Fur Is for Dummies

Thebiggest shopping day of the year is also the biggest fur-free day of the year—from Anchorage, Alaska to our headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, the young, the old, and even, well, dummies were out in force to urge shoppers to cross fur off their holiday lists.

Even a little bit of fur trim means a lifetime of suffering for minks, foxes, rabbits, and other animals on fur farms, who are crammed into filthy wire cages and are often genitally electrocuted to avoid damaging their pelts. Even dog and cat fur has been found in clothing exported from China to the U.S.

Occupy Everywhere: Michael Moore, Naomi Klein on Next Steps for the Movement Against Corporate Power

How does the Occupy Wall Street movement move from "the outrage phase" to the "hope phase," and imagine a new economic model? In a Democracy Now! special broadcast, we bring you excerpts from a recent event that examined this question and much more. "Occupy Everywhere: On the New Politics and Possibilities of the Movement Against Corporate Power," a panel discussion hosted by The Nation magazine and The New School in New York City, features Oscar-winning filmmaker and author Michael Moore; Naomi Klein, best-selling author of the "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism"; Rinku Sen of the Applied Research Center and publisher of ColorLines; Occupy Wall Street organizer Patrick Bruner; and veteran journalist William Greider, author of "Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country.

Check out the special broadcast here!

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/25/occupy_everywhere_michael_moore_naomi_klein

Occupy Wall Street Movement Protesters Look for Ways to Feed the Web

Social media has played a vital role in the Occupy Wall Street movement since it began as a Twitter experiment in July, when the anticonsumerism magazine Adbusters posted a suggestion for a Sept. 17 march in Lower Manhattan. And over the last two months, protesters used cellphones and social sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to spread their message around the world.       
Now, with cities starting to break up dozens of encampments from New York to Oakland, Calif., protesters may no longer have a physical presence that helps produce daily images and live streaming video for the 24-hour news cycle. And, despite having created a large network on social media sites, organizers within the movement and social media experts say that online tools alone are not enough to sustain it.

“I think the online component was critical — the ability to stream video, to capture the images and create records and narratives of sacrifice and resistance,” said Yochai Benkler, a professor at Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. But he added that a complete retreat to an online-only form would be a mistake.

“The ability to focus on a national agenda will depend on actual, on-the-ground, face-to-face actions, laying your body down for your principles — with the ability to capture the images and project them to the world,” Mr. Benkler said, pointing to the outrage over the use of pepper spray at the University of California, Davis, last weekend as an example of an encounter that ratcheted up the online conversation.

It was video of that episode spreading on YouTube that helped get the conversation going. YouTube is part of the formidable digital presence that has been created with 1.7 million videos, viewed 73 million times, that are tagged with the keyword “occupy” in YouTube’s News and Politics category.
The movement counts more than 400 Facebook pages with 2.7 million fans around the world. On Tumblr.com, the “We Are the 99 Percent” blog continues to publish the personal stories of hundreds of people struggling with student debt, health care costs and foreclosure. There are also dozens of new wikis and Web pages, including OccupyWallSt.org and HowToOccupy.org.

On Twitter there are more than 100 accounts with tens of thousands of followers that come together under the hashtag #ows. The main account, @occupywallstnyc, has more than 94,000 followers.
But movement organizers recognize that they will need news to deliver updates.

To help propel the Occupy movement forward and prompt discussion across social networks, organizers are planning multiple protests in the coming weeks. A general strike has been called for Monday at University of California campuses, and a National Day of Action is planned for Dec. 6 to protest foreclosures. On Dec. 10, organizers are hoping to repeat the huge success they had in October when a call for a global day of action led to dozens of new encampments and protests that rippled from Asia to Europe. They are urging people to take to the streets on that day for a global human rights day.

Another global event would help provide fuel for the groups’ ambitious live video-streaming efforts. The real-time video showed people around the world what was happening in Zuccotti Park in New York, and also allowed them to talk about it on video-streaming platforms, including Livestream.com.
What began as one channel live streaming from the park has evolved into more than 200 Occupy-related unique channels on video-streaming sites.

“We can provide the real-time perspective, and we can also give people a place to talk about what they are seeing,” said Vlad Teichberg, 39, one of the volunteers who helps operate GlobalRevolution.tv, the first Occupy channel on Livestream.com.

Mr. Teichberg and other volunteers are planning to deliver regular broadcasts from a new television studio in a dilapidated building in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. They want it to serve as the main portal for aggregating and curating video content about the movement from all over the world.
An analysis of the conversation on Twitter shows how important it is for the movement to have real things on the ground to talk about.

In the last month, the conversation about Occupy was beginning to wane but picked up again last week, according to an analysis by Trendrr, a social media analytics firm. That is due in part to the protests that followed the well-publicized police raid on the encampment at Zuccotti Park and the outrage at the pepper-spraying in California.

According to Jason Damata, a spokesman for Trendrr, the daily volume of posts about the movement on Twitter averaged 400,000 to 500,000 a day since Oct. 7. Mr. Damata said there were just over 2 million Twitter posts on Nov. 15, the day the police took apart the Zuccotti Park camp. This represented the highest volume of posts about the movement on Twitter during the last month.

But Occupy Wall Street’s online visibility could also diminish if other events, like the protests in Egypt this week, pick up momentum and drive the conversation online. Or they could help bolster it.
Another firm, 140Elect.com, which tracks political trends online, noted a rise in tweets in the last week that shared content from both the Occupy movement and Egypt, according to the firm’s co-founder, Adam Green.

Mr. Green also observed that the conversation on Twitter was shifting from what was taking place inside the Occupy encampments to major news about the movement and other large protests around the world, including Egypt.

Buy Nothing Day

Occupy Wallstreet Tshirt design

America’s Not Broke: Solving the Debt Crisis By Making Nation More Equitable, Green & Secure

The bipartisan so-called "supercommittee" has failed to reach an agreement on reducing the federal deficit after three months of negotiations over taxes and spending. The full Congress will now have a little over a year to come up with an alternative. A trigger of $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts over 10 years to military and domestic programs takes effect in 2013. “What people need to remember is that we are a rich country and that this crisis is actually an opportunity to harness our abundant resources in ways that will position us better for the future,” says Sarah Anderson, co-author of a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, “America Isn’t Broke: “How to Pay for the Crisis While Making the Country More Equitable, Green, and Secure.

 As we turn to Washington where the bipartisan so-called, "super committee" has failed to reach an agreement on reducing the federal deficit. On Monday, Democrats and Republicans abandoned their effort for sweeping deal after three months of talks that failed to bridge deep divides over taxes and spending. The full Congress will now have a little over a year to come up with an alternative. A trigger of $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts over 10 years takes to military and domestic programs takes effect in 2013. At the White House last night, President Obama faulted Republicans for the impasse. He vowed to veto any Republican effort to exempt military spending from the mandated spending cuts in 2013.

 Although the news of the super committee’s failure made for a somber mood on Capitol Hill Monday, some say the bipartisan deadlock could leave more room tax payers in shaping the nation’s fiscal policy. Instead of a select group of lawmakers, the full Congress will now be tasked with reaching a spending deal during a year when many of its members are up for reelection. They’ll be doing so amidst a political landscape that’s different than when it was when the super committee began three months ago with the Occupy Wall Street movement now in full swing. Well, on the heels of the super committee’s failure, we look at a new report that suggests a series of fiscal proposals that try to address the concerns expressed in the Occupy protests nationwide. The report is released by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. It’s called, "America Isn’t Broke: How to Pay for the Crisis While Making the Country More Equitable, Green, and Secure."

