisco and a similar project in Basel, Switzerland were shut down over concerns they triggered damaging earthquakes. Both diggings involved fracturing hard rock more than two miles deep.

Large earthquakes tend to originate at great depths, breaking rock that far down carries more serious risk. Seismologists have long known that human activities can trigger quakes, but they say the science is not developed enough to say for certain what will or will not set off major tremors.

The time for denial is over. So, how are we going to stop them?

#Block4Trayvon: A Proposal to Block Everything

Black life is given no value by the forces of law, order, and property. While #hoodiesup shows a historical force drawn up in opposition, the direction of the protests is still uncertain. Some demonstrators call for a federal civil rights suit, while others draw attention to the larger structural oppression faced by black and poor people. Some want to stay focused on a single vigilante, while others draw the connection to Oscar Grant, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, and Rodney King. Some want to ignore the institution of the police, while the rest of us know that Zimmerman is a wannabe cop, and that every cop is a wannabe Zimmerman.

 Leaders urge peace, calm, and obedience. But even if peaceful rallies result in a federal suit against Zimmerman, will that change what brought us into the streets in the first place? Do we mean it when we say, “Never Again”? What would it take to actually stop all this misery?
 Every movement that’s ever meant anything has given itself the means to disrupt daily life. If there is a common thread that runs through Civil Rights to Black Power, this is it. The simple question is how to become a force. Moments of disruption teach us new ways to relate to each other and our cities. Most importantly, they teach us that we are powerful. A determined people doesn’t have to rely on wannabe cops or politicians. That’s why the cowards caution us to obey the law over the call in our hearts. They know this—and it terrifies them.

“I’m not shocked, I’m outraged.” The murder of a black teen is not the exception, but the norm; we are coming to fists with normal life in America. Hence, #hoodiesup must disrupt the places that sustain this normal: cities, highways, trains, ports, social media—all the flows that compose the false harmony of America. The sit-ins in Pittsburgh and Florida, the marches blocking streets around the country, the highway takeovers in Oakland, LA, and Houston, all share a wisdom: every place that politics and commerce carry on as if nothing has happened is ripe for disruption. Block everything!

What Do Bosnia, Bulgaria, And Brazil Have In Common?

Once again, it’s kicking off everywhere: from Turkey to Bosnia, Bulgaria and Brazil, the endless struggle for real democracy resonates around the globe.

What do a park in Istanbul, a baby in Sarajevo, a security chief in Sofia, a TV station in Athens and bus tickets in Sao Paulo have in common? However random the sequence may seem at first, a common theme runs through and connects all of them. Each reveals, in its own particular way, the deepening crisis of representative democracy at the heart of the modern nation state. And each has, as a result, given rise to popular protests that have in turn sparked nationwide demonstrations, occupations and confrontations between the people and the state.

In Turkey, protesters have been taking to the streets and clashing with riot police for over two weeks in response to government attempts to tear down the trees and resurrect an old Ottoman-era barracks at the location of Istanbul’s beloved Gezi Park. But, as I indicated in a lengthy analysis of the protests, the violent police crackdown on#OccupyGezi was just the spark that lit the prairie, allowing a wide range of grievances to tumble in, ultimately exposing the crisis of representation at the heart of Erdogan’s authoritarian neoliberal government.

Now, protests over similar seemingly “trivial” local grievances are sparking mass demonstrations elsewhere. In Brazil, small-scale protests against a hike in transportation fees in Sao Paulo revealed the extreme brutality of the police force, which violently assaulted protesters — even pepper spraying a camera man, shooting a photographer in the eye with a rubber bullet, and arresting those carrying vinegar to protect themselves from the tear gas. After four nights of violent repression this week, the protests now appear to be gaining momentum.

Fed up with increasing inflation, crumbling infrastructure and stubbornly high inequality and crime rates, many Brazilians are simply outraged that the government is willing to invest billions into pharaonic projects that do not only ignore the people’s plight but actively undermine it. The militarization and bulldozing of the poor favelas and indigenous villages ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics are a case in point. As usual, the ruling Workers’ Party seems more concerned about pleasing capital than helping workers.

[OccupyWallSt.org Editor's note: Here in Chicago, USA, we feel a particular affinity for those tens of thousands who fight to #ChangeBrazil and have courageously taken to the streets in cities across their country because we, too, are being hit with similar austerity measures. Here, our authoritarian "Mayor 1%" Rahm Emmanuel is forcing through imminent closures of 50 public schools in spite of spirited community resistance (including mass demonstrations, strikes, occupations, lawsuits, and more) from unions, public school teachers, students, and families, Occupiers, and community members. These school closures are almost entirely located in people of color-majority neighborhoods that are already dealing with disinvestment, widespread poverty, lack of opportunity, and violence. We are told the schools must be closed because we supposedly "cannot afford" to keep them open. At the very same time, the city has pledged $100 million to build a new, and unnecessary, basketball stadium for a private university. Here, as in Brazil and across the world, these struggles reveal the true nature of austerity: It is not a question of lack of funding, but of priorities. The 1% is more interested in expensive entertainment for the ruling classes than education for poor and working peoples. Our struggles are connected, and our movements are united!]

