Archive | October, 2011

“Don’t forget it, the debate is about . . . “ “. . . making them forget what we have done, but especially what we will do.” Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona.  This cartoon was first published in his blog on 27 October 2011 under a Creative Commons license.  Translation by Yoshie […]

A participant’s note from Burlington. . . . I went to OWS (a week ago) and Occupy Burlington last Saturday.  I was VERY happy that, while it was the last day of the regular weekly farmers’ market at the same small park, the farmers gave the Occupy Burlington people $400 worth of tokens to buy […]

For as long as Wall Street has stood for greed and unearned profits there have been those who have stood against it. In 1890, the leader of the Knights of Labor railed at “the control of our financial affairs by the bulls and bears of Wall Street.”  Six years later, a spokesman for New York […]

Give me a page and I’ll give you a monument, leaning haphazardly like a staggering drunk, a lopsided photograph, a mirror tilted forward to the feet; like an off-center catwalk, brown paper bag strut in an empty alley way, stale six am whisky breathing on cold marble steps. I’ll sing you a jingle slurred to […]

  “In 1969, a group of black and Puerto Rican students occupied City College demanding the integration of CUNY, which at the time had an overwhelmingly white student body.  The occupation spread to other CUNY campuses, forcing the Board of Trustees to implement a ground-breaking new admissions policy.” Such occupations also occurred in the 1980s […]

  28 October 2011 After a lovely day of drinking excessive amounts of tea with a few families in South Gaza (Faraheen and Khuza’a, to be exact), an Italian colleague, Silvia, who used to live in Khuza’a, suggested walking down the road towards the local school.  It was late afternoon, about 4:30 p.m. and dozens […]

Once in a while there’s good news from Europe — yes, even from here in Germany.  And because Germany is so central in Europe and so strong, even minor good news from this country can be important. But, till now, there hasn’t been much good news for quite some time! The party called Die Linke, […]

John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff at Occupy Wall Street.  Photo by Carrie Ann Naumoff This is a reconstruction from notes of a talk delivered at a teach-in on “The Capitalist Crisis and the Environment” organized by the Education and Empowerment Working Group, Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park (Liberty Plaza), New York, October 23, 2011. […]

On March 2nd, under the title of “NATO’s Inevitable War” I wrote: “In contrast with what is happening in Egypt and Tunisia, Libya occupies the first spot on the Human Development Index for Africa and it has the highest life expectancy on the continent. Education and health receive special attention from the State. The cultural […]

The Obama Administration announced two weeks ago that a bumbling Iranian-American used car salesman had conspired with a U.S. government agent posing as a representative of Mexican drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.  This brought highly skeptical reactions from experts here across the political spectrum. But even if some of this tale […]

There is no history of a revolution which is not at the same time a history of barbarism.  (Inspired by Walter Benjamin) And the almost live pictures of Colonel Qaddafi’s freshly killed body, covered in human blood, dirt and mud, dragged on the streets of Sirte, followed by the footage of his rotting corpse on […]

  Below is the proposal passed by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly on Wednesday October 26, 2011 in reclaimed Oscar Grant Plaza.  1607 people voted.  1484 voted in favor of the resolution, 77 abstained and 46 voted against it, passing the proposal at 96.9%.  The General Assembly operates on a modified consensus process that passes […]

Despite the cars, the cabs, the buses, despite the feet shuffled together on subways, the screaming on the sidewalks and the bar-music blaring out of doorways — this is also a city of silence — the silence of a woman with an outstretched hand, clasping onto the smooth round beads of a rosary tangled around […]

  This footage is proof that Scott Olsen was shot in the face by police without provocation during the Occupy Oakland march on Tuesday, October 25.  The moment leading up to the shooting, Olsen was standing completely still.  He was then hit in the head with a tear gas canister, which is potentially fatal.  Also, […]

  Salim Lamrani.  État de siège; les sanctions économiques des États-Unis contre Cuba(State of Siege: The United States’ economic sanctions against Cuba).  Prologue by Wayne S. Smith.  Preface by Paul Estrade.  Paris, Editions Estrella, 2011.  15 euros. CSF: You’ve just published a new book under the title État de siège.  What exactly do you cover […]

October 26, 2011 Brothers and Sisters I just got off the phone with VFP Chapter 69 member, Josh Shepherd, who was at 14th and Broadway in Oakland early this morning and witnessed much of what happened. Josh said that after receiving several text messages with news of the Oakland PD taking down tents and arresting […]

Protest leaders prepare for demonstrations next Saturday, October 29, across Israel, turning up the heat following the government announcement of an electricity price hike. After being put on the back burner for the past few weeks, the social protest is slowly turning up the heat following the recent electricity price hike announced by Israel’s neo-liberal […]

ON February 23, under the title “Cynicism’s danse macabre,” I stated: “The politics of plunder imposed by the United States and its NATO allies in the Middle East is in crisis.” “Thanks to Sadat’s betrayal at Camp David, the Palestinian Arab State has not come into existence, despite the United Nations agreements of November 1947, […]

1) Not long ago I heard a writer claim that her publisher had demanded that the word “manifesto” be replaced in the title of her novel.  This is an Asian American woman who is feisty and strong-willed and political, who during readings calls out “blond boys” for flaunting the privileges of their maleness and their […]

  I. It seems to me that José Vasconcelos has found a formula on pessimism and optimism that not only defines the feeling of the new Ibero-American generation in the face of the contemporary crisis, but also corresponds to the absolute mentality and sensibility of an era in which, despite the thesis of José Ortega […]