 "America Isn’t Broke." It reminds people that we’re a rich country, we’ve just been spending too much money on war and handing out tax breaks to rich people and corporations, and we identify a number of fiscal reforms that could, as you said, save—-create $824 billion in savings while making the country stronger by making us more equitable, by having a cleaner environment and making us safer. And so, first of all, we tackle the problem of Wall Street and the wealthy not paying their fair share.

 What’s overwhelmed this debate is the idea that we’re broke, that we have no choice except to make these painful cuts that will affect the poor, affect the elderly, affect all of us. And what people need to remember we are a rich country and that this crisis is actually an opportunity to harness our abundant resources in ways that will position us better for the future. So things like slashing all of the subsidies we now hand out to the big fossil fuel industries. These are subsidies that are keeping us dependent on foreign oil. If we remove those, companies will have more of an incentive to adopt new green technologies that could make us more competitive. And then on the war issue, the public opinion polls are showing the majority of Americans support cutting, ending the war in Afghanistan. We can save money by doing that and also eliminating all kinds of obsolete weapons systems, military bases that were developed during the Cold War era and really serve no real purpose anymore. So we have plenty of money in this country to not only deal with our deficit over the long term, but free up funds to put into real job creation now.

This is an issue I think the super committee completely ignored. All of the money that is now going into these perverse incentives to support the fossil fuel industry, making oil and gas artificially cheap. If these industries had to pay the full cost of the environmental harm caused by their products and services, they would have a much greater incentive to move into greener technologies. We’re seeing other countries develop their own domestic industries, to develop alternative energies, technologies.

We’re falling behind in that area. And again, to have a vision of our economy that is looking 20, 30 years down the road, if you do that, you see we need to invest now in ways that can not only create jobs and put people back to work, but also position America to be much more competitive and healthy down the road. No deal is better than a bad deal that would have resulted in a lot of immediate cuts that would have caused real suffering in our communities. We do have this window, between now and
January 13th, when the automatic cuts are supposed to go into effect. People should really redouble their efforts to push for a bold vision for this economy that would make us stronger, that would have a more equitable society, a healthier democracy. This is an opportunity to push that vision. And we’re already seeing in the polls that the majority of Americans are for increasing taxes on the wealthy. That means a lot of Republicans out there disagree with the position of the people who are representing them in Congress. So this is a real opportunity to turn things around.

Occupy Bat Signal for the 99%

On November 17th, tens of thousands of people peacefully gathered in Foley Square in solidarity with #OWS. It was a powerful night of music, chant, and protest. We marched across the Brooklyn Bridge finding strength in our numbers and inspiration in our shared resolve to challenge the neoliberal economic system that controls our government and destroys our communities. As we marched a beautiful light appeared in downtown Manhattan......

     

Celebrate a Vegan Holiday!

Chances are, if you’re hosting a holiday feast this year, you’ll have at least one friend or family member who will be a little flustered by the feathered fowl at the center of the table. For either ethical or health reasons, many people are making the switch to a vegetarian or vegan (vegetarian minus the eggs, dairy products, and other animal products) diet. Although this is all well and good for them (and for turkeys), it can present a definite challenge for their carnivorous hosts.

These delicious recipes will please every palate and make it easier to give up the giblets, giving everyone—including animals—something to be thankful for this holiday season.

Appetizers and Snacks
Soups and Salads
Entrées
Side Dishes
Gravies
Faux Turkeys
Desserts
Beverages
Meals

In order to avoid ruffling any feathers this holiday season, PETA has dished up these handy tips:

• Make the holiday stuffing vegetarian-friendly by using vegetable broth instead of a meat-based broth.
• Great gravy is a cinch with canned Franco-American mushroom gravy or Hain instant vegan gravy, available in traditional brown or “chicken” flavors. Just add water and simmer.
• Serve any one of these tasty vegan turkeys instead of the traditional fowl.
• When baking the holiday bread, be sure to use an egg replacer and soy milk in place of eggs and milk.
• Not sure what to make for hors d’oeuvres? Check out our recipe page and choose from a variety of tasty vegan recipes.
• Swap the milk and butter with soy milk and margarine for vegan mashed potatoes that everyone will love.
• Whip up a vegan dessert using one of our recipes, or if you’re in a pinch, pick up some nondairy ice cream for a quick and delicious dessert.
• Be sure to have a vegan dressing for the salad; our shopping guide has a list of vegan dressings that can be found at most grocery stores.
• Forgo the butter this year and use margarine instead. Try Earth Balance, or check out our shopping guide for more vegan margarines.
• Save time in the kitchen by having each of your guests bring a vegan dish to share.

Veganize Your Thanksgiving!

Is the thought of a vegan Thanksgiving overwhelming? If so, relax. It's super easy—all you have to do is use vegan products instead of animal products. That's it.

Here are some popular vegan alternatives to common animal ingredients found in Thanksgiving recipes:

• Replace butter with Earth Balance.
• Replace sour cream with Tofutti Sour Supreme.
• Replace cream cheese with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese.
• Replace marshmallows with Dandies.
• Replace mayo with Vegenaise.
• Replace turkey with Tofurky or Gardein.
• Replace milk with Silk.
• Replace cheese with Daiya.
• Replace beef stock with vegetable stock.
• Replace eggs with applesauce, bananas, and more!

Here's how you work it: Find out who is making the food for your Thanksgiving dinner and ask them to buy the vegan versions of these products and use them instead of the animal versions. No one will be able to tell the difference (I know from experience).

If you're shut down, just make a couple of dishes of your own and take them with you to your Thanksgiving celebration! You'll look like a good person for making food to share, plus you can still eat tasty food.

Good luck!

Long Island Food Not Bombs Thanksgiving Bonanza 2011

Starting November 19th and going through November 25th Long Island Food Not Bombs and Community Solidarity, Inc. will be holding their largest endeavor to date; it will include parties, Food Shares, copious amounts of decadent meals, the sharing of clothing, books and the organized efforts of hundreds of community members.

The largest of all these events will be the Vegan Thanksgiving. It's a 2-day affair that starts as an all night cooking party, (on Nov.19th, everyone is invited) and culminates into the Vegan Thanksgiving Food Share the next day (Nov.20th) in Hempstead, “Hempstead Food Share Bonanza”.

The Hempstead Food Share, on November 20th, will be the largest Food Not Bombs ever (even bigger than last years, which was the largest FNB event to date)! We expect to be able to share a feast with everyone that comes! We'll then be continuing the week with nearly a dozen events spread across our Food Shares in Bed-Stuy, Coram, Huntington and Farmingville.

Please Spread the word! This is our most ambitious project to date and to pull it off we are going to
need your help, your friends help and even the help of their friends. Solidarity is what makes Long Island Food Not Bombs so strong and we ask that you help us make these events even more absurdly inspirational than we could ever imagine.

Whom Do You Serve?

This incident took place at UC Davis. See below for video of this incident, as well as more examples of state repression against the 99% movement across the U.S.
*TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic images.
Such incidents are unfortunately common. Brutal repression has long been a daily reality for people of color, trans and queer people, criminalized drug users, sex workers, and other marginalized communities. But now that the 99% and the Occupy movement are standing up for social and economic justice, we all are subject to those same violent tactics of repression. How can the police protect and serve the public, when they repeatedly assault the public in the interest of the 1%? What exactly are the police defending -- our right to free speech and peaceful assembly, or broken financial and government institutions?

Police officers that brutalize people fighting for democracy and against the tyranny of the 1% need to be brought to justice. We call on police to protect and serve by taking direct action to prevent the abuses of power by their fellow officers. More broadly, we call on police to work to end the criminal injustice system that profits from the systematic imprisonment and dehumanization of poor and working class people, queer and trans people, people of color and other marginalized groups. We call on all police officers to disobey illegal orders and follow the example Captain Raymond Lewis and others who stand proudly in solidarity with the 99%.

