Josh Fox: Occupy Sandy

via acronymTV

For the past month we have come together to support and rebuild communities broken by Hurricane Sandy. As Sharon Lerner wrote in the American Prospect, “the storm handed inequality activists an almost eerily perfect illustration of exactly what they see as wrong with our world.”

In this vein, over Thanksgiving Occupy Sandy joined with communities to share over 10,000 meals. Now we begin to come together to connect the dots from the storm, to climate change, to the reckless greed of the 1%-ers at the forefront of the fossil fuel industry. 

The work is far from over, so join us. You can check out the Occupy Sandy Relief NYC Facebook page to get started, or follow @OccupySandy on Twitter.

Do You Eat Ethically? #BehindTheKitchenDoor

I answer viewer mail: Payday Loans

For more information about GRO, go to GroMo.org

Ben Manski lays it down

Greens didn't spoil a single federal race in 2010.
The Democrats lost because they are spineless, two-faced, corporate puppets, and even with a majority in both houses they get nothing done for the people, and the people realized that, and stayed home.

Minimal Minimum Wage

via PropagandaTimes

[INFOGRAPHIC] Ramen Noodles

Created by: Hack College

CPAC has thoughts on #OWS; but #OWS has thoughts on CPAC

So the Conservative Political Action Committee had a panel in which they discussed the Occupy Movement vs the Tea Party.

It's on C-SPAN, and is currently not available for embedded playing. So here's a link: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/304376-8

I would say, "Enjoy!" but I think you're going to have a REALLY hard time doing so. It's extremely cringeworthy.

Thankfully:

The Occupy Movement Shared Their Thoughts about CPAC

via Teamster Nation

The annual corporate greedfest known as CPAC was turned upside down today by thousands upon thousands of union members, community activists, unemployed workers and our good friend the giant Fat Cat. Dozens of reporters trained cameras on the sprited Washington, D.C. scene. Union banners waved as throngs of marchers surged into the street and up the hill to the hotel entrance. Protesters chanted, sang, drummed and danced while grandmothers sat down in the street to protest attacks on Medicare.


Police gave up trying to keep the huge crowd on the sidewalks. They blocked off the street as the peaceful protesters vented their thoughts about greed, tax dodging, unemployment and the war waged on working families.


Teamsters with "Stop the War on Worker" signs joined autoworkers, sheetmetal workers, firefighters, elevator constructors, UFCW, SEIU, AFSCME, UNITE. Community groups from as far away as Baltimore showed up by the busload.

Some of the entitled jerks attending CPAC had gleefully predicted violence, the way they always do, then did their best to provoke it. With expensive suits and camera equipment, they waded into the crowd hurling belligerent questions at the protesters. A security official -- was it a Secret Service agent -- took one entitled jerk away from the group he was badgering and gave him a talking-to.

The rally got off to a slow start around noon, as steelworkers, UAW members and Teamsters formed a picket line around the Fat Cat chanting, "Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Union busting's got to go." But at 12:30 someone shouted "Oh my God, thousands of marchers!" Led by drummers they filled the street, waving signs and banners as cars honked and police officers tried to herd them onto the sidewalks. "Our DC" and "We Are The 99%" signs joined "Recall Walker" and "Greed is Good--Romney-Gekko."

Soon the huge crowd surged up the hill, past the police and security, bellowing, "The People United Will Never Be Defeated!" Then they peacefully marched down again and regrouped in the street. Two women sat down on the pavement, soon to be joined by many more. Some gave speeches, some chanted and some sang along with pro-movement songs made up on the spot.

The CPAC one percenters had some charming things to say: @BossyMother called them "mutant scum." The delightful @stephenww tweeted, "I think we all can agree that the #OccupyCPAC crowd should get free contraception." @JimForbes_Pasco refers to the peaceful protesters as "OccupyCPAC goons."

Cheri Honkala - The People's Sheriff

Cheri Honkala to build the Philadelphia chapter of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. Cheri is working with several families fighting to stay in their homes. She continues to give educational talks and workshops on housing takeovers and organizing against poverty. In the spring PPEHRC will re-establish an urban farm in Kensington to provide food, initiate a time bank to help provide much needed tutoring and day care, and continue to build a multiracial intergenerational movement against poverty.