Meanwhile, in Sarajevo, the inability of a family to obtain travel ID for their sick baby — who needs urgent medical attention that she cannot receive in Bosnia-Herzegovina — exposed the fundamental flaws at the heart of the nominally democratic post-Yugoslavian state. On June 5, while the government was busy negotiating with foreign bankers to attract new investment, thousands of people occupied parliament square, temporarily locking the nation’s politicians up inside and forcing the prime minister to escape through a window.

While competing ethnic fractions vie for political power, the Bosnian people continue to suffer. By playing the race and religion cards, Bosnian politicians hope to keep the people divided while retaining the financial spoils of foreign investment and World Bank and EU development loans for themselves. But in a sign that most ethnic divisions are politicallyrather than socially constructed, the Occupy Sarajevo protesters now have a simple message for their politicians: “you are all disgusting, no matter what ethnicity you belong to.”

On Friday, Bulgaria joined the budding wave of struggles that began in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 and that was recently revived through the Turkish uprising. After the appointment of media (and mafia) mogul Delyan Peevski as head of the State Agency for National Security, tens of thousands took to the streets of Sofia and other cities throughout the country to protest his appointment, which was approved by parliament without any debate and with a mere 15 minutes between his nomination and his (pre-guaranteed) election.

Chanting “Mafia” and calling upon Peevski to resign, the Bulgarians are warning their politicians that a limit has been reached. Ever since the transition from state communism to democratic capitalism empowered a tiny minority of oligarchs to enrich themselves by feeding off the state’s public possessions, Bulgaria has been effectively ruled by a Mafia kleptocracy. As in any capitalist state, political and business elites have become one, undermining the promise of democracy the Bulgarians were made at the so-called End of History.

Greece, in the meantime, finally appears to have been waken up from its austerity-induced slumber. Following the decision of the Troika’s neoliberal handmaiden, Antonis Samaras, to shut down the state’s public broadcaster ERT overnight and to fire its 2,700 workers without any warning whatsoever, the workers of ERT simply occupied the TV and radio stations and continued to emit their programs through livestreaming, making ERT the first worker-run public broadcaster in Europe. ERT workers have since been joined by tens of thousands of protesters and workers, who on Thursday held a nationwide general strike to protest the ERT’s closure.

At first sight, it may seem like these protests are all simply responses to local grievances and should be read as such. But while each context has its own specificities that must be taken into account, it would be naive to discard the common themes uniting them. As my friend, colleague and fellow ROAR contributor Leonidas Oikonomakis just pointed out in a new opinion piece, the Turkish uprising may have started over a couple of trees, but we shouldn’t let that blind us to the forest: the obvious structural dimension at play in this new wave of struggles.

If we take a closer look at each of the protests, we find that they are not so local after all. In fact, each of them in one way or another deals with the increasing encroachment of financial interests and business power on traditional democratic processes, and the profound crisis of representation that this has wrought. Furthermore, the protests show a dawning awareness that the divide-and-rule practices of the ruling class everywhere — pitching the religious against the secular, Bosnians against Serbs, blacks against indigenous against whites, poor against slightly-less-poor, and ‘natives’ against immigrants — are just part of a strategy to keep us from realizing our own power.

In a word, what we are witnessing is what Leonidas Oikonomakis and I have called theresonance of resistance: social struggles in one place in the world transcending their local boundaries and inspiring protesters elsewhere to take matters into their own hands and defy their governments in order to bring about genuine freedom, social justice and real democracy. The resonance of these struggles across national, ethnic and religious boundaries tells us that three decades of neoliberal peace since the End of History were not really “peace” at all; they were merely the temporary victory of other side in a hidden global class war.

Now that has come to an end. A new Left has risen, inspired by a fresh autonomous spirit that has long since cleansed itself of the stale ideological legacies and collective self-delusions that animated the political conflicts of the Cold War and beyond. One chant of the protesters in Sao Paulo revealed it all: “Peace is over, Turkey is here!” And so are Bulgaria, Bosnia and Greece — as well as Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Chile, Mexico, Québec and every other place in the world where the people have risen up in the global struggle for real democracy.

The ominous bottom-line for those in power is simple: we are everywhere. And this global occupation thing? It’s only just getting started.