A few more examples of repression, from Los Angeles and Portland:

November 17: Historic Day of Action for the 99%

November 17 Day of Action:

• Over 30,000 People Rally in New York City (NYPD estimated 32,500), including organized contingents of workers, students, and other members of “the 99%”
• Actions in at least 30 cities across the country and around the world
• Commemoration of 2-Months Since Birth of the 99% Movement, Festival of Lights on Brooklyn Bridge
• Blockade of all Entry-Points to NYSE; hundreds participate in nonviolence civil disobedience
• Sense that a powerful and diverse civic movement for social justice is on the ascent

Tens of thousands took action Thursday, November 17 to demand that our political system serve all of us — not just the wealthy and powerful. The NYPD estimated tonight’s crowd at 32,500 people, at the culmination of the day of action. Thousands more also mobilized in at least 30 cities across the United States. Demonstrations were also held in cities around the world.

"Our political system should serve all of us — not just the very rich and powerful. Right now Wall Street owns Washington," said participant Beka Economopoulos. "We are the 99% and we are here to reclaim our democracy."

New York led the charge in this energizing day for the emerging movement. In the wake of billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s predawn raid of Occupy Wall Street at Liberty Square, 1:00am Tuesday morning, thousands of people throughout the five boroughs and the greater region converged to take peaceful action. Following Bloomberg’s action, the slogan “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come” became the new meme of the 99% movement overnight. The mobilization today proved that the movement is on the ascent and is capable of navigating obstacles.

The day started at 7am with a convergence of a few thousand people on Wall Street. All entry points to the New York Stock Exchange were blockaded. 'People's mics' broke out at barricades, with participants sharing stories of struggling in a dismal and unfair economy.

Through the course of the day, at least 200 people were arrested for peaceful assembly and nonviolent civil disobedience, included City Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito, City Council Member Jumaane Williams, Workers United International Vice President Wilfredo Larancuent, SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry, SEIU 1199 President George Gresham, CWA Vice President Chris Shelton, CWA Vice President , Fr. Luis Barrios of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization-IFCO, retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis, and many others.

At 3:00pm, thousands of students converged at Union Square in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. They held a teach-in to discuss their concerns about the prospect of a lifetime of debt and economic insecurity. They held a student General Assembly and marched en masse to Foley Square.

The rally at Foley Square was electric. It was remarkably diverse in participation, across race, religion, gender, and age. As the rally concluded, thousands of participants walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, holding up lights — for a “festival of lights” to mark two months since the birth of the “99% movement”. (November 17 marks two months since the start of Occupy Wall Street at Liberty Square.)

Last Day To Get Your Stuff Back

If you were present when the NYPD attacked Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park) in the middle of the night to raze our encampment and destroy our homes, today is the last day the city is willing to return the personal possessions they stole.

Date/Time
Date(s) - 18 Nov 2011
8:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Location
Manhattan District 7 Garage (Map)
650 West 56th St.
Manhattan, NY

Occupy Wall Street Draws Massive Turnout in NYC and Across the Nation to Mark 2-Month Milestone

The Occupy Wall Street movement entered its third month Thursday with protests against the economic system in dozens of cities across the country. Reports estimated some 300 people were arrested nationwide, with the majority of the arrests taking place in New York City when protesters attempted to shut down the New York Stock Exchange.

Thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters swarmed the streets of Lower Manhattan Thursday morning, kicking off a day of mass demonstrations and the arrest of well over 200 people. After weeks of planning, protesters chose to clog the Financial District with a series of staggered marches, entering the Financial District from multiple directions in an effort to delay the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange and shut down Wall Street. The demonstrators linked arms and formed human barricades in front of key intersections in the area. According to organizers of the action, online RSVPs for the protest tripled after protesters were evicted from their base of operations at Zuccotti Park, renamed Liberty Square earlier this week.

The city responded to the demonstration with full force. At least four helicopters hovered overhead while scores of NYPD officers, vehicles and barricades could be seen on every street. Police used batons and physical force to break up human barricades and forcibly arrested protesters who defied orders to stay out of the street. The department claims more than 240 people were arrested over the course of the morning. Though the opening bell did ring and Wall Street managed to conduct business as usual, the daily operations of the Financial District were significantly altered by the day’s actions. The protesters largely viewed the demonstration as a success and a declaration that the Occupy movement is still strong.

Yesterday was an amazing demonstration of people power. We had thousands of people pour into the streets around Wall Street, marching together strongly, dropping off hundreds of people at each access point, that it was closed down. We set up human barricades, people linking arms, preventing people from getting inside. People were arrested, blocking people coming in. And it’s been a huge day so far.

Occupy Wall Street’s National Day of Action Launches with Protest at NY Stock Exchange

Today is a national day of action to mark the start of the third month of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Here in New York, organizers have been distributing posters reading "Shut Down Wall Street! Occupy the Subways! Take the Square!" As we broadcast protesters marched in various parts of the Financial District in an attempt to block the New York Stock Exchange from opening at 9:30 a.m. Labor organizers are planning protests at dozens of bridges across the country today as part of a campaign to highlight the need for increased spending on the nation’s infrastructure. In Portland, protesters are planning to occupy the Steel Bridge. In Seattle, an action will target the Montlake Bridge. In Washington, D.C., protesters will march on the Key Bridge. In New York, a 5 p.m. action is set at the Brooklyn Bridge. The protests come just two days after New York police raided Occupy Wall Street at Liberty Plaza and destroyed the encampment. Protesters have been allowed to return to the park, but without sleeping bags, tents or musical instruments. Democracy Now!'s Ryan Devereaux reports live from Wall Street, where protesters, with help from New York police, blockaded all streets leading to the Stock Exchange. "The plan is for sort of a three-pronged blitz on the Financial District, marches coming from all different directions, and trying to basically swarm the area with people," Devereaux says. "The NYPD's response has been equally robust. There are police vehicles, officers and barricades on every single street

A national day of action is being held today to mark the start of the third month of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Here in New York City, organizers have been distributing posters reading "Shut Down Wall Street! Occupy the Subways! Take the Square!"
As we speak, protesters are marching in various parts of the Financial District in an attempt to block the New York Stock Exchange from opening at 9:30.

Labor organizers are planning protests at dozens of bridges across the country today as part of a campaign to highlight the need for increased spending on the nation’s infrastructure. In [Portland], protesters are planning to occupy the Steel Bridge. In [Seattle], an action will target the Montlake Bridge. In Washington, D.C., protesters will march on the Key Bridge. And here in New York at 5:00 p.m., an action is set at the Brooklyn Bridge.

The protests come just two days after New York police raided the Occupy Wall Street at Liberty Plaza and destroyed the encampment. Protesters have been allowed to return to the park, but without sleeping bags, tents or musical instruments.

A national day of action is being held today to mark the start of the third month of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Here in New York City, organizers have been distributing posters reading "Shut Down Wall Street! Occupy the Subways! Take the Square!"

Now, the NYPD’s response has been equally robust. There are police vehicles, officers and barricades on every single street. There are four helicopters hovering above the Financial District this morning. The police are definitely out in full force. City officials say they have had made plans to deal with tens of thousands in the streets, if necessary. Police wear their riot gear, helmets. And it’s a tense situation. The police have set up these barricades at every major intersection near the Financial District, and they’re checking work IDs of people that are employed in this area. And this is something that actually has been going on for the last two months of this occupation, and it’s been a major complaint among business owners here and people that work in the Financial District. The barricades and the extremely heavy police presence has really slowed down the ability of people to get to work and commerce and those sorts of things. So, it definitely frustrates the people that work here in the Financial District.