For over 25 years Cheri has been a leading figure nationwide in fighting poverty. Here's a video of her work from 2007



Cheri needs our help right now and on January 12th is her birthday and for a gift she is asking folks to make a financial contribution to the Philadelphia chapter of PPEHRC. The money will immediately go towards; rent at the new office, Cheri's cell phone bill (Cheri's phone is pretty much a hotline for hundreds if not thousands of struggling people in Philadelphia and across the country), Cheri's court fines (from her arrest last month), and other daily costs associated with running PPEHRC.

Let's honor Cheri and her tireless work against poverty by helping to sustain it.

To make a tax-deductable donation to PPEHRC make a check payable to "Liberty Resources" and in the subject line write PPEHRC donation. Send it to 174 W. Diamond St., Philadelphia, PA 19122

PPHERC's website is http://www.economichumanrights.org/ and is presently being redesigned.

Do some research on Cheri. You'll be blown away. There's a really great book called "The Myth of the Welfare Queen" that reveals what she's about.

And help spread the word if you feel so inclined.

SOLIDARITY patch

Limited run of 5

It's exactly what it sounds like.




Limited run of 5. Each is slightly different.



Printed on reclaimed canvass.

You want one?
It's only $5!

Walk Away From Student Debt: STUDENT DEBTORS UNION

FUCK THE BANKS-- DEFAULT EN MASSE TOGETHER -- TANK THE ECONOMY!

Excessive student debt is your problem right now. But it's not something you should have to deal with. So make it their problem again. Default. On purpose.

MORE INFO on the EDU HERE : http://edudebtorsunion.org

---

Here's a homework assignment I called for on this same subject back in March of this year:



Responses so far, by viewers --though no economic professors yet:

From YouTube user zigzigerblat:



From Libertarian Alex Merced:

#OWS is Creating a New World on the Ruins of the Old

Sorry about the little watermarks, I used my new p2 media setup, and I had to use a workaround to get it to work in Vegas.

As far as the dingy light quality, I just didn't pay close enough attention to the iris adjustment on the lens. Something I will deal with in the future.

Support the show! Please visit the donate or subscribe button over there --->

Occupy Maine Rally

As the blog post this was originally from became increasingly about underhanded police tactics at the Brooklyn Bridge, this section of the article became less and less relevant. So I've clipped it and moved it to it's own entry.

The Occupy Maine Rally

Started today, and was featured on national television on the nightly news, along with other cities that are holding solidarity rallies. It was drizzling steadily all day, and the crowd remained about 150 people, petering out towards 3pm when the general assembly started.



During my time there I went to subsidized housing areas to put up posters. I ran into lots of people who were either homeless, or living in shelters, who had not heard about the Occupy Wall Street protests. They saw this poster, asked what it was about, and after I explained, they would smile and then list off a really reasonable and intelligent list of complaints of their own-- talking about the military industrial complex, about how the wealth of the elite is derived from the debt of the poor, and how we are willing to spend millions to kill people, but we don't have a dime to give anybody healthcare or housing. This happened over and over again and was really quite heartening.




Another group of people outside a homeless shelter initially yelled at me for putting up flyers, and one came over to tear it down. First he read it, then he yelled back to his friends, "Naw, it's cool."

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[Music] The Whole F**king Thing Is Coming Down

Lyrics:

Hedge funds, derivatives, tea pot dome
wall street gambling, using your home
congress isn't gonna do a single fucking thing
because their campaign contributions all come attached to strings
The Democratic Party is a failing institution
what we need now is a real revolution

The United States is a global empire
The Factory owner is a fucking vampire
sucking wealth from the poor
committing wage theft
who will work for you when we've starved to death?

CHORUS: And the whole fucking thing is coming down x4

I work full time in a factory
but that doesn't mean I can afford to eat
I've got student loans, but no degree
so I'm gonna die working at a machine
No health insurance, we're all temporary hires
so if we get sick we'll just hurry up and die

wages so low we can't afford the rent
so we have to rely on the government
but the rich man doesn't want to pay his taxes
so the social programs, they'll all get the axe
we don't complain, we don't bitch
the only thing we've got left to eat is the rich

CHORUS: and the whole fucking thing is coming down x4

Cheri Honkala: "It will be the Green Party that Stopped Foreclosures in the USA."

Cheri Honkala of The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign is running for Sheriff of Philadelphia with the Green Party!

Donate to her campaign by clicking here!