Mad Cow Disease: We're Not out of the Woods

Alarming new findings from Britain's Health Protection Agency reveal that many people could still be infected with, and eventually die from, mad cow disease. In humans, it is referred to as "new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease," or vCJD. As leading vCJD expert Professor John Collinge notes, "The incubation period, where there are no symptoms, can last for decades."



But that's Great Britain, not the U.S., right? Well, we're potentially at an even higher risk because while Europe banned the macabre farming practice that is believed to have caused mad cow disease—feeding ground-up farmed animals to other farmed animals—it is still legal in the United States. And while England tests every cow slaughtered for the presence of the disease, the U.S. tests only a small percentage.

The symptoms of vCJD are so similar to those of dementia or Alzheimer'sthat there is some indication that a large number of Americans may have been misdiagnosed.

Obviously we can't un-eat meat we ate in the past that may have contained the indestructible prions that cause mad cow disease, although British scientists are working on a blood test that can check for the disease. But what we can do is reduce our risk of future infection by quitting hamburgers and steaks, ahem, cold turkey.

But if you're thinking that eating cold turkey or another meat would be better, don't be fooled—you still run the risk of all those other diseases that any kind of meat consumption contributes to, including heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer.

Continuing to eat meat despite the mounting evidence that it will hurt us in one way or another seems pretty mad, right?

Day of mass action

New York, NY — We are a global movement that is reclaiming our humanity and our future. We have stepped into a revitalizing civic process, realizing that we cannot fix our crises isolated from one another. We need collective action, and we need civic space. We are creating that civic space.



To occupy is to embody the spirit of liberation that we wish to manifest in our society. It is to exercise our freedom to assemble. We are creating space for community, values, ideas, and a level of meaningful dialogue that is absent in the present discourse.

Liberated space is breaking free of isolation, breaking down the walls that literally and figuratively separate us from one another. It is a new focus on community, trust, love and hope. We occupy to create a vision of equality, liberty and social justice onto the blank paving stones of public parks, in the silent hallways of abandoned schools, banks, and beyond. Public space plays a crucial role in this civic process and encourages open, transparent organizing in our movement. As we have seen in Liberty Square, outdoor space invites people to listen, speak, share, learn, and act.

Last night, billionaire Michael Bloomberg sent a massive police force to evict members of the public from Liberty Square—home of Occupy Wall Street for the past two months. People who were part of a dynamic civic process were beaten and pepper-sprayed, their personal property destroyed.

Supporters of this rapidly growing movement were mobilized in the middle of the night, making phone calls, taking the streets en masse, and planning next steps. Americans and people around the world are appalled at Bloomberg's treatment of people who peacefully assemble. We are appalled, but not deterred. Liberty Square was dispersed, but its spirit not defeated. Today we are stronger than we were yesterday. Tomorrow we will be stronger still. We are breaking free of the fear that constricts and confines us. We occupy to liberate.

We move forward in the grand tradition of the transformative social movements that have defined American history. We stand on the shoulders of those who have struggled before us, and we pick up where others have left off. We are creating a better society for us all.

Occupy Wall Street has renewed a sense of hope. It has revived a belief in community and awakened a revolutionary spirit too long silenced. Join us as we liberate space and build a movement. 9 a.m. Tuesday morning at Sixth Avenue and Canal we continue.

You can't evict an idea whose time has come.

A massive police force is presently evicting Liberty Square, home of Occupy Wall Street for the past two months and birthplace of the 99% movement that has spread across the country and around the world

The raid started just after 1:00am. Supporters and allies are mobilizing throughout the city, presently converging at Foley Square. Supporters are also planning public actions for the coming days, including occupation actions.
You can't evict an idea whose time has come.
Two months ago a few hundred New Yorkers set up an encampment at the doorstep of Wall Street. Since then, Occupy Wall Street has become a national and even international symbol — with similarly styled occupations popping up in cities and towns across America and around the world. A growing popular movement has significantly altered the national narrative about our economy, our democracy, and our future.

Americans are talking about the consolidation of wealth and power in our society, and the stranglehold that the top 1% have over our political system. More and more Americans are seeing the crises of our economy and our democracy as systemic problems, that require collective action to remedy. More and more Americans are identifying as part of the 99%, and saying "enough!"
This burgeoning movement is more than a protest, more than an occupation, and more than any tactic. The "us" in the movement is far broader than those who are able to participate in physical occupation. The movement is everyone who sends supplies, everyone who talks to their friends and families about the underlying issues, everyone who takes some form of action to get involved in this civic process.

This moment is nothing short of America rediscovering the strength we hold when we come together as citizens to take action to address crises that impact us all.

Such a movement cannot be evicted. Some politicians may physically remove us from public spaces — our spaces — and, physically, they may succeed. But we are engaged in a battle over ideas. Our idea is that our political structures should serve us, the people — all of us, not just those who have amassed great wealth and power. We believe that is a highly popular idea, and that is why so many people have come so quickly to identify with Occupy Wall Street and the 99% movement.

Move Your Money: Campaign Grows to Divest from "Too Big to Fail" Banks to Local Banks, Credit Unions

As participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement continue protesting the record profits made by banks bailed out by taxpayer money, a group of grassroots activists are hitting America’s largest banks—including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo—where it hurts most: the wallet. Dubbing this Saturday, Nov. 5 as "Bank Transfer Day," activists are urging people to move their money out of the banks deemed "too big to fail" into local community banks and credit unions. Bank Transfer Day draws on an idea popularized by filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, economist Rob Johnson and columnist Arianna Huffington, among others. In 2010, they created the short film called "Move Your Money," which became a viral sensation. 

Last month, about two dozen people were arrested at a Citibank branch here in Manhattan when they attempted to move their money out of the bank. The protesters were reportedly locked into the bank, then detained. Bank officials accused the protesters of being disruptive. Video shot outside the bank shows an undercover police officer dragging one woman into the bank and then arresting her.

As Occupy Enters Third Month, a Look at How Protesters Are Building a Global Movement

As the Occupy movement approaches its two-month anniversary, we’re joined by two guests who are studying its strategies and successes. Author Jeff Sharlet helped found the group Occupy Writers and is assisting efforts to reestablish the evicted library at Occupy Wall Street. His recent article for Rolling Stone is "Inside Occupy Wall Street: How a Bunch of Anarchists and Radicals with Nothing but Sleeping Bags Launched a Nationwide Movement." We also speak with Marina Sitrin, who is researching global mass movements from Spain to Egypt and has just returned from Greece. Sitrin says the Occupy movement’s assemblies offer a "radical, if not revolutionary, way of organizing... When we’re in our neighborhoods and come together and relate in that way, it’s more like alternative governance."

So both schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, but then, yes, coming together, as well, just like in Athens. I mean, learning from the experiences in Athens, it was both going to the neighborhoods, but then coming back to Syntagma Square and having assemblies of assemblies. So we had gatherings—I participated in gatherings from many different neighborhoods coming together to share experiences, learn from the Argentine experience, talk about New York.

So, in New York and all over the U.S., if we’re more in our neighborhoods, but then we also do come together—we have to—whether it’s in general assemblies or spokescouncils or whatever directly democratic form to reflect on our experiences and generalize out, I think that’s actually more powerful. But yes, holding—Liberty Plaza has become so important to people around the world.

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Return to Zuccotti Park After 200 Arrested, Camping Barred

Thousands of defiant Occupy Wall Street protesters streamed into Zuccotti Park late Tuesday, less than 24 hours after police forcibly removed them from their camp. Police arrested more than 200 people, including about a dozen who had chained themselves to each other and to trees. As protesters returned, a judge upheld the city’s ban preventing them from bringing backpacks, tents and sleeping bags with them into the park.

Defiant Occupy Wall Street protesters streamed into Zuccotti Park late Tuesday in a bid to rebuild their cause less than 24 hours after police forcibly removed them from their camp. A fired-up crowd of [thousands of people] joined in the first general assembly since the surprise eviction. The eviction had occurred around 1:00 a.m. with hundreds of police storming the camp and dismantling tents, tarpaulins, outdoor furniture, mattresses and signs. They arrested over 200 people, including about a dozen who had chained themselves to each other and to trees.

Even as protesters returned Tuesday evening, they were banned from bringing backpacks, tents and sleeping bags with them. A judge ruled yesterday afternoon that the city had the right to enforce rules against camping gear in the park. Justice Michael Stallman found the city, at least for now, can ban the protesters from pitching tents and unrolling sleeping bags in the park.

Inside Occupy Wall Street Raid: Eyewitnesses Describe Arrests, Beatings as Police Dismantle Camp

The Democracy Now! team rushed down to Zuccotti Park in the middle of the night to report on the police crackdown on Occupy Wall Street. We were there until the early hours of the morning, witnessing the arrests in the streets in Lower Manhattan and the dismantling of the encampment — and the hauling away protesters’ belongings. "They can’t pull wool over our eyes. They can’t put nothing in our eyes that’s going to blind [us to] what’s going on here. And the same goes for all the people who are out there," a protester told Democracy Now!

Last night, the Democracy Now! team rushed down to Zuccotti Park to cover the police crackdown. It began just after 1:00 a.m. We were there until the early hours of the morning, coming in to do this broadcast. We witnessed the arrests in the streets and made it into the square just as police were dismantling the tents, as well as sanitation workers, and hauling away protesters’ belongings in dump trucks. This is our report.

An hour later, they basically surrounded the park, at least 100 to 200 cops, and with the shields on there across their faces. And they basically put up—they put up huge beams of light into the park, on every side. They had about three beams on every side of the park. Got super bright. And they came with a loudspeaker. There was a ton of them, at least 100 to 200. And they lined up in front of the park, on all sides of the park, where they lined up in the front, on Trinity Avenue. And they came with the loudspeaker. They said, "Listen, we’re going to need you guys to clear the park. We’re going to take out the tents and get the sanitation team in here. And you can come back to the park without your tents. You won’t be able to have your tents in the park."

"And they basically started pushing people. They started tearing down tents. They started to break them down, and without even checking if anybody was in the tents. But they started pushing everybody around."

They basically started pulling them and stepping on them, yeah. And everybody started to leave the park. And this is where we are, basically. Everybody kind of rushed out. They started pepper-spraying people. I got—I have milk here. I actually was helping somebody get the spray out of their eyes. And this is where we are right now.

Occupy Wall Street Evicted in Late Night Raid; Lawyers Secure Injunction to Reopen Zuccotti Park

Nearly two months into Occupy Wall Street, New York City police have carried out a major crackdown on the protesters’ Lower Manhattan encampment, dismantling tents, confiscating belongings, and arresting more than 70 people. At around 1 a.m. local time, police officers in riot gear circled Zuccotti Park—renamed Liberty Plaza by the protesters—ordering them to leave. Although most people complied, a group of around 200 to 300 people refused, locking their arms together in the middle of the park. They were eventually detained after a tense standoff that saw police use pepper spray and hit protesters with batons. Police also dismantled the protesters’ encampment, tearing down tents and tossing the sea of belongings, clothing, tarps and equipment into large dump trucks. During our live broadcast, a judge issued a restraining order prohibiting the city and police from evicting the protesters from the Occupy Wall Street encampment. We get an update from longtime civil rights attorney, Danny Alterman, who helped file the injunction as part of the Liberty Park Plaza Legal Working Group. "We put together a set of papers on the fly, working nonstop throughout the night, and around 3 o’clock in the morning contacted Judge Lucy Billings of the New York State Supreme Court, who agreed to meet us between 5 and 6 a.m. to review our request for a temporary restraining order, restraining the police from evicting the protesters at Liberty Park, exclusive of lawful arrest for criminal offenses, and, most importantly, enforcing the rules published after the occupation began almost two months ago—or otherwise preventing protesters from re-entering Liberty Park with tents and other property utilized therein," Alterman says. Judge Billings signed the order before 6:30 a.m., and a court hearing is set for today.

Nearly two months into Occupy Wall Street, New York City police have carried out a major crackdown on the protesters’ Lower Manhattan encampment, dismantling tents, confiscating belongings, arresting more than 70 people. At around 1:00 in the morning local time, police officers in riot gear encircled Zuccotti Park, renamed by the protesters Liberty Square, ordering them to leave. Although most demonstrators complied, a group of around 200 or 300 people refused, locking their arms together in the middle of the park. They were eventually detained after a tense standoff that saw police use pepper spray and hit protesters with batons.

Police meanwhile took to dismantling the protesters’ encampment, tearing down tents, tossing the sea of belongings, clothing and equipment into large dump trucks. Hundreds of sanitation workers participated in the trashing of the private belongings. More people were arrested in the surrounding streets as police sought to clear demonstrators as far as possible from Zuccotti square.

In a statement, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was acting to protect public safety, saying, quote, "Unfortunately, the park was becoming a place where people came not to protest, but rather to break laws, and in some cases, to harm others." Bloomberg added, protesters will be allowed to return to Zuccotti Park, but without their camping gear.

Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street supporters are now gathering in nearby Foley Square to plan the movement’s next step. Clergy and labor are expected to join them.

FDR's 1944 State of the Union Address, better known as the Second or Economic Bill of Rights

In 1944, for his state of the union address, president Franklin D. Roosevelt presented a social and economic program which would have expanded on the original bill of rights. Most of it was a radio address, as he had the flu, but part of it was filmed (the footage was found recently). Similar programs are found in modern constitutions, and part of it would inspire the universal bill of rights. Obviously, it didn't pass. FDR would die barely a year later, and this would die with him. Their inspiration can be found in the writings of enlightenment philosophers, already, but also in early socialist thought, up to the current day.

As an example, the language and the rights used could be found in the principles of the old french socialist party, who had formed the government before WW2, and whose principles would end up being part of the preambles of the 4th and 5th republics' constitutions, but also in the, admittedly symbolic, soviet constitution of 1936. These sentiments were repeated in the modern constitutions of Peru, Spain, Finland, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria.

 

 

The speech

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[2] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

Occupy Wall Street: Improving Quality of Life for the 99%

The participants of Occupy Wall Street are working for a better quality of life for the 99%. We are everyday Americans who want our voices and every voice to count in the political process. We want policy that looks out for all of our health and economic well-being — not a system that's rigged to look out for only the interests of the very wealthy and powerful.

While we work for these goals, we also occupy a physical space in lower Manhattan, and we work hard to create a safe, secure, and positive environment for everyone who comes to Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park). We have been working diligently to be good neighbors to area residents and businesses. Here are some of the ways we have been making measurable progress on quality of life issues:

• Toilets: Installed. Despite denials of permits by the City, Occupy Wall Street participants have worked diligently with the help of local officials to secure 24/7 access to toilets within reasonable distance of Liberty Square. Starting today, OWS is providing access to porta-potties in a private, well-lit space with 24-hour security, only 2 blocks away from the square. The portable toilets will be maintained by a professional service, and OWS volunteers are blanketing Liberty Square with fliers directing people to the facilities.
• Sanitation: Active and effective. Occupy Wall Street has a volunteer sanitation working group that has included hundreds of participants who maintain the park, making sure that anything left discarded is disposed of, sweeping, and cleaning. Their work is particularly important after rainstorms. At any given moment, a visitor to Liberty Square will find volunteers engaged in maintenance and cleaning throughout the park.
• Security/Community Watch: Active and delivering results. Occupy Wall Street is in a public space in a major metropolis. We acknowledge that there are security challenges that accompany that fact. We have a multi-stakeholder Security Team versed in nonviolence and de-escalation tactics, as well as an overnight Community Watch, whose job is to ensure that everyone is safe. There have been cases of individuals with predatory intentions coming to the space and assaulting Occupy Wall Street participants. OWS security and volunteers has expelled such individuals, and when there was criminality involved, turned the individual over to the police.
• Noise Level: Reduced and time-limited. We recognize that the drumming the first few weeks of Occupy Wall Street was excessive for many local residents. Stakeholders throughout the OWS community, including the activist-drummers, worked to provide guidelines and Pulse—the drummers working group—has self-regulated for the past week and a half to limit drumming to a total of four hours per day (12pm-2pm, 4pm-6pm). When new people arrive without knowledge of our drumming hours, a member of Pulse now approaches them to explain the policy to them.
• NYPD Barriers to Business: Down. Some local businesses have been glad to have Occupy Wall Street in the area, and have reported a boom in their business because of OWS participants, and massively increased visitors to Liberty Square. Other businesses have complained about losses, mostly blaming the barricades erected by police after the occupation started. OWS and the neighborhood have requested a removal of these barricades, and thankfully many are now coming down after Community Board 1 and local officials made it clear they were a problem. Additionally, OWS has launched local business outreach initiatives, including the Street Vendor Project, which will encourage supporters of Occupy Wall Street to remotely purchase food from local vendors for OWS participants: http://streetvendor.org/ows

We will continue to work hard to improve the quality of life at and around Zuccotti Park, as we continue pursuing our larger purpose of improving the quality of life for all. Since the arrival of a new grassroots economic justice movement represented by Occupy Wall Street’s, we have helped to block new debit card fees the big banks wanted to impose on millions of Americans; helped homeowners win easier terms on mortgage debt and college grads on student debt; and opened a broad national conversation on income inequality and economic justice that is leading to real change. We will keep working locally, nationally and globally to demand a more just economy and better lives for all.

Rule of Law vs. the Forces of Order

Occupy Wall Street, with its defiant style of non-violent protest, has consistently clashed with the NYPD’s obsession with order maintenance, resulting in hundreds of mostly unnecessary arrests and a significant infringement on the basic rights of free speech and assembly.

Prior to the massive protests at the WTO in Seattle, protest policing in the U.S. was a largely casual affair punctuated with isolated outbursts of police misconduct. After Seattle, police departments embarked on a major rethinking of how to handle increasingly large and militant protests and, most importantly, how to handle the growing use of large coordinated direct actions. Without too much concern for First Amendment rights, police departments have tended to take one of two approaches and sometimes a bit of both.

The first is the strategic repression of direct action movements in particular. Beginning with the Miami police’s aggressive response to the FTAA protests in 2003, many departments resorted to using surveillance, agents provocateurs and negative publicity before an event, followed by massive deployments, “less lethal” weaponry and restriction on protest permits, including the creation of isolated “protest pits.”

Similar problems emerged in 2004, during the Republican National Convention in New York City. Permits were denied to use Central Park and other traditional protest locations; barricades were used extensively at peaceful, permitted demonstrations; and over a thousand people were preemptively arrested, with all the charges eventually dropped by the Manhattan DA.

The other approach has been to attempt to micromanage demonstrations in such a way that dissent becomes a tightly controlled and dispiriting experience. This is accomplished through the use of large numbers of officers, extensive restrictions on access to demonstrations through choke points, penning in and subdividing crowds with barricades, heavily restricting march permits, and making multiple arrests, sometimes using excessive force for minor violations.

This latter strategy is especially common in New York City, which has an almost limitless supply of police officers (upwards of 30,000) to use for controlling crowds. During the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, we have seen a gross overreaction to peaceful demonstrators engaging in minor violations of the law, such as using a megaphone, writing on the sidewalk with chalk, marching in the street (and across the Brooklyn Bridge), standing in line at a bank to close an account, and occupying a public park past closing hours.

The effect of this has been a low-level criminalization of dissent that serves only a limited legitimate public safety function. The important thing to keep in mind here is that while some protests have been illegal and disruptive, they have been consistently nonviolent in character. This raises the question of whether the tight and expensive control of these demonstrations is an unwarranted interference in people’s right to free expression that exceeds any legal objective.

A New World Order

What it is, the demand the 1% can’t comprehend, is us. It is the individuals and villages, the cities and peoples across the world who are seeing each other on the far side of appeals and petition. It is the world we are becoming.

Establishment polls confirm what everyone in the street already knows: a clear majority of New Yorkers, three of every four, support the occupation and get the “demand” in their gut. The epicenter of the October 15 international day of action was Times Square, barricaded by police insistent to demonstrate their control. But our town is only one center. The world is round.

In the south, thousands streamed onto the avenues of Buenos Aires and Santiago. In Brazil, Peru and Colombia, in more than 20 cities of Mexico and all through our Americas, people came out. There was noise. More like a song.

In the East, demonstrators supporting the occupation emerged on the streets of Hong Kong and Seoul, Manila and Jakarta, Auckland and Melbourne. Days earlier, astonishingly, a solidarity rally in Zhengzhou, China supported the “Great Wall Street Revolution.” China has rallied for our human rights. Imagine.

In Africa, protestors gathered in Nairobi and Johannesburg. The heroes of Tahrir Square in Cairo have returned to battle the military regime that did not follow Mubarak into infamy.

Germany and Greece, ruled by the same banks, rose up with Spain and a lost generation of Europeans to claim a future from the dust of faded empire. Everywhere the lack of demands let us see each other clearly. Across the world, as if for the first time.

And in our own backyard, in thousands of backyards, from Augusta and Jackson, Springfield and Sioux Falls, Vegas and Santa Rosa and Green Bay: Americans celebrated the occupation in its infancy. Jobs with dignity. Housing fit for families. Education. Health care. Pensions. The very air we breathe. What can those who want democracy demand from the king, except his crown? Regime change is in the air. America is looking at itself, it’s place in the world and who we are to be.

This is not a demonstration. It’s participation. Creation. This is a movement where we can be ourselves, together. In Liberty Square. In New York City. In America. A new world.

Eviction Defense!

Three weeks ago NYPD delivered what was effectively a notice of eviction, telling residents of Liberty Square that Brookfield, with the help of the city, was going to clean the park. Instead, #OWS mobilized, organizing a mass clean up, mobilizing thousands of supporters, and flooding the mayors office with phone calls. An amazing pre-dawn defence packed the square with thousands of people. Brookfield stood down and the eviction was averted.

Today rumors are rampant that the city is again considering action to end the occupation. Labor leaders, local elected officials, and news outlets are hearing the rumblings of eviction. We know that when the next eviction attempt comes, we will not get advanced warning. NYPD could move in as early as tonight, or it could be next week. We know that our adversaries are trying to build political cover for eviction by demonizing us in the press.

We need to be ready to defend the occupation. Be prepared!

Top 10 Reasons Not to Eat Turkeys

 

Pardon me, pilgrim! This Thanksgiving, how about ditching the dead bird? These beautiful, inquisitive, intelligent birds endure lives of suffering and painful deaths. Here are 10 good reasons to carve out a new tradition by flocking to vegetarian entrées, along with some scrumptious holiday cooking tips and recipes—thankfully, none of them require stuffing food up anyone's behind.

1. They're Begging Your Pardon
Turkeys are “smart animals with personality and character, and keen awareness of their surroundings,” Oregon State University poultry scientist Tom Savage says. Turkeys are social, playful birds who enjoy the company of others. They relish having their feathers stroked and like to chirp, cluck, and gobble along to their favorite tunes. Anyone who spends time with them at farm sanctuaries quickly learns that turkeys are as varied in personality as dogs and cats. The president “pardons” a turkey every year—can't you pardon one too? Learn more about turkeys.

2. Get Rid of Your Wattle
Turkey flesh is brimming with fat. Just one homemade patty of ground, cooked turkey meat contains a whopping 244 mg of cholesterol, and half of its calories come from fat. Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent less likely to develop heart disease, and they have 40 percent of the cancer rate of meat-eaters. Plus, meat-eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than vegans are. Learn more about animal products and your health.

3. Can You Spell ‘Pandemic’?
Experts are warning that a virulent new strain of bird flu could spread to human beings and kill millions of Americans. Current factory-farm conditions, in which turkeys are drugged up and bred to grow so quickly they can barely walk, are a prescription for disease outbreaks. Eating a turkey carcass contaminated with bird flu could kill you, and currently available drugs might not work. Cooking should kill the virus, but it could be left behind on cutting boards and utensils and spread through something else you're eating. Learn more about bird flu.

4. Recall Process Doesn't Fly
The U.S. government is the only government in the Western world that does not have the power to recall contaminated animal products. Instead, American consumers must trust the profit-hungry meat, dairy, and egg industries to decide when recalls are necessary. Dan Glickman, secretary of agriculture under President Bill Clinton, explained that this limit on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) power to protect consumers from tainted animal products is “one of the biggest loopholes out there.” There are all sorts of killer bacteria found in turkey flesh, including salmonella and campylobacter. The Center for Science in the Public Interest found that 28 percent of fresh turkeys were contaminated with bacteria, primarily with campylobacter, for which the USDA does not even require testing. Learn more about meat contamination.

5. Let the Turkeys Give Thanks!
Let's face it: If you're eating a turkey, that's a corpse you've got there on the table, and if you don't eat it quickly enough, it will decompose. Is that really what we want as the centerpiece of a holiday meal: an animal's dead and decaying carcass? Thanksgiving is a time to take stock of our lives and give thanks for all that we have, so why not let the turkeys give thanks too? Learn more about what happens to turkeys on factory farms.

6. Want Stuffing With Your Supergerms?
Dosing turkeys with antibiotics to stimulate their growth and to keep them alive in filthy, disease-ridden conditions that would otherwise kill them poses even more risks for people who eat them. Leading health organizations—including the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, and the American Public Health Association—have warned that by giving powerful drugs (via animal products) to humans who are not sick, the farmed-animal industry is creating possible long-term risks to human health and will spread antibiotic-resistant supergerms. That's why the use of drugs to promote growth in animals used for food has been banned for many years in Europe.

7. Without a Wing and a Prayer
On factory farms, turkeys live for months in sheds where they are packed so tightly that flapping a wing or stretching a leg is nearly impossible. They stand in waste, and urine and ammonia fumes burn their eyes and lungs. At the slaughterhouse, turkeys have their throats slit while they are still conscious. Those who miss the automated knife are scalded to death in the defeathering tank. Learn more about the cruelty endured by turkeys.

8. Foul Farming
Anyone who has driven by a farm has probably smelled it first from a mile away. Turkeys and other animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire U.S. human population—all without the benefit of waste treatment systems. There are no federal guidelines to regulate how factory farms treat, store, and dispose of the trillions of pounds of concentrated, untreated animal excrement that they produce each year. Learn more about how factory farming damages the environment.

9. Blood, Sweat, and Fear
Killing animals is inherently dangerous work, but the fast line speeds, the dirty, slippery killing floors, and the lack of training make animal-processing plants some of the most dangerous places to work in America today. The industry has refused to slow down the lines or buy appropriate safety gear because these changes could cut into companies’ bottom lines. In its 185-page exposé on worker exploitation by the farmed-animal industry, “Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers’ Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants,” Human Rights Watch explains, ‘These are not occasional lapses by employers paying insufficient attention to modern human resources management policies. These are systematic human rights violations embedded in meat and poultry industry employment.”

10. A Cornucopia of Turkey Alternatives
Give up the giblets and carve out a new tradition this Thanksgiving—Tofurky Roast, a savory soy- and wheat-based roasts with stuffing and gravy or oven-roasted, peppered, hickory-smoked, or cranberry- and stuffing-flavored Tofurky Deli Slices. Give animals and yourself something to be really thankful for this year: Order a free vegetarian starter kit full of tasty recipes and celebrity features today!

Occupy Wall Street Movement Enters Eighth Week with Continued Arrests Around the Country

The Occupy Wall Street encampment and protest movement has entered its eighth week. Here in New York City, protesters will be hosting their first spokescouncil meeting today, a development in the decision-making process for the movement. Meanwhile, police continue to crack down on Occupy protesters across the country. In Florida, 13 people were arrested on Sunday while attending a First Amendment teach-in in Orlando. At least 24 people have been arrested over the last two days in Atlanta, Georgia, including five people early this morning. In California, police arrested 11 protesters in Riverside while breaking up the protest encampment.

MTV's 'True Life' Will Follow The People That 'Occupy Wall Street'

It's been weeks since protesters set up shop in downtown Manhattan to Occupy Wall Street, but day by day, its global impact is increasing. Some say the mass demonstration is made up of a bunch of disillusioned kids that complain about financial greed while feverishly uploading Instagram shots on their iPhones, and others (like Kanye West) are inspired by peoples' willingness to band together peacefully.

MTV recently sent cameras down to the front lines to trail dedicated protesters who were willing to bring us deep inside Zuccotti Park. On Nov. 5, we'll meet three courageous twentysomethings, including Bryan, one of the leaders of the Occupy Wall Street sanitation team. "Bryan joined the protest to express his disgust at the relationship that government has with big business," an MTV press release reports.

Check out the sneak peek below to learn more about how these young people are keeping their spirits high, and be sure to tune in Nov. 5 at 6/5c for the "True Life: I'm Occupying Wall Street" special.

Click through to MTV's "Voices From Occupy Wall Street," an interactive photo gallery filled with motivations, hopes and goals.

I'm really not a fan of MTV but definitely looking forward to seeing this episode!

High-Heeled Shoes Are Highly Damaging and Bad for the Female Body

Wearing high heels can be fashionable and may make you feel taller, but at what price? High heels can cause foot problems while exacerbating foot problems that you already have. Leg and back pain also are common complaints from those who wear high heels.

Posture
A high heel shoe puts your foot in a plantarflexed (foot pointed downward) position, placing an increased amount of pressure on your forefoot. This causes you to adjust the rest of your body to maintain your balance. The lower part of your body leans forward and to compensate for that, the upper part of your body must lean back to keep you balanced. This is not your body's normal standing position.

Gait
When walking, your foot is in a more fixed downward position (plantarflexed) therefore you are not able to push off the ground with as much force. This causes your hip flexor muscles in your legs to work harder to move and pull your body forward. Your knees also stay more bent (flexed) and forward, causing your knee muscles to work harder.

Balance
Walking in high heel shoes is like walking on a balance beam. It takes a lot of balance and just like teetering on a beam, there is not any support in a high heel shoe to catch you if you fall. High heel shoes cause your foot and ankle to move in a supinated (turned outward) position. This position puts you at risk for losing your balance and spraining your ankles.

Back
The normal s-curve shape of the back acts as a shock absorber, reducing reduce stress on the vertebrae. Wearing high heels causes lumbar (low-back) spine flattening and a posterior (backward) displacement of the head and thoracic (mid-back) spine. High heel shoes cause you to lean forward and the body's response to that is to decrease the forward curve of your lower back to help keep you in line. Poor alignment may lead to muscle overuse and back pain.

Hips
The hip flexor muscles are located on the upper front part of your thighs. They are forced to work much harder and longer to help you walk because your feet are held in a downward position (plantarflexed) and have reduced power to move your body forward. If your hip flexor muscles are chronically overused, the muscles can shorten and a contracture can occur. If a contracture occurs, this could lead to flattening of the lumbar (low-back) spine.

Knees
Knee osteoarthritis is twice as common in women. Some of that blame may be due to high heels. The knee stays flexed (bent) and the tibia (shin bone) turns inward (varus) when wearing high heels. This position puts a compressive force on the inside of the knee (medial), a common site of osteoarthritis. If you already have osteoarthritis, it is best to avoid wearing high heel shoes. High heels increase the distance from the floor to the knee and can result in increased knee torque which can also lead to osteoarthritis.

Ankles
High heels limit the motion and power of the ankle joint. The calf muscles (gastrocnemius and soleus) are shortened because of the heel height. The shortened muscles cause them to lose power when trying to push the foot off of the ground. The position of the ankle may also cause a shortening (contraction) of the achilles tendon. This can increase the pull of the achilles tendon where it attaches on the back of your heel bone (calcaneus) and may cause a condition called insertional achilles tendonitis.

Feet
With the foot in a downward position, there is significant increase in the pressure on the bottom (plantar) of the forefoot. The pressure increases as the height of the shoe heel increases. Wearing a 3 1/4 inch heel increases the pressure on the bottom of the forefoot by 76%. The increased pressure may lead to pain or foot deformities such as hammer toes, bunions, bunionettes (tailor's bunions) and neuromas. The downward foot position (plantarflexion) also causes the foot to be more supinated (turned to the outside). This change in foot position changes the line of pull of the achilles tendon and may cause a condition called Haglund's deformity (pump bump).

Skin and Toes
The narrow, pointed toe box that is often found in high heel shoes also causes damage such as corns, callouses and blisters. If you look at a baby or toddler's foot you will see that their toes are spread apart. If you look at an adult's foot, their toes are usually squished together. A lot of times this is due to the footwear that has been worn. If you trace the footbed (part of the shoe where you put your foot) of a high heel shoe on a sheet of paper, and then stand barefoot on that tracing, you will probably have quite a bit of overlap. Does it still seem like a good idea to put your foot inside that shoe?

Save Your Feet

If your car tires are out of alignment, you can only drive so many miles before you are at risk of blowing a tire. The same is true for your body. Things need to be in alignment. It is recommended that you only wear high heels for special occasions and even then only a heel height of 1 1/2 inches. Your feet and body will thank you - and you'll save money on trips to the podiatrist's office.

The Wrap up on Wall Street..

Buoyed by the longevity of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Manhattan, a wave of protests swept across Asia, the Americas and Europe over the weekend, with hundreds and in some cases thousands of people expressing discontent with the economic tides in marches, rallies and occasional clashes with the police.

In Rome on Saturday, a rally thick with tension spread over several miles. Small groups of restive young people turned a largely peaceful protest into a riot, setting fire to at least one building and a police van and clashing with police officers, who responded with water cannons and tear gas. The police estimated that dozens of protesters had been injured, along with 26 law enforcement officials; 12 people were arrested.
By early Sunday in New York, 92 people had been arrested, including 24 accused of trespassing in a Greenwich Village branch of Citibank and 45 during a raucous rally of thousands of people in and around Times Square. More than 1,000 people filled Washington Square Park on Saturday night, but almost all of them left after dozens of police officers with batons and helmets streamed through the arch and warned that they would be enforcing a midnight curfew. Fourteen were arrested for remaining in the park. Three police officers were injured dealing with a rambunctious crowd at 46th Street and 7th Avenue; they were treated at Bellevue Hospital Center and released.

In Chicago, about 175 people were arrested at about 1 a.m. on Sunday after refusing to leave Grant Park before the 11 p.m. closing time, said Officer Laura Kubiak, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department.Other than in Rome, the demonstrations across Europe were largely peaceful, with thousands of people marching past ancient monuments and gathering in front of capitalist symbols like the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. Similar scenes unfolded across cities on several continents, including in Sydney, Australia; Tokyo; Hong Kong; Toronto; and Los Angeles, where several thousand people marched to City Hall as passing drivers honked their support.

But just as the rallies in New York have represented a variety of messages — signs have been held in opposition to President Obama yards away from signs in support of him — so did Saturday’s protests contain a grab bag of sentiments, opposing nuclear power, political corruption and the privatization of water.
Yet despite the difference in language, landscape and scale, the protests were united in frustration with the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

In New York, where the occupation of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan was moving into its second month, a large crowd marched north early Saturday afternoon to Washington Square Park, where it was joined by several hundred college students who decried, among other things, student debt and unemployment.

In late afternoon, the crowds marched up Avenue of the Americas toward a heavily barricaded Times Square, beseeching onlookers to join in with cries of “You are the 99 percent.”

Saturday’s protests sprang not only from the Occupy Wall Street movement that began last month in New York, but also from demonstrations in Spain in May. This weekend, the global protest effort came as finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations meet in Paris to discuss economic issues, including ways to tackle Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

Tens of thousands of protesters assembled in Madrid on Saturday evening, when chants mingled with live music, including a rendition of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” lending the downtown area an upbeat feel on an unusually balmy fall afternoon.

Some tourists pumped their fists and whooped from atop double-decker sightseeing buses as the protesters cheered back. To keep 42nd Street clear the police shunted marchers up to 46th Street, where officers and the pressed-in masses had several run-ins. At one point the police pushed the barricades in toward the crowd, and the crowd pushed back. At another point two mounted officers moved their horses briefly into the throng. Three people were arrested trying to take down barricades, the police said. Later, as officers tried to disperse people east on 46th Street, 42 people who the police said defied their orders were taken away, in plastic handcuffs, in three police wagons. One witness, Harry Kaback, a 26-year-old comic selling tickets to the Ha! comedy club, said the protesters were “getting rowdy” with the police and shouting in their faces. For the protesters, marching on Times Square held almost as much significance as did protesting against Wall Street.

The protest moved back to Washington Square Park, where people listened to speeches and debated whether to stay while police officers marched down Fifth Avenue and into the square. One officer gave a warning as midnight approached: “The park closes at 24:00 hours. You can exit to the east, west or south. You have 10 minutes.”

Virtually everyone chose to leave, save 14 protesters who remained sitting in the dry bed of the park’s fountain and were arrested, the police said. Many headed back to Zuccotti Park, where there is no curfew.
Earlier, about a dozen protesters entered a Chase branch in Lower Manhattan and withdrew their money from the bank while 300 other people circled the block, some shouting chants and beating on drums. The former Chase customers, who declined to reveal how much they had in their accounts — though a few acknowledged it was not much — said they planned to put their money into smaller banks or credit unions.

Citibank, in a statement, said the protesters “were very disruptive and refused to leave after being repeatedly asked, causing our staff to call 911.” The statement continued, “The police asked the branch staff to close the branch until the protesters could be removed.”

In Washington, several hundred people marched through downtown, beginning in the early morning, passing by several banks. Escorted by the police, the marchers also demonstrated in front of the White House and the Treasury Department before moving on to a rally on the National Mall, where they were joined by representatives of unions and other supporters.

Brief clashes were reported in London, where the police were out in force with dozens of riot vans, canine units and hundreds of officers. But the gathering, attended by people of all ages, was largely peaceful, with a picnic atmosphere and people streaming in and out of a nearby Starbucks.

The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, made an appearance when a crowd assembled in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral. To loud cheers, Mr. Assange called the protest movement “the culmination of a dream.”

In Rome, the protests Saturday were as much about the growing dissatisfaction with the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who narrowly survived a vote of confidence on Friday, as they were about global financial inequities. Tens of thousands of people turned out for what started as peaceful protests and then devolved into ugly violence. The windows of shops and banks were smashed, a police van was destroyed, and some Defense Ministry offices were set alight.